Seetharam's 'Smart Vision' help people with visual disabilities

Bengaluru: An IIT graduate and a former Navy official, Seetharam Muthangi popularly known as ‘Ramu’, is the CEO and co-founder of Smart Health Global (SHG) Technologies who has developed ‘Smart Vision Glasses’ – an artificial intelligence-enriched assistive device that helps people with visual disabilities identify objects and people, gauge distance, detect currency, read books and manuscripts in Indian regional languages, among other things.

This Bengaluru based entrepreneur was recently recognised by Infosys Foundation the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards 2023 in Education category for creating pathbreaking solutions for social good, benefiting the underprivileged in India.

Speaking to The Hans India, Seetharam Muthangi says his work experience spans over 35 years. It is predominantly in the design of systems for the Navy, Communications Product design, Aerospace Engineering and now in AI and ML. "Of the 40 million people across the globe who are blind, over 18 million are from India. There are 258 million people who are partially blind. Vision impairment has huge impact on one’s life. It severely impacts quality of life among adult populations. Adults with vision impairment often have lower rates of workforce participation and productivity and higher rates of depression and anxiety. Young children with early onset vision impairment can experience delayed motor, language, emotional, social and cognitive development, with lifelong consequences," said Seetharam Muthangi.

He said, I have my own share of personal experience. My elder sister lost her vision due to Diabetic Retinopathy. It was diagnosed at a very late stage. Doctors could not do much. Lots of advances are being made in technologies like AI, Machine Vision and M/L can help. It started me thinking. If we could put together a device that can see and tell them what it has seen, they can gain personal safety and independence. The device is meant to bring a new companion in their life. This has an electronic brain (artificial intelligence) which transforms their dark world into a more interactive, interesting and independent world.

It took us nearly 2 years to bring out a prototype and one year to do clinical trials. We are making improvements continuously. Now we have a product being used by thousands of visually impaired. The production of the device takes place in the labs in Bengaluru. So far I have sold “more than 2,500 devices”. The product costs Rs 30K, said Seetharam Muthangi.

SMART VISION is an assistive wearable device. It has a HD camera that captures images in front of it. The image is processed by a processor that incorporates Artificial Intelligence, Machine Vision and Machine Learning to recognize objects, surroundings, read texts, recognize faces. The text to speech algorithm sends the audio signals to Bluetooth headphones. The person listens to the audio, He said.

It is helpful for a visually challenged person, as It recognizes objects in its view such as vehicles, obstacles, traffic signals, zebra crossings, furniture, Identifies people, approximate age, expressions and recognizes people if a name is attached, Can read books, road signs and newspapers and manuscripts. Also recognizes currency notes. Can talk in Indian regional languages such as Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It gives directions to the destination when asked using GPS, says Seetharam Muthangi.

He added, New versions of software are made available free of cost. New version of hardware will be available in the first half of 2024.