Welcome to Can You Top This? from Be My Eyes. Each month we share the most unusual and inspiring stories from our community. Volunteer calls, Be My AI sessions, company support, and even calls through Meta AI Glasses. Do you think your story can top the rest? Tune in, get inspired, and discover how you can win amazing prizes.
I'm Danielle, I'm the community manager with Be My Eyes. Can you introduce yourself so that folks know who you are and what you're about?
I am Vignesh. I've done my graduation in Tamil and post-graduation in international relations. I'm working at Help the Blind Foundation for the past two and a half years.
And I'm a user of Be My Eyes, like last 4.5, I guess. When I was, like, you know, I installed Be My Eyes in 2019. Some friends, like, you know, talk about Be My Eyes and, you know, all those things. But I installed in 2019, but I never used.
In 2021 or 2020, I still, I didn't remember that. That time is my first call with Be My Eyes. And now, you know, weekly, twice or thrice, I connected with Be My Eyes volunteers. So that's how I, you know, started in Be My Eyes. And, you know, to check my document, prescriptions, and some, you know, capture, I need to enter.
Because if I talk about accessibility, most of websites doesn't have more accessible for like me people. And that time, you know, I connected with the Be My Eyes volunteers to enter in the capture, especially the capture part, if I talk about digital, you know, accessibility part. And, yeah, that's how I use Be My Eyes. And sometimes what I do, you know, I remember one call, like, two months before, you know,
two months ago, I connected with volunteer to check my PowerPoint presentation, how it looked like. That was like, you know, amazing, like, you know, call with that particular volunteer, it's been somewhere around 30 to 45 minutes. And she guided me entire presentation. She said, hey, this nice, this is not good. And you can make better like this, do this, do this edit, and it's look like an, like, output will be a nice.
So you basically just presented your PowerPoint to the volunteer, right? Like you just went slide by slide back then?
Yes. Yeah, I'm using MetaRaben, actually. I connected with, you know, MetaRaben. That's the easiest task for me, you know, I don't want a whole phone like this. And I don't know, this is the screen, can you move it in left? Can you move it in right? The volunteers usually tell before the meta came, hey, can you move it in left? Can you move it in right? Can you do this? Can you do that? But now,
they never, they never, oh, okay, everything is going good. Like, yeah. Yeah. A lot less time fiddling around,
right? It's just, it shows up a lot more easily. Yeah. So how long have you had your glasses? So I'm using glass last eight, nine months,
actually. Okay. How do you like them? Yeah, of course. You know, well, I'll tell you one positive way,
you know, I don't want to hold my phone actually in my hand. So that is the main thing, you know,
that the, like, if I talk about the Raban, uh, glass, the power of Raban glass, so they can see that
fuel full view of the, my, uh, entire, uh, friend and all those things, they can guide me better.
Yeah. Yeah. It has a hundred and I think it's, it's close to 180 degree camera. I'm forgetting what the exact degree is,
but I think it's 180 because it's all in front of you. Right. So it's like seeing all in front and to your sides.
It just obviously can't see like around your head. Yeah. See, now I know that, that, that, that, uh, Raban came, no? After I didn't just want, like, need to move my hand, head like this, like this, this, this, this, this, like this. I need to just turn my head, like, uh, to, to, to show them actually.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And it's a different whole set of angles, isn't it? To learn when a volunteer is telling you, like, I think I learned that I had to look down a little bit more than I was doing. I don't know if you had any similar experience with that, but I feel like you have to turn your head in a certain way so that the glasses look exactly ahead and exactly at the screen sometimes.
Yeah. And what I will tell that volunteer, hey, you have a picture option. You can just click a picture and you can zoom and start to read that.
Yes. And also I will tell them, hey, there is an option called flash. You can turn on the flash. You know why, what I, like, you know, what I will do. I'll never miss that. Be my eyes or monthly, uh, newsletters. I read that newsletter and I get to know all the updates and I can follow your social media pages, especially LinkedIn. I'm, I'm, I'm okay with Instagram, but sometimes the Instagram is not accessible for me. That's what I feel. So the LinkedIn, I've never missed any posts.
