Be My Eyes

The WHO estimates that nearly 253 million individuals experience some form of blindness or vision impairment while 2.2 billion individuals experience some form of visual challenge. Of those 253 million individuals, roughly 70% do not have full-time employment. Many do not have access to support tools that would afford them equal opportunities to fully participate in society. Be My Eyes bridges accessibility gaps and improves independence among the low-vision community worldwide.  

The app connects users to free visual support from volunteers or company representatives. Through our two solutions, “Specialized Help” and “Be My Eyes for Work,” companies can provide their visually impaired customers and employees, respectively, the ability to connect with customer service or internal departments directly. This service mitigates widely-held stigmas about blind and low-vision people worldwide and provides an opportunity to integrate inclusivity and accessibility strategies to more institutions.

In the US alone, over 7.8 million individuals are blind or experience vision loss. This number does not include those living with other forms of vision challenges. An American Community Survey reports that 44% of individuals with a visual impairment in the United States are employed. In contrast, the American Federation of the Blind cites the employment rate at 37%. In other areas of the world where unaddressed, treatable refractive errors contribute to higher rates of blindness, the employment rate is expectedly lower. 

Socio-economic factors and a lack of awareness of what blind and low-vision people need contribute significantly to the barriers to employment for our community. The most common barrier is website inaccessible design that blind and low-vision people could otherwise use to find employment opportunities. Software solutions designed to bring websites into WCAG 2.1 compliance often do not consider the end user's experience and are usually purchased by companies as a “quick fix” to avoid lawsuits. While a website overlay might provide WCAG 2.1 compliance for a website, this does not always make the site usable for someone with a visual impairment. Our solution does not rely on automated services or web browser extensions but on person-to-person interactions.

Be My Eyes is a free mobile app that connects blind and low-vision users to a network of over 4.5 million sighted volunteers on both iOS and Android devices. The call-routing infrastructure is private and straightforward: An encrypted two-way audio, one-way video feed allows the sighted volunteer to “be the eyes” of the blind user. Our users are diverse--they come from over 150 countries and speak over 180 languages. Beyond providing accessible support, we foster and curate a community for our blind and low-vision users. We communicate with our community through our social media channels, through conference-style Community Calls, and through blog entries and podcasts. We publish content to serve as educational resources and champion the stories of our vast community of blind and low-vision users. We’ve developed mutually beneficial partnerships with companies who prioritize accessibility and grant our software for free to blindness organizations and NGOs worldwide. By providing an accessible environment through which blind users can immediately access assistance and an ecosystem in which users can share their experiences and give feedback, we promote a greater sense of independence in our users while raising awareness about the topic of accessibility for our volunteers and company representatives.

Our solution provides on-demand visual assistance, anywhere in the world, at any time, for the 2.2 billion people worldwide experiencing some form of vision challenges. Our intended audience includes people living with total blindness, vision impairments, dyslexia, color blindness, aging eyes, or any other form of vision challenge. The app is available to anyone with a smartphone device. The app will always be free to use for members and volunteers.

Our users can always contact a volunteer whenever they need visual assistance. This can be for any simple task, like checking the oven temperature, reading the names on the mail, picking out the right food at a supermarket, and countless other tasks. For more advanced advice, users can contact Specialized Help companies. These are companies that champion accessibility and can be reached directly through the Be My Eyes app for visual assistance. For example, if a user experiences issues setting up their new PC, they can call the Microsoft help desk directly through the app. This service makes customer support easy and accurate, as the agent can instantly see the problem rather than have it described over the phone. 

For professionals with vision impairments, this technology allows them to level the playing field. If they need assistance on job-related tasks, they can call a team member directly through the app to keep company information confidential. The goal of this is to show employers that their differing sight does not hinder their ability to work effectively, only that proper accommodations must be made for them to succeed. 

While we are not providing direct internet connection or technology training, our solution facilitates independence to a marginalized and often overlooked community. These individuals are often low-income, remote, and dealing with comorbid health conditions. These are just a few of the factors that make accessing the same opportunities as sighted people a struggle. Our solution connects blind and visually impaired individuals to visually accessible, usable resources that can support their independence and equitable engagement in society. This can be done without ever passing on a cost to these individuals.

