.lumen

I love building things, and I love when something I built, brings a smile. So the short answer is: I'm applying in order to be able to bring more smiles.

The longer answer: The money will be used to further enhance and test the helpful features of .lumen - the glasses for the blind that we developed. With everything we develop at .lumen, we test and make sure it actually helps and actually brings the impact it should to the blind.

I was born in a family where both of my parents have locomotive disabilities and my sister has cerebral paralysis. Growing up in such an environment I realized how little is done for people with disabilities. 

With time, I passed through high management positions through the corporate world, despite a very young age, and when I realized there are 40 million blind people and only 20 thousand guide dogs - the only advanced mobility solution, I founded a company to mimic the main advantages of a guide dog in a package that can be offered to the other 39,980,000 blind individuals which don't have access to solutions such as the guide dog.

One year later, .lumen is one of the fastest-growing startups in Romania, has almost 40 team members, and already testing with over 200 blind individuals

There are 40 million blind individuals worldwide, expected to grow to over 100 million by 2050. With all technological advancements, when it comes to mobility, the only two solutions are the guide dog and the white cane. The guide dog is unanimously seen as a great solution, but due to multiple drawbacks, is not a scalable one - there are only 20 thousand guide dogs, to 40 million blind individuals.

.lumen builds glasses that mimic the main features of a guide dog, and then some, in a technological package that is easy to maintain, is much cheaper, and can easily be scaled. A solution for the other 39,980,000 blind individuals that can't benefit from the advantages of a guide dog. 

The startup is one year old, and already grew from 9 people to almost 40 and tested the system with over 200 blind individuals with amazing feedback. To cite one tester: "I believed that something like this could exist, but not in our lifetime."

It's the first time a technological solution for advanced mobility of the blind is developed. Despite all the technical advancements, the guide dog is still the only advanced mobility solution. 

.lumen does this by taking autonomous driving and robotics technologies and integrating them in a wearable headset with haptic and auditory feedback. However, a car can accommodate tens of pounds of equipment, due to its size. 

As an analogy, you can ask a guide dog to take you to a door, or take you to an empty seat; and it will do this by pulling your hand. You can ask the .lumen glasses the same thing, and it would take you there, but not by pulling your hand, but by "pulling" your head, with auditory and haptic cues. This is just one of the multiple features continuously developed at .lumen, together with the blind.

All of these required a custom redevelopment of autonomous driving and robotics technologies from the ground up, that put together over 30 engineers, scientists, psychologists, and industrial designers.

.lumen is a Social Impact startup, aligned with UN’s SDGs. As it is positioned as the only solution for the blind which targets the mobility sector. Better mobility of the blind results in better education, better jobs, and better social life.

Directly aligned with the UN’s SDGs, .lumen has two direct goals, specifically: 

• Goal 8 – promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, with target 8.5 as core, and
• Goal 10, reducing inequality, with specific targets 10.2 and 10.7

Indirectly, .lumen reaches Goals 4, ensuring quality educational opportunities for all, and Goal 11, making human settlements inclusive.

To maximize the impact, .lumen has a 4-step plan:

Step 1: Understand the issue, prototype, test and validate a technical solution, and prepare it for market entry.

Step 2: Market entry in countries with high purchasing power, to further fund Research & Development.

Step 3: Market entry in countries with medium-income, with a reduced-price technology.

Step 4: Market entry in emerging markets and in new