A team of UBC students beat out 843 other competitors to win 25,000 Euros at the Ericsson Innovation Awards — an international technology competition for university students held in Stockholm, Sweden.
Karan Grover, Jonathan Ho, Tanha Kabir and YK Sugishita were awarded for developing Soundvision, a device that converts a person’s spatial environment into sounds and can alert and better inform blind or visually impaired people of their surroundings.
“It felt surreal,” said Kabir, a second-year computer science student. “We didn’t think we’d win during the announcements, but once we heard our name we freaked out. It was amazing.”
Soundvision functions through a sensor that detects a person’s immediate spatial surroundings. The sensor is attached to a phone, where an app will convert detected objects into a set of distinct sounds.
“If there’s an object up high, you will hear a high-pitched noise,” said Grover, a second-year computer science student. “If you have something lower to the ground — for example, a large rock — you’ll here a denser, more bass-like sound. Something to your left, you’ll hear out of your left earphone and something to your right would come out of your right earphone. Something far away would be very quiet and something right in front of you would be very loud.”
The team has been collaborating with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind who responded positively to the device.
“They were very receptive to the technology and were able to give us a lot of great feedback on how we can further develop the product,” said Grover.
He also noted that people with visual impairments liked that the device was hands-free — although he still advises people to hold a cane when using it.
The competition’s theme, according to their website, was “solutions addressing the future of city life.” The three other finalists (excluding the Soundvision team) created a solar-powered window that functions as a communication device, a “communal kitchen” business that focused on local food environments and an augmentation solution that compiles crowd-sourced statistics about air pollution. The Soundvision team was the only one among the four finalists to consist solely of undergraduate students.
Looking forward, the team is hoping to improve the sound quality of the device, start a Kickstarter funding campaign and look into possible business partnerships. Kabir said she would also like to advise other UBC students to enter the competition in the future.
“If you have an idea that you would like to make a difference in the world … then I would for sure apply for the competition,” she said. “Put your best into it and you never know. We didn’t think we’d get this far, but here we are.”