EPFL students develop two apps to help the visually impaired

'MedScan' team, ( left to right ) Thibaut Stoltz, Alexander Popescu, Mehdi Krichen et Blanche Duron. Alain Herzog 2023 EPFL STUDENT PROJECT - As part of the Assistive Technologies Challenge, EPFL students developed two apps to help people with low or no vision: one app orally communicates the information contained in a box of medicine and the other helps them find empty seats on public transport. "We faced the difficult task of trying to make something simple," says Blanche Duron, a Master's student in communication systems, as she sums up her experience in the Assistive Technologies Challenge. That course-project is open to EPFL Master's students under the MAKE initiative ; it's managed by the HackaHealth non-profit organization and supervised by three EPFL professors. The students' goal is to develop technology that can simplify everyday tasks for people with disabilities. To ensure their apps are well-designed, the students work closely with potential users of their systems throughout the development process. "People with disabilities who want to take part in the program contact us, and we speak with them to pinpoint exactly what difficulties they'd like to address," says Alice Bruel, an EPFL PhD candidate and one of the Assistive Technologies Challenge organizers, along with Alec Chevrot and Iselin Froybu.