There are more than 247 million people worldwide with moderate to severe visual impairment. Out of this population, more than 19 million are children who are aged 15 and under. These children need and deserve proper and equal education. However, very limited materials are available, and it is challenging to keep on producing customized learning materials (LM) for them. Challenges include the cost, time needed for customization and even with the advancement in technologies, no integrated solution to quickly develop LM is available. Therefore, we developed TacPic, an AI driven cloud computing service that can rapidly develop tactile flashcards, tactile maps and tactile puzzles. Furthermore, we have received a funding for a business start-up to develop new products and are continuously improving the system for the development of both education and vocational training aids for the visually impaired and the blind (VIB). Lastly, we do hope to build a platform for expanding the products and the system to provide VIBs in the Asia-Pacific region quality education and reduced inequalities in getting hired for a job.
Aaron Raymond See is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. He concurrently holds the position as the Director of Student Affairs in the Office of International Affairs. His research interest is on assistive device design and development, biomedical image and signal processing, engineering education and haptics. He has presented numerous keynote speech on Engineering Education Transformation and Assistive Devices in the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Thailand.
Aaron was born in Manila, the Philippines and received the B.S. in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the De La Salle University, Manila, the Philippines in 2006. He obtained his masters and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a major in Biomedical Engineering at the Southern Taiwan University of Science in Technology in 2010 and 2014 respectively. Subsequently, he did his postdoctoral research in Neuroscience at the Brain Research Center, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He also received training on Designing Student Centered Learning from the Olin College of Engineering in the USA. And training on Game Theory from the Warsaw School of Economics.