While our solution has grown to support over 300,000 users around the world, this represents a small percentage of blind individuals worldwide with access to smartphones. We envision at least 1,000,000 users by the end of 2022 but will need to significantly increase our ability to drive awareness of Be My Eyes in order to do so. If we are able to rapidly grow our user base, we will need to proportionally increase the number of partner companies and organizations in order to be most effective and relevant for our users.

In addition to calling the first available volunteer, blind users can also connect to a variety of corporate partners, via the in-app Specialized Help menu. Specialized Help is available to anyone using the app who has registered as a blind user--it is not a separate app or environment. However, the calls placed to a Specialized Help partner vary in terms of how they are routed. For example, our users should not relay sensitive information on a volunteer call, but the task of updating a password in a Gmail account necessarily includes private information. In this case, that user could connect to a Google Disability Support team member and reset the password while knowing that the Gmail account is secure. Likewise, a blind person trying to register to vote could use Specialized Help to call a pharmacist from Accessible Pharmacy. As we expand this section of the application, more and more options for specialized help will become available, and the impact of our solution will be more effectively scaled. Not only does this service allow companies to provide support with ease, but it also allows them to gain valuable usability insights that can improve the product. From this, we provide an accessible tool that can be available in anyone's pocket to facilitate direct easy visual support.

Currently, over 300,000 individuals with vision impairments use the app from over 180 countries, while over 4.7 million are volunteering. With this level of growth, we expect to be near 500,000 blind and low vision individuals by the end of the year and upwards of 10 million after five years. With over 253 million blind and low-vision individuals worldwide, we desire to have this service used by as many individuals that can utilize it as possible.

One indication of success is the predictable growth of the community of Be My Eyes users. This should also correspond to a proportionate increase in call volume. For companies, we measure user satisfaction in post-call ratings as well as call-handling time. By measuring the employment rates of the blind and low-vision community, we can measure the impact of our careers-focused offering. Another useful metric is the addition of new companies partnering with Be My Eyes to provide visual assistance.

18 full-time staff, 1 student worker.

Our team is composed of experts in accessibility, customer service, marketing, and inclusive design. Be My Eyes was founded by a blind individual, and we employ several blind and low-vision people in various leadership positions. By living the mission of accessibility and inclusivity in our daily lives, we provide success stories for our business partners and prospects, and we strive to lead by example.

A valuable insight by the Be My Eyes executive team drove the understanding that our sighted colleagues would never fully understand the value of what we offer, because during any user-driven product development, the needs of the end users must take priority. The perspectives of our blind leadership and colleagues will always be prioritized when critical decisions are made. In this way, we are able to ensure that our human-centered product design is always usable and effective.

We welcome collaboration to solve accessibility issues. By applying to MIT Solve, we hope to meet more like-minded organizations that wish to promote accessibility and inclusivity across industries. The more companies we can collaborate with that champion accessibility, the greater potential we have to help more individuals find the assistive technologies to enhance their network of support. 

Our priority is making our solution more useful to the community and providing them with connections to improve their support networks. We wish to partner with organizations that are ready to make their solutions more accessible by offering Specialized Help to their customers or Be My Eyes for Work to their employees or those who wish to improve assistive technologies.  

We welcome new partnerships with any company that champions accessibility and inclusion. Companies operating in industries where visual accessibility can be a major challenge, such as healthcare, banking, or careers, are of particular interest to us. We also offer ways that partners can work with us even if their business isn’t public-facing: Companies without direct-to-consumer products or services can join Be My Eyes for Work to support their internal employees with visual impairments, while companies that are new to the concept of accessibility can work with us in a volunteering capacity. 

Additionally, any sort of partnerships with MIT faculty, initiatives, and students interested in participating in accessibility would be highly valuable. Working with the leading minds at MIT on improving accessible technologies as well as our own is an opportunity that would be incredibly beneficial.