VandyHacks
The AEyes team with judges JoEllen Holt and Kelly Aldrich, both faculty of Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing. (Photo credit: Kelly Aldrich)
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge sponsored a $500 prize for the best patient safety technology solution at VandyHacks 10th annual 24-hour hackathon held at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on October 28-29.
In its tenth year, the student-run hackathon is the largest collegiate hackathon in the South, inviting global participants to immerse themselves in 24 hours of innovation which includes workshops, opportunities to explore career opportunities, and in the crafting of groundbreaking projects.
Of the competition, Kelly Aldrich, judge and member of the Patient Safety Technology Challenge advisory board, said: "Everyone was very happy with the workshop (facilitated by Alice Krumm from Vanderbilt); it clearly had an impact on the number of students who signed up for the track."
The winning team at VandyHacks was AEyes, a cross-platform mobile app for the visually impaired integrating computer vision as the basis of their tech. The team was motivated by their friends who are visually impaired. They aimed to create a more accessible way for the visually impaired to get feedback about their surroundings since smart glasses are often cost prohibitive. Their app acts as the eyes of a person and takes an image of their surroundings to better understand the environment around them and tells the user, using AI-based text-to-speech, what is around them and what is potentially hazardous.
For example, the prototype shared with the judges showed when there was water on the ground – a slip hazard – or when the users were approaching a staircase. The judges felt that this technology could be particularly useful in healthcare settings. Aldrich shared, "I don't normally get really impressed but the ideas the teams came up with were really cool."
The AEyes team plans to work on improvements to AEyes before launching it to the Google Play and App Stores. The team also plans to add new features to better describe emergency hazards in the image so non-visually impaired users can use it to help improve the safety of a visually-impaired individual's environment.
The Patient Safety Technology Challenge, with funding from the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative, is thrilled to sponsor events with workshops to further raise awareness of patient safety and help young innovators recognize the need for their original ideas.