However, the best part of the SHAD program was the design challenge, where I was the technical lead and developer in a team of eight students to complete an entrepreneurship project. Our startup aimed to help the visually impaired as they have difficulty picking up on social cues, which can lead to isolation or socially awkward situations. Also, more than 90% of all published material is inaccessible to the blind or partially sighted. Thus, Ontario Tech University Brilliant Catalyst Incubated our startup as I created a microcontroller integrated into a fanny pack with a tiny camera within the strap. When the user holds text in front of them, I programmed the device to read the text via text-to-speech to the user’s wireless earbuds for a greater feeling of independence. Also, I programmed the device to detect different hand gestures and social cues using a custom machine-learning model that can identify the target’s facial expression and the position of the joints. With this information, the device can decode the overall emotion of whoever they are speaking to and relay it whenever the user requests.

After the month of SHAD, we pitched our startup to investors. We were taken under their mentorship with funding and attended lectures about entrepreneurship as we plan to set up the project prototype at an investor convention. 

This experience aligns with my career path by combining technical innovation with problem-solving to address real-world challenges. Developing a microcontroller-integrated device for the visually impaired enhanced my skills in programming, machine learning, and hardware integration, which are key areas of robotics and automation. The entrepreneurial aspect of pitching to investors and refining the product under mentorship gave me valuable insight into bringing innovative technologies to market, a skill that directly supports my goal of founding a startup or contributing to cutting-edge projects.