From the Struggles of Studying to a Global Innovation: Egyptian Blind Man Develops 'ScribeMe'

Karen Mourad lost her sight five years ago, but during a vacation in Kenya in June, the 16-year-old Egyptian girl suddenly felt as though she had regained her vision, thanks to an app developed by her brother that describes safari experiences through an audiovisual narrative, according to Reuters.

Using the AI-powered app, which is integrated into glasses produced by Meta, Karen enjoyed continuous commentary on the details of the surrounding animals, the distance separating her from them, and their actions, providing her with a comprehensive mental image of the scenes and allowing her to sense the atmosphere.

Karen described the app, “Scribe Me,” which is specifically designed for the totally blind and is currently used by thousands of people in 140 countries: “At the time, I felt it was something impossible to happen, but I truly felt like I could see.”

Mark began complaining about vision problems in 2018. Tests conducted in Egypt and abroad yielded no definitive diagnosis, but merely warned that he would lose his sight due to a rare and intractable condition affecting the optic nerve, without specifying a timeline for when this would occur.

Karen’s condition deteriorated over six months, while Mark’s worsened over approximately three years.

Their mother, Marian Morris, was shocked and did not know what to do. She would make up excuses to go out and cry before returning to their home in the Manial district of Cairo.

Education was one of the most difficult challenges the family faced. Mark struggled to learn physics and chemistry at school, as the screen-reading apps he used failed to describe charts, tables, and equations.

Mark reached out to app developers abroad who were working on similar solutions, but none of them responded. He taught himself programming through tutorials on YouTube.

Neil Taqdir helped him in technology competitions, including the 2024 AI Assistive Technologies Hackathon, an initiative by Vodafone Egypt to provide tools for people with disabilities, which helped attract a co-founder and expand the scope of “Scribe Me” far beyond simple document scanning.

The app currently answers questions in real time via the smartphone camera and operates in about 20 languages, including Arabic, addressing a gap Mark identified in all competing apps. The app was subsequently integrated into Meta’s smart glasses, allowing blind users to keep their hands free to carry a cane. For Karen, the app helps her find her classroom, recognize stores, choose her clothes, and even study. Mourad Sedky, Mark’s father, said, “If someone had sat with me four years ago and told me that my son and daughter would be where they are today, I might have laughed and not believed it. Dreams grow bigger as they grow up. As a family, we have stopped saying ‘impossible.’”