your be my eyes actually so i can just uh update my knowledge about this and i can tell that what
to volunteer hey uh can you have an option in your screen i have an option you know uh camera you can
just click that screen as option flash you can click that that automatically the flash got turned
on the camera getting a picture taking a picture and you can easily assist me that's what i will
suggest to volunteer also and one thing meta ribbon via meta ribbon can also they can take a picture
when you tell the volunteers about like the different features and how they can kind of be
like have use the tools that they have in front of them like the flash and the taking picture button
do they find it really helpful yeah see there see i'll tell you sometimes the volunteer telling me you
know uh sometimes they are don't have knowledge about technology that time maybe i face some issues
but i will explain them that time they get like they understand and they turn on that option and most of
time most of 99 percentage of volunteers telling oh this is that i don't know i connected i helped so
many visually impaired four five they did they give a number to me hey i helped the four people i never
know this now i know that i can easily help them that kind of feedback i get like you know the volunteer
telling me actually that makes a lot of sense it's something that we've talked about too that we've
noticed that when folks tell volunteers about the button that they have in front of them it can really
help just because we're so much more familiar and we use it so much more often than they do
that it just like it can just really help them do better with us when we have questions for them
yeah see so i'll tell you one thing you know uh i remember uh six months ago uh one of volunteer
connected me i mean i connected with one of the volunteer and now we became friends actually i think
so she is my college senior actually she said hey i see i know you i i i met you somewhere in my college i
asked which college are you from she said hey i'm from loyala hey i'm also from loyala and after that we
connected personally and we are hang out hang outing to like you know some places and we are meeting in
the weekly uh 15 days once that's all so power of bmi is helping uh like me people to connect with uh
like you know seniors or known person so yeah wow that's really cool so someone you actually knew in
real life who is so close to you that's really neat yeah and one more thing that group option also
working yeah good that also you know it's like amazing options available in uh be my eyes so i can
connect with uh trusted people you know i'll tell them to join the group and i can get help from them
you know if i want like like especially the personal help like transaction if i want to read any transaction or
any uh you know statements of the bank or any personal medical prescription or personal things
i can connect with them so that also yeah amazing you know feature and be my eyes absolutely so you
mentioned in your story when you uh when you submitted to the can you top this contest you mentioned
a story about shopping in a supermarket with your glasses can you tell us more about that yeah of course so
you know here in like india d mart is like you know a famous uh shop uh you know supermarket um so in that
you know i think september or october i went uh d mart in my hometown with my dad uh my dad doesn't study
and he just uh i think uh 10 standard so he never like like you know he never like read english especially he's
telling hey this is perfume you can select or if you want you can select otherwise you don't like don't
otherwise don't ask any question so that time i connected with be my eyes with help of meta rayban
i can just show that product i said hey uh i need this particular product can you help me to buy and
they said okay we'll we can show that each product i will help you the call is somewhere around 30 minutes
actually end of the day you know i brought nice perfume you know uh that is the main i i mentioned
that in my linkedin also i guess yeah that story in my linkedin page also that is amazing option she
helped me to buy perfume and she helped me to buy some uh some of the personal care products and all
those things she helped me wow so and you so the thing that really stood out to me in your story that you shared um
with us was that there was a point where you just realized that you were walking around the supermarket by yourself
doing just without asking for staff or anyone and that you felt like you were just doing things on your own
without having to ask anyone else um who is around you to help can you talk more about that because
that sounded really powerful of course uh actually i'll tell you earlier you know uh long back in five
six years if i want something i can ask uh near my uh people uh let's say like i'm going to let's say
imagine like i'll give one example five years before i visit if i'm visiting any places like restaurant or
dress shop or shopping mall or anywhere i need to get a help from that particular people available
but uh and then after that they know that be my eyes introduced last so one year if i talk about i
never ask any help from anyone i just if i have doubt i can get a help from be my eyes there is two way i
will use uh one is like the be my eyes has uh uh you know uh yeah option i just click a picture and i'll get
a description of what i want otherwise the second option is volunteer connect i'll connect with them
i'll ask a question hey i want this i want can you help me this so i never like now if i want i can just
connect with be my eyes volunteer or i use be my eyes as yeah i featured or my meta ribbon to get to know
myself you know i have one personal experience of you know be my eyes in 2025 i was in hyderabad i i i
don't know telugu that they speak telugu i don't know telugu i know only my mother tongue tamil and english i
just that day you know i am being there in two months in hyderabad that time my birthday is like july
