The Drishti app attempts to help the visually impaired make sense of their surroundings – Tech2

Persistent Systems is a technology services company headquartered in Pune. Every year it hosts a global hackathon called'Semicolons' -- which lasts for 24 hours and comprises self-managed teams who ideate and compete against each other to come up with innovative solutions to everyday problems. This year's theme was Digital Transformation, which saw participation by 45 teams across 11 global centres in 5 countries involving 600 Persistent employees. The winning solution this year was Drishti -- an application which uses advances in deep learning, artificial intelligence, image recognition, person identification, speech-to-text and accessibility technologies to bring value to those who are visually impaired. We spoke to team leader Pandurang Kamat, chief architect -- innovation and R&D at Persistent Systems, who also happens to head the Blockchain division at Persistent Systems.