Mozambican inventor bringing the blind smart 'vision'

WHEN Armando Ernesto Chau straps on the futuristic smart glasses that a young Mozambican robotics student is developing in the family dining room, he has a vision of a life less confined to his modest home.

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Chau is the prototype tester for Joao Antonio Rego, a 24-year-old robotics and electronic engineering student driven to provide visually impaired Mozambicans with assistance that goes beyond a simple cane.

Since he lost his sight 20 years ago, the 45-year-old father has not worked and rarely leaves his home in Matola, outside the capital Maputo.

Rego’s electronic glasses — battery-powered devices embedded with sensors that scan for obstacles ahead and emit warning vibrations - offer the promise of new possibilities.

“It is vibrating ... it is those bushes,” Chau said, demonstrating Rego’s Vision Hope 0.2. “Maybe, there is a window here... yes.

“Because of these obstacles, it vibrates. So I go back,” he said. “It stopped. See? Then it says there is something on this side... When I turn, it is quiet.”

Resembling a virtual reality eye mask, this is Rego’s latest prototype since he launched his Vision Hope project in 2021, winning Mozambique’s Young Creative Award for technological innovation the following year.