There are 200,000 visually impaired people, but hardly any guide dogs in Hong Kong.
A lot of people with poor eyesight are relying on family members and caregivers, sometimes for the smallest of tasks.
Help might be at hand.
Seekr, a small wearable camera that provides an audio description of the images and scenes it captures, is readying for commercial launch after four years of testing and development.
The clip-on device, which is about the size of a matchbox, uses AI to identify objects and products, estimate distance and read text.
Vidi Labs – the Hong Kong start-up behind Seekr – is marketing the product as Your Visual Companion.
A supporting app, also developed by Vidi Labs, delivers a spoken summary – currently available in either English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese or Spanish – to any Bluetooth-enabled earpiece.
This promising technology caught the eye of judges who selected the start-up as one of the 10 winning start-ups at this year’s Start-up Express Final Pitching Day.
Start-up Express is a year-round entrepreneurship development programme run by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) that provides comprehensive support to start-ups to scale up and expand internationally.
A personal challenge
Turzo Bose, Vidi Labs Co-Founder and CEO, first started looking into the idea for Seekr, when he was living with his visually impaired grandfather during the pandemic.
Mr Bose, who was still an engineering student at the time, saw first-hand the difficulties and frustration his grandfather was experiencing.
“I thought, if we can have self-driving in cars, we can have the same technology in a small device that looks for you,” Mr Bose said.
“I looked around and, surprisingly, there was nothing like that.”
Mr Bose soon met Lamia Sreya Rahman, a young lawyer and social advocate, who was also helping distribute care packages to elderly people and knew many people facing the same challenges.
Realising the potential for an affordable, easy-to-use visual aid, they decided to launch Vidi Labs in 2021.
Few people thought Seekr would succeed, when the concept got its first public exposure at a hackathon in 2020.
Early scepticism started to fade after Mr Bose developed a prototype, which helped validate his idea.
Today, the team has secured pre-orders for 650 devices, mainly from care homes and hospitals, after testing and refining Seekr with 150 visually impaired people.
Mr Bose hopes to start delivery by the end of the year, after completing a last round of usability tests to iron out any glitches in the software.
At first, Seekr will be distributed through companies and organisations that want to make their premises more accessible for people with poor vision.
The device has been designed for a wide range of environments, from subway stations to supermarkets and, ultimately, in the relative chaos of the outside world.
Mr Bose also plans to launch a direct-to-consumer business over the next one to two years, offering free and paid plans to users.
Expansion plans
Mr Bose’s goal is to see Seekr widely distributed across Hong Kong for indoor use over the next one to two years.
That will take money however, especially for manufacturing, data centre rentals and marketing.
Mr Bose highlighted the need for capital: “We are currently raising US$1 million, which is close to HK$8 million, to realise that dream. We’re open to venture equity investment, safe rounds and so on.”
These will be the first external investors for Vidi Labs, which has been funded with two grants to date.
External investors can shoulder rising costs, as Seekr starts to scale up, while helping open up new business opportunities.
HKTDC is also supporting the start-up’s expansion plans, arranging meetings with potential investors, buyers and partners in Hong Kong and abroad.
HKTDC backing also helps boost Vidi Labs’ market credibility and profile, Mr Bose noted.
As part of Seekr’s growth plans, Mr Bose is also looking to expand overseas, especially into markets with ageing populations.
Early forays into Australia have yet to bear fruit. The US, however, a market with 24 million visually impaired people, is looking more promising.
Meanwhile, Seekr has already succeeded in its goal of becoming an everyday companion for Mr Bose’s grandfather.
“He’s my best user and also my harshest critic,” Mr Bose said. “He’s a tough man to satisfy, but he uses it. That makes him my best critic, too.”
