AI Visual Assistant for the Visually Impaired on Campus

Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for AI Visual Assistant for the Visually Impaired on Campus

Sahayak is an AI-powered smartphone application designed specifically for visually impaired students navigating the complex and often chaotic environments of Indian college campuses. By harnessing the power of computer vision, real-time object detection, and multilingual text recognition, the app acts as a digital pair of eyes that provides continuous audio guidance through earphones. It addresses critical accessibility challenges including navigating uneven pathways with potholes and unexpected obstacles, reading multi-lingual notice boards in scripts like Devanagari and Tamil, and identifying campus landmarks and hazards. Built with an India-first approach, Sahayak is optimized for low-bandwidth conditions, works offline, recognizes region-specific obstacles like auto-rickshaws and temporary stalls, and processes visual data to deliver immediate, actionable spoken feedback such as "Turn left in five steps" or "Notice in Hindi: exam schedule changed."

The technical architecture combines a React Native frontend for cross-platform accessibility with a Python/Flask backend hosting custom-trained YOLO models for object detection and Tesseract OCR for text recognition. Unique features include priority-based obstacle alerts (immediate, warning, informational), step-counting navigation using phone sensors, and a crowd-sourced campus mapping system where users can report temporary hazards. The development follows a phased 16-week timeline starting with basic camera integration and progressively adding navigation, India-specific optimizations, and user testing with visually impaired volunteers. Sahayak distinguishes itself from existing global solutions by focusing exclusively on Indian infrastructure challenges, supporting regional languages, and functioning autonomously without constant human assistance or internet connectivity, truly embodying the mission of creating inclusive educational spaces through affordable, accessible technology.