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September 27, 2024
Last month, we announced the five inaugural recipients of the new annual Ignite365 Awards as part of the Olympism365 Innovation Hub – a collaboration between the International Olympic Committee, Beyond Sport and Women Win. Each of the five is advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in unique ways and will receive an initial grant of $10,000 to support their projects.
Today, meet France’s touch2see which is helping make attending live sporting events more inclusive and accessible to visually impaired fans. Its Ignite365 Award-winning project is a touch-sensitive tablet that enhances the in-person sport experience by providing automated audio descriptions and details of the on-pitch action through magnetic cursors and vibrations.
We spoke to Founder and CEO Arthur Chazelle about touch2see’s beginnings, the importance of accessibility in live sports and leveraging AI-tech to improve inclusion.
How did the idea for touch2see come about?
touch2see was originally born out of a video from Bogotá, Colombia. In this video, a sighted person describes a sports match to his blind friend using touch. When I saw this video, it immediately made sense. A match is essentially visual, so it seemed natural to convey it through touch. I wanted to recreate the principle using an automated tablet based on sports data. The idea I had was that, once automated, the solution could expand across around the world.
Can you explain more about how the tablets work?
The tablet allows users to interact with their environment and fully experience the stadium atmosphere through its touch and audio interface. A magnetic cursor reproduces the ball position in real time while vibration functionality reflects the intensity of the game. Lastly, an audio description provides precise information about the game. The tablets can be used autonomously throughout the stadium, and can even be personalized to a fan’s club colors.
What is the current state of accessibility to sport for the visually impaired?
Accessibility to sporting events for the visually impaired is very limited, if not non-existent. The reason for this is that, because of their disability, this audience requires an adapted medium, and unfortunately, audio description is extremely rare if not non-existent.
The sports industry is experiencing a real upheaval, particularly in terms of ecology and social commitment, and touch2see is one of the new solutions being put forward. Above all, this is changing people’s lives as illustrated through our feedback. “We’re now experiencing the match truly; we’re living it. We have the ball by the end of our fingers. We feel everything,” said one user.
What other challenges do visually impaired fans in France face and how is touch2see addressing them?
There are several things in the way of visually impaired people in stadiums and live sports events, such as ticketing, a lack of commentary specific to visually impaired people and poor venue accessibility. Our job is to enable the visually impaired to follow sporting events. This includes, of course, the development of the touch2see tablet. It also includes close liaisons with the visually impaired community, which is essential if we are to serve them in the best possible way.
How are innovations such as yours using tech to address global issues and the SDGs?
The societal challenge we face is colossal. We need to equip a huge number of sporting events to make sport fully accessible to all. We are responding to this challenge by using sports data to automate the solution. In other words, we are using sports data that already exists in the sports industry and re-exporting it to make new use of it.
The tablet has been used at some recent major sporting events like the 2023 Rugby World Cup. These sporting events have a global reach and we are extremely proud, with touch2see as such a young project, to have had the honor of being able to take part in some events. Our message of accessibility and inclusion resonates all over the world with these events and brings us closer to our ultimate goal of making sport fully accessible to blind people all over the world!
What’s the future for touch2see?
We want to strengthen our presence in France where we have a very active blind community that helps us enormously. This year, we also want to start rolling out our first tablets abroad. In two years, we have produced four functional versions of the tablets and today we have fully functional tablets that we want to use in stadiums for a while before potentially upgrading them.
What does being selected by the Olympism365 Innovation Hub mean to your organization and how will it help boost your impact?
The innovation we’re bringing is a breakthrough innovation. It’s a world first and the support of the Olympism365 Innovation Hub gives us unrivaled legitimacy in the sporting world, which will enable us to accelerate our development and impact. The funding will help us complete the development of tech for the tablet and aid in scaling touch2see. It’s a great recognition that we’ll be using to help us achieve our mission.
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