Name: Brainstorm AI 2024: Now You’re Gliding - Independence Through AI
Uploaded: 2024-12-10
Duration: 7 min 37 s
Description: Presenter: Amos Miller, Founder and CEO, Glidance

Presenter: Amos Miller, Founder and CEO, Glidance

Brainstorm AI 2024: Now You’re Gliding - Independence Through AI

Conferences

Hi, everyone. Are you here? Great. Uh Thank you. I'm Amos Miller. I'm here with Paul Willard from Grep VC, one of our early investors. And before we start, I wanted to ask if you would close your eyes for a moment. Don't be afraid. It's ok. And when I snap my fingers, you can open them again. But what if I never snap? You've had sight for most of your life. You saw the smile of a loved one. You saw the colors of spring and now you feel the chill of uncertainty. Will you ever again be able to take that walk on an autumn day? Will you ever feel independent again? I snapped. You can open. So I'm Amos Miller. I'm the founder and CEO of guidance. I'm also a father, a friend. I'm also blind. Uh when I lost my sight in my early twenties, I experienced that chill. I had to go and learn how to navigate and get around independently as a blind person while uh on campus, learning computer science, going through the halls of London Business School, walking my daughter to kindergarten, traveling the world with Microsoft. It was stressful. It was hard and all that time. I am working at Microsoft really building one of some of the most advanced technologies on the planet. NASA is landing rovers on Mars. And I knew that I had to look into how do we tap into this advancements, these advancements in technology to really revolutionize independent mobility for blind people. My work led me to an investment by Satya Adela, the CEO of Microsoft uh where we developed one of the leading navigation technologies for the blind called Soundscape. It's an amazing innovation, but still we are not getting more blind people out. And about how many blind people did you see today? Statistically one in 100 people, you should see more blind people out and about. So I really started to real look at this problem and I realized I wanna describe to you what the problem is here over the in the US, in the in the world. There are 43 million people who are blind, the great majority lose their sight later in life. For macular degeneration, glaucoma diabetes. The numbers are expected to grow by 55% in the next 30 years. And here's the issue. It doesn't really matter how much technology we throw at them. As long as they're using a white cane or a guide dog, it's not going to work. There are only 2% of blind people who actually use canes and dogs. And why is that resources, money time. It takes five years and amount almost $100,000 to train one blind person to use a white cane or a guide dog and have them confidently get around the LA in the U si. Think the the presenter uh told there's 1 million blind people. Actually, if you count low vision, 2,000,003 million, the the largest guide dog school trained 225 dogs last year, it's completely out of whack. The system is simply unable to cope with the volume and is failing millions of people who want to get out. And about. So imagine if we had a new kind of mobility aid, a mobility aid that was quick to learn, easy to use and affordable an intelligent guide that was with you keeping you safe guiding you around, you will be back on your feet in no time. Our work at glance is pioneering the era of intelligent guides glide. As you can see on the screen is an intelligent guide with two wheels on the ground. A long handle, you hold on to the handle, you nudge the device forward. It uses autonomous driving technology to guide the person. Keep you on a safe path, steer you around obstacles and take you all the way to your destination. This is an experience that is as familiar to a blind person as holding onto someone's elbow just like I did with Paul when I came onto the stage so quick to learn easy to use and affordability is key. Most blind people can afford to have a cell phone glide is designed to cost like a cellphone 1499 for the device, a $30 subscription getting making mobility accessible to millions of people rather than just thousands. Now under the hood glide is powered by our proprietary sensible wayfinding system. This is the most advanced foundational model for set for effective navigation in complex unstructured pedestrian environments. This means that we are not only tapping into the multibillion dollar consumer blind navigation market, but we are also. But this uh we this platform will power the future in which embodied agents, intelligent guides, humanoids and other robots inhabit and share the space in which we live, work and travel. We will also empower businesses like hotels and airports and uh hospitals to make their spaces more accessible, improve the customer experience and critically reduce risk of litigation uh due to uh inaccessibility. Now, our glide has been tested by over 1000 blind people to date. And what we've done is what they tell us is they finally feel a sense of hope. They tell us that this is the most important innovation. Since the arrival of the iphone, we've collected almost a million dollars in pre orders. We've hired an amazing engineering team, folks from Amazon from irobot from symbolic and other places to deliver the product. We are raising funds. Um We are raising funds to bring the product to market in about 12 months and really position guidance to dominate the intelligent guide category. So if you're interested, please please reach out. We'll also be do doing some demos outside and I promise you that they will come a day in which you will delight in seeing someone glide past you on a sunny day, walking their daughter to kindergarten. Thank you.