Aira @ MIT: 10 hours, 1000 minds focused on a future filled with AI, AR & VR
As mentioned in our last post, Aira was selected as one of 5 companies to participate in a Technologies of the Future Showcase at the 2017 MIT Technology Conference. In was a great honor to be part of this select group featured as “some of the most innovative, forward-thinking technologies being developed across exponential technologies”.
The event was held this past weekend at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, MA and I was fortunate to present on behalf of Aira. Accompanying me for the day were Erich Manser & Paul Parravano, two customers who were able to provide first hand descriptions of the Aira solution. Erich is both a Blind athlete and IBM Accessibility Expert and Paul has held the role of Co-Director of MIT’s Office of Government and Community Relations since 1991. I’m very grateful to have spent the day with these two experts who are exceptional people.
I’d thought I share some takeaways from the event and want to start with commenting on how exceptional the panels were. The theme of the 2017 event was “Exponential Technologies” and the organizing committee should be commended for assembling an all-star lineup of speakers that included:
John Martinis, Lead of Quantum Computing Group, Google
Rohit Prasad, Head Scientist, Alexa at Amazon
Bryan Johnson, Founder, Kernel
Richard Sorcher, Chief Scientist at Salesforce
Dr. John R. Smith, Fellow, IBM
Takeaway #1 — Aira is heading in the right direction
The theme of the conference couldn’t be more in line with Aira’s areas of development and our CEO Suman Kanuganti said it best:
Aira is embracing 4 out of 5 experiential technologies featured at the conference. We’re leveraging this confluence of emerging tech (AI with human-in-the-loop, IoT, AR & Robotics to unlock the human potential and provide immediate access to information for all.
Between the panels and direct conversations with leaders of well known platforms like Amazon (AWS), Google, Microsoft and IBM, it was great to see that our decision to leverage AI through increasingly sophisticated orchestrations was met with such a warm reception. It was also clear that we have a unique advantage in that we start with a rich human-to-human interaction and associated sensor and video.
Victor Gerdes, VP, PTC spoke about how AR can be applied to assist in many enterprise use cases such as in-field AR assistance to provide technicians with virtual schematic overlays on complex and infrequently access equipment through use of mobile apps (e.g. ThingWorx) — several attendees remarked on how a mash-up of Aira AI and Human-in-the-loop-on-demand and a platform like PTC could provide further value and cover a broader range of scenarios. For example, our users would be thrilled to be informed of what friends, colleagues and associates are nearby in a room or outdoor setting yet without visual ability cannot quickly or accurately determine from voice alone who is present or even departed. By leveraging face recognition we can first arm our human agents the ability to relay that information and then later using a dialog system like Lex automatically, and without a human agent, provide that critical information. Even further, the ability to predict and proactively inform users using the contextual and AI based signals is also possible — something discussed in the final Panel “Future of Exponential Technologies”.
Takeaway #2— A fresh take on Aira from MIT Students yielded a welcome set of of new ideas and uses of the Aira Platform (and a few resumes)
I also have to say how impressed I was with the caliber and quality of the MIT Students who were both versed in technology and business. As a solution that is initially focused on re-imagining the independence for the Blind and Visually Impaired it’s not always obvious the unique and unfair advantage we have in terms of developing AI or using Data that has both immediate impact on our near term goal yet is highly applicable for our future wave of solutions that will be created on top of our Mobile Augmented Reality and Connectivity Platform (MARCP). Because of the appropriateness of use case and the benefit Aira provides to the BVI population Aira may be the only solution that provides for a socially acceptable and broadly public facing use of live streaming video (Snapchat aside). With our users regularly logging 1,000’s of hours of video, sensor (e.g. GPS) and two-way conversations Aira, with the consent of our users, has a unique and rich set of training data and analytics — while many startups and novel solutions start with the intent to leverage big data and AI they face a dilemma of first capturing and gaining traction — because of the attractiveness of our product and reception by the BVI community Aira has unique and rich data sets from which to improve the product.
Takeaway #3 — It’s always useful and powerful to hear first hand from your customers regarding both delights and detractors of any product.
Hearing from Erich Manser regarding his use of Aira and his thoughts on future tech caused me to think differently. Erich is well steeped in all things accessibility and has personal insights into how to apply the advancing areas of AI (think Watson). Erich described his desires and challenges with using Aira to facilitate his appetite for marathon training — Erich’s low vision is such that he can run well known paths yet any unknown obstacles (e.g. road-work, gatherings or in one near catastrophic case — a downed power line) are not easily mitigated — Erich is now experimenting with Aira while running. Paul also talked about something our San Diego based Aira team are necessarily as empathetic with: snow. The Blind and Visually Impaired who use white canes or guide dogs for navigation (side note: Aira does not replace either tool — Aira provides information to augment these tasks) use a variety of “Orientation and Mobility Skills” which include how to incorporate the physical landscape such as curbs, sidewalks and other landmarks along with use of the cane. However, enter the snow which covers up said landmarks thus slowing or challenging outdoor navigation — he’s remarked on how Aira dramatically helps him navigate under these changing or temporarily unfamiliar conditions.
Overall, it was an inspiring day filled with thoughtful conversations and great company. Aira continues to move fast and seeing our company highlighted among this extraordinary collective of brilliant minds makes me excited for the future.
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