How AI can empower the blind community

In this demo based talk, Anirudh will discuss the real-life impact that AI is already bringing in the daily lives of the blind and low vision community. Learning from failures and success while converting research to product, the talk showcases a range of real-world scenarios which can benefit from both classical computer vision as well as deep learning based techniques. Separating hype from reality, it also highlights open opportunities for innovation where many traditional datasets & benchmarks do not convert to in-the-wild usage beyond fancy demos. Deep learning techniques can also help improve human-computer interaction, which might be the key to making these advances usable. The key underlying theme to recognize is how developing for differently abled communities can lead to innovation for mainstream audiences.