At the just ended Ms Geek Africa Competition held in Rwanda, Daniella Afriyie Asare, a contestant who placed 4th out of 10 participants across the world made Ghana proud with her echolocation device.
The flexible fashion wearable device according to Ms. Afriyie Asare was designed specifically, to assist the visually impaired.
The device has embedded components that together work on the principle of echolocation which helps the visually impaired find their way around their environment with little or no help.
The device dubbed ‘I Aid’, comes with an
ultrasonic sensor, a temperature sensor
an IR sensor, and a pressure sensor connected via a raspberry pi that helps detect objects and give a vibrating feedback to the wearer.
This keeps the wearer alert and gives him a signal when there is an obstacle near his location.
The device also comes with a mobile application that gives an instant alert to persons living with the visually impaired, should a calculated pressure exerted on the device or wearer be exceeded.
Speaking in an interview with TechVoiceAfrica, Ms. Afriyie Asare mentioned that, the I Aid was an idea aimed at using technology to help tackle the issue of exclusion when it comes to people living with disability.
She expressed her delight in making it to the 4th position and making her motherland proud.
According to her, the competition was a great learning platform which helped her harness her potentials.
Ms Geek Africa Competition is an innovative challenge aimed at enhancing skills and knowledge of females across the continent of Africa, to aid them solve problems of society with technology.
The competition which started on 6th May and ended on the 16th of May, featured 10 ladies from 8 different countries; Senegal, DRC, Rwanda, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Benin, and Ghana with the top five ladies from DRC, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal and Benin.
StephanieHorsu/techvoiceafrica.com
