2. ●●●
● Blindness & Poverty
●● According to the World Health Organization 285 million people are visually impaired
worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision.
●● About 90 % of them live in developing countries, of which approximately 80% are
● unemployed and live below poverty levels. Even in industrialized
●● countries, unemployment rates from 50 to 75 % are reported.
Poverty and blindness are intimately linked:
●●●
●
●●●
Highest risk of illness,
Blindness
accident and impairment
●
●
●●●
Reduced Income
Poverty
●● generating opportunities
●
●●●
●●● There is need for Social Integration instead of Social protection: ‘Give jobs, not aid’.
● Tap the potential of blind people, as god has gifted them with other extra abilities.
3. ●●●
● Superpower - UltraFast Listening Rate
●●
There are various activities in which many blind people surpass sighted ones like singing,
painting, music, etc., but the superpower that we are going to tap in this Idea is their
●●
ability of ‘UltraFast Listening Rate’.
●
Research from ‘Society for Neuroscience’ shows that blind people can understand speech
●● at ultrafast rates, well beyond what a sighted person can comprehend.
When sighted people speak rapidly we are verbalizing at about 6 syllables per second, but
●●● Blind people can comprehend speech speed up to 25 syllables per second - which sounds
● like noise for sighted people.
●●● The reason for this enhanced ability is that, the part of the brain which process hearing
get re-wired to the part of the cerebral cortex that normally handles vision.
●
● UltraFastTrans uses this special ability of vision impaired people to generate efficient
●●● microwork job opportunity using mobile.
With this system, targeted Microworkers will be able to do following jobs:
●● 1. Translation (Voice to Voice/ Voice to Text)
● 2. Transcription (Voice to Text)
●●● One of the common misconception is that, the blind people cannot do such jobs or can
do but will be very slow. With the above mentioned special ability and a sophisticated
software system, most of them can work with equal performance and some can even
●●●
surpass the sighted people.
●
4. Microwork Employer
UltraFastTrans Business
Model Transcript Blind Module
Distributor
Speed
Synthesizer
Sighted Module
Distributor Distributor
Audio
Transcript
Output Collator
Software
Client
Audio/ Text Format Audio
Audio/Text Transcript
Output
Output
Microworker
5. ●●●
● UltraFastTrans Business Model
●● Business Entities:
• Client – Translation/Transcription Job Provider
●● • MicroWork Employer – Take the job and provide the required output with help of
● microworkers.
●● • MicroWorker – Sighted/Blind/Visually impaired people.
Business Process Flow:
●●● • UltraFastTrans Business Model is much straight forward as any other microwork model, but
● the key for this model’s success is based on the sophistication of software installed on the
●●● blind microworker’s mobile.
• MicroWork Employer distributes the micro work to sighted and blind workers, but the blind
● workers will have a software module build specifically to help them in performing the task.
• Sighted Microworker will get the job through sms/internet, for blind workers the job will be
●
send to the Blind Module on mobile through internet service and the module will assist the
●●● workers to understand the job description and perform the job (explained in next slide).
• Sighted workers will directly send the output through sms/internet, for blind workers the
●● output will be send through the Blind Module in form of sms / internet upload service.
● • The output from the microworkers will be collated by the Collator Software and the final
●●● result will be send to client.
Payment:
●●● • MicroWork Employer can charge $1.00 per minute of the transcript to the client.
● • MicroWoker can earn $0.20 per minute, so if he/she does one transcription per
day, worker can get approximately $6.00 per month.
6. ●●●
● Blind Software Module Explained
●● A mentioned earlier, the key for this model’s success is based on the sophistication of software
installed on the blind microworker’s mobile. Let us see the details of design specification of this
●● module:
● 1. Audio Instructions of the job and Application flow
●● • The Blind Module installed on mobile will be audio instruction based as visual controls will
be of no use.
• Example: the main screen of application will ask user to give voice command to chose a
●●● type of job he wants to perform: ‘1’ for translation, ‘2’ for transcription, ‘3’ for
● Help(summary of application commands).
●●● 2. Speech Recognition for voice commands
• Users voice command input will be recognized by software and appropriate job module
● will be opened.
● • On entering the next page, user will be again given audio instruction to choose from list of
say 15 available jobs, user can use voice command – ‘open 5th job’/ or just say ‘5’ to
●●● perform the job.
3. Speech Synthesizer for customized audio speed as per individual blind workers ability
●● • In any type of job translation/transcription the input job is always in audio format, and as
● mentioned earlier, blind people can comprehend ultra fast speech speed levels from 16 to
●●● 25 syllables per second.
• This functionality will let user chose the comfortable speed for him/her. The more the
●●● speed ability of user, the more faster the job will be completed.
• Before the job actually starts this speed action will be asked to user and can be set as
●
default as well.
7. ●●●
● Blind Software Module Explained (contd.)
●● • The mobile software module will make a request to Employer module, based on the job chosen
and the speed requirement.
●● • Employer module will convert the original audio input file to the required speech speed using
● computerized synthesizer algorithm and then the file will be transferred to the worker’s mobile
device. Now worker can listen to the micro job using headphones attached to mobile.
●●
4. Braille Typing mode / Speech recognition for INPUT
• Once the job is started worker can input the translation/transcription(voice to text) in
●●● either Braille Typing or Speech recognition.
● • Software like BrailleTouch (Georgia Tech researchers)
●●● already exists and allows eyes-free texting solutions –
up to 32 words per minute at 92 percent accuracy.
● • This needs to be integrated with Blind Module.
● • Although speech recognition works good for short voice commands, it requires lot of
●●● training efforts for converting general speech to text. So because of its inaccuracy and as
blind users are more used to braille typing the braille input method will be more feasible.
●● • In case of Voice to Voice Translation, the direct audio output will be recorded through
mobile mic and send to employer.
●
5. Quality Check - Voice confirmation of data entry before sending output
●●● • In either way of input mechanism the quality check is necessary and hence once the input
is completed, user can give a command to read the inputed text and listen to it for its
●●● accuracy. If he thinks that the output is correct then he can give voice command to send
● the output, else he can re-type the output. Once software gets confirmation it send the
output to employer module in form of sms or calls internet service to upload the output.
8. ●●●
● Novelty & Benefits
●●
• First system for blind micro workers using mobile phones.
• Computerized Speech synthesizer Functionality to use special ability of blind people
●● for working fast and help them earn money.
●
• Although the idea specifies micro jobs like Translation / Transcription, later it can be
●● extended to comments on social sites, FB like, make a slogan etc. The more the Blind
Mobile Module gets mature the more possibilities will be open.
●●● • Use of technology for Audio Interface & Input for blind users to facilitate ease of use of
● the system.
●●● • Quality control at user end itself for more accurate results.
●
●
Challenges
●●● • Although Blind MicroWorkers can listen and understand at ultra fast speeds, but they
might need some practice with the Braille input mode for speedy typing.
●● • Blind Mobile Module will be complex for development with various technologies used
● in it, but is technically possible and can be handled by an average cost mobiles.
●●● • Braille input mode will be more useful on a touch device, a keypad based mobile might
not be as convenient as touch.
●●●
●