last year in like i need to purchase my address so i was thinking hey i don't know language i don't know
what to do what i i i literally i was thinking myself say i don't know what to do but i need to celebrate
your i need birthday dress for me so that time you know be my eyes only helped me i connected with
volunteer i went shop and i just purchased my address and i was like uh you know i'm i'm happy
that also i wrote it in my you know linkedin and i was telling hey thank you be my eyes like helping
like me people to you know being be independent so that also like like for me is like i'm very happy
actually how was that did you find a dress did you find it that you really liked how did you guide the
volunteer to find something i asked i i told my requirement hey i need say i just tell them hey
which like i showed me and i asked me hey do you think which kind of dress shoots for me you can
suggest but given just uh one descript one disclaimer telling i don't want blue
and rest of all i i'm okay with anything so i think i got some uh i think pink color shirt i guess i
i yeah so and a black color pant and black brown color shoe and three different volunteers
wow three different volunteers and yeah so
what happened you know i just first one volunteer helped me to select a pant and after that what i did
i just taken a picture with help of my phone and i uploaded uh you know uh be my eyes and i said hey uh
see this is my band i selected and i need this color like you know i don't want this color shirt but
anything is fine you can suggest so that time that ai given that be my eyes has ai action no that giving
a reply hey can you go with uh light pink color or you know uh white or uh you know some color they given
so and after i connected wall and i say hey this is the color list i have can you help me to buy
aah so you narrowed it down with ai first and then that helped you get a better idea for volunteers of
what to get yeah see one part def honestly i want to mention here is uh see the two options one is
technology another one is human if technology won't work human will be work the humanist won't work the
technology will be work in the two options available in be my eyes that's the like you know
uh greatest part about be my eyes so you ended up getting a full coordinated outfit between the three
volunteers and ai because did you ask your ai which shoes would match better as well or did you kind
of already know that no no actually finally what uh they selected three of us went and i just taken a
picture and i asked the ai hey can you tell me this is okay you know yeah everything is good but the shoes
don't select black like i selected blue brown but ai said to me is black but what happened i said no no i
already have black shoes with me i i just thought of to go with brown what do you think yeah yeah it's
matched 60 percent see whenever i give a prompt i ask a percentage let's say how many percentage is good
how many percentage is not good and that time only i get like i i decide myself if it is 60 70 percentage is good
okay maybe i'll go but it is like 50 40 the i say hey 40 percentage okay age 60 percentage is not okay i
never choose that option my husband did that once he was asking be my ai how much of his hair was
was gray and how much of it was brown and he also got a 60 40 percent
no because then we can imagine we'll get no see uh imaginarily oh 60 70 if say uh be my is telling okay but
sometime it is very okay or okay the the difference is there no but if i ask a what is the percentage that time that we can easily understand the difference
yeah because there's no tone right so you have to kind of so having it give you a percentage really
gives you the how confident it is because you can hear that in the person's voice but not so much when
an ai is writing about something yeah because ai's are confident about everything yes no there is two
options one is human another one is technology both options are available in bmii if i want technology i'll go if
the technology sometimes it won't work that time we'll choose volunteer volunteer sometimes is like
yeah that time we can choose technology the board's option is available so absolutely so you were
mentioning you work for a foundation right yeah we provide scholarship earlier and slowly we'll start uh
you know uh training that visually impaired college going students and uh you know we'll uh helping them for
we'll be providing assistive technology as well as like assistive technology such as like you know
laptops all those things and we'll train that candidate in you know computers mobility and communication
and uh and after that we help them to place in that uh you know uh companies like yeah and also we are
providing a scholarship for college going students that's like you know shot but we yeah here i'm working here as a
uh you know placement and accessibility audit executive that i concentrating accessibility
part as well as placement part i'm a cp acc certified person certified person from iaap
oh yeah yep that test was a pretty long one
yes and one more thing i want to share like you know about this like um i i i'm facing a some issue in like you know connecting with like you know a meta-rape and with be my eyes
uh i think monday monday uh six seven pm i guess like there is like in service directory we have option to call be my eyes like directly i surprised uh you know i said that like one person attended my call i was telling hey
this is the thing we are like in India we're facing this issue I talked I had a call like
conversation with my friends also they are also facing the same issues and can you and after the
call hey can you what is your name I asked him he said hey I am a founder of Be My Eyes I literally
shocked because like oh you just take the hands oh cool yeah you know why we're connecting see if
we have some issues we connect there definitely we connect with customer care support or some support
