Female Startup: how a project was created to help visually impaired people

The Female Startup rubric continues, within which IT Park introduces readers to womenʼs startups, and today we are visiting Kazakhstani project “Eyesea” and one of its founders, 17-year-old Amira Muratkali.

Amira recalls that she, along with like-minded people, began her journey with a robotics course from the Girls Power Foundation, the Eurasia Foundation and USAID.

“There are 4 girls in our team.  The problem of disorientation of the visually impaired people seemed to us relevant and unresolved at that time, moreover, we ourselves were familiar with people suffering from everyday difficulties: injuries and burns, discrimination in careers and studies.  Therefore, we decided to come up with a solution that will be really useful and help make life easier for visually impaired people”.

Thanks to participation in the educational program, the girls received unique knowledge and a set of skills with which they were able to realize their idea.  This is how the project “Eyesea” was born, which is a bracelet for blind people.  It can determine the distance and temperature of objects, thereby alerting the user with sound signals.

“We chose the name for a long time.  It translates as “eye” and “sea”.  This is very symbolic, because the seas and oceans are farther than just dry land, they are something that can only be seen with our bracelet”.

The team consists of four girls:

• Sabina Isabekova – CEO, responsible for communication, organization and promotion of the project;
• Tomiris Sarsenbaeva – mobile application developer, technical specialist;
• Daniya Turlina — SMM, responsible for the Instagram page @wcbye;
• Amira – CFO, responsible for the financial and business components of the project.

“In addition, the team includes 3 mentors: on the technical side, on organizational issues and on tracking.  All participants are actively looking for and filling out applications for accelerators and incubators, competitions and programs.  When soldering or assembling the prototype bracelet, Sabina and Amira work together, while the program code for the bracelet and the application is written by Tomiris”.

What is the purpose of your project?

Working on any project requires a lot of effort and overcoming various difficulties.  Amira recalls that at first the team was not easy, but they managed to cope with the difficulties.

“No wonder they say that the hardest thing is to start.  It was difficult for us to organize regular meetings and motivate the rest of the participants, since we lived in different cities in the summer, it was difficult to meet deadlines, follow time management, combine personal life, study and project.  Also, it was a little uncomfortable working together at first, but once we got to know each other better, the work started to flow smoothly”.

Currently, being at the MVP stage of the project, the team is striving to develop it to a sufficient level, creating a high-quality and guaranteed product for the blind population of Kazakhstan, and in the future for the CIS countries.

“In Kazakhstan, there are 20,000 officially registered visually impaired people who daily face the problem of injuries outside the home, lack of teaching materials, inequity in employment, and so on.  With the help of our bracelet, all these people will be able to learn how to navigate well in space, improve the quality of life and leisure”.

Now the girls want to completely finalize the application and assemble a full-fledged bracelet.

“We have a working prototype of the bracelet and a website.  We want to add some features to the application, such as detection of dangerous places (for example, slopes, rises, design errors on surfaces, faulty traffic lights), or, conversely, places intended for the blind: ramps, pedestrians and traffic lights, a scanner to determine the number of buses, building a route from point A to point B. But that's not all: the plans also include the function of voice acting in Russian and Kazakh languages”.

How do you plan to develop your startup?

As Amira admits, to date the project has received $500 from the Girls Power Foundation, USAID, Eurasia Foundation.

“We aim to continue to receive financial assistance from sponsors.  Now our team is working on finalizing the application and bracelet with testing and implementation in Kazakhstan during the year, through the society of the visually impaired KOS and the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in order to reach about 20,000 blind and visually impaired people in our country through public procurement (government order) with a turnover of more than 200 million tenge with profit at the end of the year.  The next step – to enter the CIS market, covering 1.5 million blind and visually impaired people”.

In Kazakhstan, the guest of the rubric says, there are many successful and beginning startups, the potential of the startup industry is very good.  The founders of the startup regularly hold tracking-meetings once a week, where they discuss plans for the next week and what they managed to do in the previous week.

The girl admits that participation in the Tumaris.Tech incubation program has brought them a lot of benefits.

“During the time of participation in the incubation, we were able to focus more on the financial part of the project and the internal work of many startups.  It was also very useful for us to rethink the very idea and the importance of value for the target audience.  Even when checking homework, there was an opportunity to learn tips in different areas, it prompted the emergence of new ideas and helped to develop”.

The team wishes novice startupers not to be afraid of difficulties, because they contribute to growth.

“We would advise you to clearly define your goals and expectations from both each other and from the startup from the very beginning.  There is no need to be afraid to ask experienced people questions and improve configurations, because it is better to spend longer work than to create an outdated product.  If the idea is good and people need it, the startup will be successful, bringing results and increasing revenue”.