Oswald Labs, New Delhi, India and Enschede, the Netherlands-based research and technology company is presenting an exhibition at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, this October. Dutch Design Week is an annual event that takes place in the last week of October and is a nine-day event with exhibitions, workshops, seminars and parties at many venues. It is the largest design event in Northern Europe and presents work and concepts from more than 2,600 designers to more than 3,35,000 visitors from around the world.
The Mind the Step exhibition is one of the highlights of the Dutch Design Week as it features design driven by technology and research by four Universities of Technology in the Netherlands — Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), the University of Twente (UT), and the Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR).
This year, Mind the Step has 6 main topics — Innovative materials, Design for debate, Health and well being, Home and leisure, The new mobility, and Improving professional environment. Oswald Labs is collaborating with the DesignLab University of Twente and researchers from Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science (EEMCS), University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology to present their end-to-end accessible smartphone, Shravan at Mind the Step at the Dutch Design Week this year.
Shravan is a smartphone concept that can be used by everybody, including people with disabilities and seniors. “Thanks to patented voice and vibration technology and revolutionary interface patterns, people with visual impairments, illiterate people, older people and dyslexics have no trouble using Shravan,” said the Mind the Step website.
Shravan is an Android-based operating system but Oswald Labs also plans to launch individual apps under the Shravan brand name for both Android devices and iPhones after the Dutch Design Week. At the event, Oswald Labs will be showcasing Augmenta11y, an augmented reality (AR) based app which helps people with learning disabilities like dyslexia easily read signage, paper, and other material in the real world, and Visib11y, an app for people with visual impairment or blindness to navigate and identify objects around them.
Augmenta11y is built in collaboration with Computer Science thesis students Tushar Gupta, Mitali Raju, Mudita Sisodia, and Schezeen Fazulbhoy from Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management & Engineering, Mumbai.
“I’m very happy to have university students invest in building inclusive products. Tushar and his team are doing a fantastic job building our first collaborative app and we’re very happy to give them this platform,” said Anand Chowdhary, the co-founder and CEO of Oswald Labs.
Dutch Design Week is between Saturday, 20 October, 2018, and Sunday, 28 October, 2018, in various locations in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
