Be My Eyes is a free mobile app with one main goal: to make the world more accessible for blind and low-vision people.
Global (27 March 2022) – Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers. Small acts of kindness with global impact.
And thanks to this revolutionary app, every day, sighted volunteers lend their eyes to solve tasks big and small to help blind and low-vision people lead more independent lives.
“As a blind or low-vision person, whenever you need visual assistance, volunteers are happy to help. Through the live video call, kind strangers can communicate directly and solve a problem. Volunteers help with anything from checking expiry dates, distinguishing colours, reading instructions or navigating new surroundings.”
Since they launched in January 2015, over 5 million volunteers have signed up to assist blind and low-vision users. Be My Eyes users can request assistance in over 180 languages making the app the biggest online community for blind and low-vision people as well as one of the largest micro-volunteering platforms in the world! Every day, volunteers sign onto Be My Eyes to lend their sight to blind and low-vision individuals to tackle challenges and solve problems together.
The Be My Eyes story started in Denmark in 2012 with Hans Jørgen Wiberg, a Danish furniture craftsman who is visually impaired himself.
Through his work at ‘The Danish Association of the Blind’, he recognized that blind or low-vision people often needed a little assistance to solve everyday tasks. However, it wasn’t until a blind friend told him that he used video calls to connect with family and friends, who could help him with these tasks, that Hans Jørgen got the idea for Be My Eyes. He believed that the technology of video calls could be used to visually assist blind or low-vision individuals, without them having to rely on friends and family, but using a network of volunteers.
In April 2012, Hans Jørgen presented his idea at a Danish startup event, where he got connected with a team that was ready to make Be My Eyes a reality. On January 15th 2015, the Be My Eyes app was released for iOS, and within 24 hours, the app had more than 10,000 users.
And every single day, visually impaired people from around the world are being helped by kind strangers.
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