Akshita Sachdeva
Tech Entrepreneur
India
Trestle Labs
During the third year of my engineering in Computer Science, I worked on a college project, a reading and mobility glove for the blind. When my team and I took it to an NGO in Delhi for testing, a little kid after using the device called his Dad and said - “Dad, some scientists have built gloves for my school and now I can read and travel on my own”. Seconds later, he turned around asking - “When can I get this?” While I did not have any answer to his question back then, his question acted as a pivotal point in my life and motivated me to continue working in the domain of social innovation & entrepreneurship towards abating the plight of the blind with my technology innovations.
While my academic performance landed me four placement offers from well-known conglomerates like TCS, IBM, HP and Accenture, I had my heart set towards social impact. In pursuit of the same, I started looking for incubation centres that could support me in this journey through team, mentorship and resources. My trail culminated at Digital Impact Square (DISQ), a TCS Foundation pre-incubation centre that handpicks 40-50 socially motivated innovators every year and grooms them to become social entrepreneurs over a 12-18 months journey full of immersion, innovation, impact and entrepreneurship. DISQ, at that time, had ‘accessibility for the blind and visually impaired’ as one of the challenge statements for the year and given my previous project work in the same arena, I was selected for the team working on that challenge statement.
During our user research, we met a girl named Dipali, who did extremely well till her Grade-9, but one day lost her eyesight. She had to drop off from her regular school as the school could no longer cater to her need as a blind student and spent two-years learning Braille, before clearing her Grade-10 exam. Her life again took a turn, when she started her Bachelors-of-Arts, got printed books from college and had to wait 4-6 weeks to get one 300-page book audio-recorded. At times, she got her books after her exams. I wondered, how will the scenario change when she starts working - when she can no longer expect official documents to come to her in Braille or Audio?
Inspired by hundreds and thousands of such stories, we decided to work towards empowering the blind and visually impaired community towards inclusive education and employment by making schools, colleges and offices inclusive for them. My background in Computer Science Engineering coupled with my Co-founder’s background in Mechanical Engineering and Design, we developed our innovative product suite, Kibo - an end-to-end solution to listen (across 60 global languages), translate (across 100+ languages), digitize (into editable Unicode formats - doc, docx, txt) and audiotize (to human-like natural-sounding MP3 audio) any kind of printed, handwritten and digital documents. Kibo comprises 3 products - Kibo mobile app, Kibo XS Device and Kibo Desk web app to address the lifestyle, learning and earning challenges of a visually-impaired person’s life. Kibo mobile app for on-the go audio-based access to printed, handwritten and digital content. Kibo XS Device - a talking-table-lamp-like scanning device for hardcopy printed and handwritten documents. Kibo Desk web application for images and scanned image-based PDFs.
Launched in July 2019, Kibo, today, empowers 72,000+ blind and visually impaired individuals across 24 countries towards inclusive education and employment and has made 450+ institutions inclusive across 8 countries. And I continue to work towards a day when no school, college or workplace, denies or discontinues education or employment for a visually impaired individual, especially when the individual is capable, but the institution is not.
Over this journey, I have seen myself evolve from a Software Developer to an Entrepreneur - empathizing with user-needs, mapping user-experience journeys, building technology products, hustling to find first paying customer, growing the team, planning the business strategy and measuring the impact, while constantly improving my pitch and fundraising- to fuel the business and scale its impact.
While my academic performance landed me four placement offers from well-known conglomerates like TCS, IBM, HP and Accenture, I had my heart set towards social impact. In pursuit of the same, I started looking for incubation centres that could support me in this journey through team, mentorship and resources. My trail culminated at Digital Impact Square (DISQ), a TCS Foundation pre-incubation centre that handpicks 40-50 socially motivated innovators every year and grooms them to become social entrepreneurs over a 12-18 months journey full of immersion, innovation, impact and entrepreneurship. DISQ, at that time, had ‘accessibility for the blind and visually impaired’ as one of the challenge statements for the year and given my previous project work in the same arena, I was selected for the team working on that challenge statement.
During our user research, we met a girl named Dipali, who did extremely well till her Grade-9, but one day lost her eyesight. She had to drop off from her regular school as the school could no longer cater to her need as a blind student and spent two-years learning Braille, before clearing her Grade-10 exam. Her life again took a turn, when she started her Bachelors-of-Arts, got printed books from college and had to wait 4-6 weeks to get one 300-page book audio-recorded. At times, she got her books after her exams. I wondered, how will the scenario change when she starts working - when she can no longer expect official documents to come to her in Braille or Audio?
Inspired by hundreds and thousands of such stories, we decided to work towards empowering the blind and visually impaired community towards inclusive education and employment by making schools, colleges and offices inclusive for them. My background in Computer Science Engineering coupled with my Co-founder’s background in Mechanical Engineering and Design, we developed our innovative product suite, Kibo - an end-to-end solution to listen (across 60 global languages), translate (across 100+ languages), digitize (into editable Unicode formats - doc, docx, txt) and audiotize (to human-like natural-sounding MP3 audio) any kind of printed, handwritten and digital documents. Kibo comprises 3 products - Kibo mobile app, Kibo XS Device and Kibo Desk web app to address the lifestyle, learning and earning challenges of a visually-impaired person’s life. Kibo mobile app for on-the go audio-based access to printed, handwritten and digital content. Kibo XS Device - a talking-table-lamp-like scanning device for hardcopy printed and handwritten documents. Kibo Desk web application for images and scanned image-based PDFs.
Launched in July 2019, Kibo, today, empowers 72,000+ blind and visually impaired individuals across 24 countries towards inclusive education and employment and has made 450+ institutions inclusive across 8 countries. And I continue to work towards a day when no school, college or workplace, denies or discontinues education or employment for a visually impaired individual, especially when the individual is capable, but the institution is not.
Over this journey, I have seen myself evolve from a Software Developer to an Entrepreneur - empathizing with user-needs, mapping user-experience journeys, building technology products, hustling to find first paying customer, growing the team, planning the business strategy and measuring the impact, while constantly improving my pitch and fundraising- to fuel the business and scale its impact.