Empowering the Visually Impaired with Karthik Kannan from Envision

Today’s AI-powered company of focus, Envision, has made it its mission to improve the lives of the visually impaired so that they can live more independently. I am joined by Envision’s Co-Founder and CTO, Karthik Kannan, to discuss how he and his team gather data for their unique models, how they develop new products and features, and how they are able to ensure that their technology performs well with multiple users and across various environments. Technological advances and the recent boom in AI mean that now is the perfect time for Envision to thrive, and Karthik explains exactly how he and his team are taking advantage of this unique moment. We end this informative discussion with Karthik’s advice for other leaders of AI-powered startups, and what he hopes Envision will achieve in the next five years. 

Key Points:

• Introducing Karthik Kannan as he explains what led him to found Envision. 
• What Envision does and how its technology improves the lives of visually impaired people.
• How Karthik and his team gather data for training their models. 
• His process of planning and developing a new machine learning feature. 
• Diving deeper into the development of a new product or feature. 
• How Karthik ensures that his technology performs across multiple users and environments. 
• Why now is the perfect time for Envision’s technology to thrive. 
• How Karthik measures the impact of his company’s technology. 
• His advice to other AI-powered startup leaders, and his hopes for the future of Envision.  

Quotes:

“I was fascinated with games. I had asked my dad how people make games and he said, ‘They write code.’ Then he put me onto a programming class and that's how I got started with writing code.” — Karthik Kannan

“I didn't go on to my master's or anything. I just did my bachelor's, just started working directly, because I was more eager to get my hands dirty into making software and stuff.” — Karthik Kannan

“[Envision’s] overarching theme is to constantly look at how we can translate the advances in computer vision, and broadly AI, into tools that can help a visually impaired person live a more independent life.” — Karthik Kannan

“We mix both data from open datasets plus we throw in a healthy mix of data that's captured from a visually impaired person's perspective — that's what makes the whole data collection and cleaning process quite unique at Envision.” — Karthik Kannan

“That whole process of [user] validation is extremely, extremely important because we're not the direct users of the product ourselves.” — Karthik Kannan

“In the AI space right now, the most important thing is to try and understand where, or have a very clear idea as to what kind of impact AI is making on your customers, and to double down on that.” — Karthik Kannan

Links:

Karthik Kannan on LinkedIn

Karthik Kannan on Twitter

Envision 

Envision on Twitter

Envision on YouTube

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