New Microsoft Artificial Intelligence initiative for $25 million to help users with disabilities. The new initiative is “AI for Accessibility” was announced at Microsoft’s annual conference for software developers. CEO Satya Nadella made this a personal initiative to help disabled users since his son, Zian, has cerebral palsy.
Under the new initiative Microsoft will provide seed grants of technology to developers, NGOs, universities, and inventors taking an ‘AI-first approach’. The current rate of accessibility to assistive technologies and products for disabled people is one in ten, Microsoft hopes to increase this rate with better user interface.
Microsoft hopes this new development can help gain independence and help with employment opportunities. They want to give full accessibility to all users, when most technology overlooks needs for users with disabilities.
One of the new accessibility tools is a free smartphone app “Seeing AI,” which uses narration and computer vision to help people with blind or low vision navigate. Deaf users can use the Microsoft translation tool, providing deaf or hard of hearing users with real-time captioning of conversations.
Another app, Helpico turns voice commands into images, enabling people with autism better understand situations and communicate with others.
There will be improvements on text-to-speech technology and predictive text to save time on typing. Microsoft has the biggest user-base with nine out of ten computers in the world using Windows software, meaning they’re expanding accessibility with many current-users.
Microsoft’s new development initiative has sparked interest in other companies to start their own initiatives to better accessibility for users with disabilities.
