“I believe that all of us are unique and valuable; everyone has potential and we have to provide the opportunity to unleash that potential,” says Kursat Ceylan, Co-founder of WeWalk, a pioneering company that helps the visually impaired through technological innovations.
Born blind, Ceylan used his experience to innovate and empower himself as well as other people of determination.
“The technology world is really exciting. But as a blind person, I still had to rely on my traditional white cane,” he tells Ihsan Anabtawi, COO and CMO of Microsoft UAE in the fourth and fifth episodes of the Future Now podcast series.
“Just before the inception of WeWalk, I was in New York to give a speech at the United Nations. While going to my hotel, I was using my traditional white cane with one hand and holding my smartphone to get the GPS direction with the other. At the same time, I had to pull my luggage. Not surprisingly, I bumped into a pole. This is not just my problem. There are more than 250 million visually impaired in the world. That’s why we started to work on WeWalk technology.”
WeWalk is a patented smart cane technology that thousands of visually impaired people today use. With the help of analytical data, cloud technology, AI and more, WeWalk ensures improved mobility and an enriching life for them.
With over a billion people with a disability, technology is not only helping the visually impaired but other people of determination too. "Technology is helping us to think limitless," he says.
Discover how technology is revolutionising the lives of people of determination in Tech for Everyone – Part 1, which drops on Wednesday. Catch all the episodes of Future Now by Gulf News in association with Microsoft UAE here. They are also available on all the leading podcast channels as well as agnc3’s YouTube channel.