from that particular application but I feel we never I never connected with any founders or any CEO
CEO of that particular company I connected like like me not only like you know even though mid-level
people I never connected like literally easily hey I'm a founder of Be My Eyes it's telling a very cool
actually I was hey what I literally you know I shocked at night telling hey can you please look
on this like you know problem and shut it down he said hey definitely man we will definitely work that
and we'll figure it out yeah that is like you know power of again that also one part you know I would
want to share here actually that's so cool we love Hans he's so good I'm glad you got to meet him and speak
well meet him over the phone that is and speak with him so do you teach other people how to use Be My Eyes
when you're doing accessibility related stuff ah so I usually talk to my say I'm a public speaker and I'm a
a motivation speaker whenever I go I ask a question to my like you know floor whenever I speak that time I will tell them you are a sighted you have an option to me help million of visually impaired they're like hey what so I am here they are somewhere how can I that time at a that time only that Be My Eyes has come to picture you can connect you can join as a volunteer and you can help you know visually impaired you know
whenever you are available based on your available based on your available based on your availability and they are like okay I don't like that what I will talk about you know sighted peers whenever I go like as a speaker and I'll definitely one slide is there about Be My Eyes any topic if they someone asked me to talk about WCAG guidelines of 2.2 the one slide about Be My Eyes and that's really cool and but it's like
not for corporate I'll talk mostly in college events I'll tell them in colleges because I feel in India we need like more young volunteers be to join in Be My Eyes application so I'll talk to them and that visually impaired also I will just tell them but most of people already aware about this so they are using so yeah well thank you very much for getting more volunteers on Be My Eyes
especially when they are using so many languages spoken in a country it can really help because like you can have your primary language and your secondary language right so like you could have English and another language you speak so the more volunteers have those other languages the more blind people can be supported by them so yeah I'll tell you one thing five years ago you know how that Be My Eyes boomed in India five years ago I connected with volunteers like say my mother tank is Tamil so you should
usually in five years ago I said it like this my primary is Tamil secondary is in English connected with my eyes the call is connecting still connecting connecting connecting but now I would say I never wait for I mean here like now we can immediately the within one minute that we volunteer like we getting a volunteers actually that's like like that's how that Be My Eyes improved in India five years ago like you know we need to wait for
three to four minutes and now we need to wait for three to four minutes and now we need to just one 30 to one minute yeah 32 to one minute a question I love to ask for folks who are outside of the UK in the US is how how is being blind in India what do you what do you like about it what do you hope will change over the next few years can you tell us a little bit about that from your perspective yeah see in India I see we are nowadays like the technology is increasing a lot
so that so that I literally I like it so that I literally I like it and you know the people are thinking about accessibility all those things and you know making public spaces and digital spaces are accessible literally that you know thing is like I like that thing and you know most of people is like you know still like they are like coming and
they are also helping like me people and do all those things and yeah that's it like you know they are coming slowly you know they are thinking about accessibility that literally I'm that what I like in India actually I think why I'm telling that example you know one day I connected with you know Be My Eyes again I think somewhere around 930 the volunteer traveling in bus I guess bus or some
I don't know some travel they are also in travel I don't know some travel they are also in travel I am also in travel and that time she is helping me and simultaneously she is telling one of her friends asked hey what's you know what where are you talking what is you are talking at that time hey this is the half we can help visually impaired and that kind of awareness is aware that what I also like you know that awareness about disability slowly is
like you know increasing yeah that is like you know increasing yeah that is like it from India well thank you so much for coming and telling us your story and telling us more about your foundation that you work for and what it's like to be blind in India and all kinds of things like that all in a whirlwind 40 minutes so thank you very much thank you so much I literally had a good time and you know I shared my experience about Be My Eyes thank you for that you know
thank you for selecting me also to you know part of this you know part of this you know thing because that's what I'm doing in my work I'm creating awareness about visually impaired and all those things how they work how they you know use the computer all those things and this is like you know this is also my you know great opportunity to talk about how that Be My Eyes is helping me to these things yeah thank you so much thank you for
helping us get more volunteers it's helping us get more volunteers it's been really lovely to speak with you and I'm sure we'll be in touch soon thanks for listening to can you top this from Be My Eyes be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel download our app or visit BeMyEyes.com for more
you