The Blindsight Corporation
Cambridge, Massachusetts · Berkeley, California
Acquired by AmazonYears before cloud-based AI services were widely available, Blindsight was applying computer vision and artificial intelligence to help blind, low-vision, and actively aging people navigate the world. Founded by Mark Nitzberg, the company built handheld and wearable devices that used real-time image processing to help people read, recognize faces and objects, and see things at a distance, as well as a remote assistance service that connected blind users with sighted helpers — an approach later adopted and scaled by Be My Eyes.
Each product had to be simple, intuitive, and robust, fitting seamlessly into daily life. Getting the design right required understanding how people with visual impairments actually experience and navigate the world, not how engineers imagine they do.
I partnered with the Blindsight team from its early days through its acquisition, working across the full arc from funding to product development to patents. I created the brand identity, performed research and interaction design for the Smart Magnifier and Smart Telescope products, wrote and managed grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, and wrote and filed applications for numerous successful technology patents.
More than 200,000 people used Blindsight’s products daily. The company was acquired by Amazon in 2014.
