.lumen is excited to be one of the semi-finalists of the 2021 Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge.
Out of the 1745 teams competing, only 92 solutions reached the semi-final. This achievement marks yet another step towards reaching .lumen's mission of empowering the lives of people with visual disabilities.
Cisco, the American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Silicon Valley and specialized in specific high-tech services and products, is committed to positively impact one billion people by 2025.
To achieve this, they plan to award a total of $1 Million in annual prizes to early-stage tech entrepreneurs solving the world’s toughest problems by innovative ideas that benefit society, catalyze economic growth, and create jobs.
Past winning solutions address a wide range of social and environmental challenges – from cervical cancer and bee extinction to crop depletion and lack of clean drinking water.
It is in the belief of .lumen that increased mobility results in improved education, employment, and social life for the blind.
.lumen is aligned with UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by targeting 4 main goals:
to ensure quality education opportunities for everyone - Goal 4;
to support an inclusive, sustainable economic environment – Goal 8;
to reduce inequality – Goal 10;
to make human settlements more inclusive - Goal 11.
The finalists of the online competition will be announced on June 2, after which the Judging Panel will select up to 20 contest “winners” - expected to be announced on or about June 29, 2021.
.lumen is a startup that builds glasses which empower the blind to live a better life.
Despite 40 million blind people today, increasing to over 100 million by 2050, when it comes to mobility solutions, the most advanced solution is still the guide dog.
Due to multiple drawbacks, there are only 20 thousand guide dogs.
.lumen builds an assistive system that mimics the main advantages of a guide dog, without the drawbacks that make one a non-scalable option.
A solution for the other 39,980,000 blind individuals.
Stay tuned to find more details about .lumen by following our social media.