Increasing accessibility: Anirudh Koul (BCSc’07)
When the opportunity arose five years ago, Anirudh Koul (BCSc’07) had his doubts about joining Microsoft.
He was afraid of losing the “hacker spirit” that fueled his passion for technology.
“I was completely into open source, Linux and the fast-working mindset of startups,” he says. “I had this image of Microsoft being this mammoth company where things moved sluggishly.”
He was proven wrong. The experience has changed Koul’s life, and the products he has developed at Microsoft are changing the lives of others.
Koul’s sight-loss solution
Inspired by his grandfather’s gradual blindness, Koul created Seeing AI, an app designed to help vision-impaired people recognize their surroundings.
Its technology can describe a scene for users, or help them read a menu, for example.
Microsoft, he says, has more than just refined technology and access to immense data.
“Accessibility is built deep into our culture, and it encourages people to think of how to make things that are inclusive of our whole society.”
Looking forward
Seeing AI was introduced by company CEO Satya Nadella at this year’s Build conference in March, earning international attention and acclaim.
Koul’s grandfather passed away the following month. However, the idea he inspired is very much alive.
“This is just the beginning,” Koul says. “We have a long road ahead of us, with many more features in the works that we’re excited to showcase in the future.”
Read more in “Data scientist dreams up ideas and then brings them to life,” on blogs.microsoft.com.