Presenter

Ibrahim Cherradi, Keynoa, Austria

Description

Keynoa is a new Assistive Technologies Platform designed specifically for blind and visually impaired individuals, empowering them by offering effective solutions that support their education, inclusion, and accessibility. Keynoa introduces the innovative concept of “Seeing With The Fingers”. By producing gentle vibrations on the fingers it allows the users to:

• read digital text in any language,
• feel objects and evaluate their distance,
• read maps and other pedagogic graphic images,
• sense colors, etc.

With Keynoa, the users can also write digital text in any language by producing finger taps simply and naturally.

Keynoa consists of hardware and software tools based on the following elements:

1. Keynoa Method

Based on the Cherradi method, Keynoa assigns simple finger combinations to digital information, like language characters, RGB colours, distance ranges, and more.

2. Keynoa Rings

Keynoa Rings is hand wearable device that consist of five finger rings and an arm-watch-controller, which communicate with a smartphone via Bluetooth. Keynoa Rings uses Keynoa Method to:

• convert digital information into vibrations on the fingers, and
• convert finger-taps to digital characters

3. Keynoa App

Keynoa App is a mobile application that works in tandem with Keynoa Rings via Bluetooth connection, enabling users to perform various “Seeing With The Fingers” functions such as:

• Write text in any language by finger taps.
• Select and transmit digital text for reading with vibrations on the fingers.
• Select maps and scientific graphics to “see” their content elements.
• Feel the colours of the smartphone screen.
• Feel objects at distance ranging from centimetres to meters

The development of Keynoa is complete but necessary commercial certifications are pending before its release to the market.