Have you ever wanted to reach out and help someone but were hesitant or didn’t know where to start? Add to your good deed list by downloading Be My Eyes, a free app dedicated to connecting blind and visually impaired people to sighted volunteers through a video call. With the Be My Eyes app, you can help from the comfort of your own home, or wherever you might be when you take a call.
Spanning over 150 countries and offered in more than 180 languages, Be My Eyes has vastly expanded their reach. The app currently has over 103,000 blind and low-vision users and almost 1.8 million volunteers.
The founder of Be My Eyes, Hans Jørgen Wiberg, who is also visually impaired, first presented his idea in 2012. “Hans came up with the idea because he identified an issue of having to use Skype and FaceTime to talk to families, which wasn’t independent,” said Alexander Hauerslev Jensen, CCO of Be My Eyes.
In just three years, Wiberg app was ready.
With the launch of the app in 2015, Be My Eyes quickly grew among the IOS community. “Just within 24 hours of the launch we had 10,000 volunteers and 1,000 blind users in 30 different countries. It became a phenomenon from day one,” said Jensen.
As the company further developed over the years and worked with companies near and far, they decided they needed to expand.
“We started out in Denmark, but since we work with a lot of U.S. companies, we moved to San Francisco. Now we work with split offices in both Denmark and San Francisco,” said Jensen.
Although Be My Eyes has over 1.7 million volunteers, it never hurts to become once yourself. The feeling when you get your first call makes your heart race with excitement and eagerness. If you are shy or nervous to answer a call, don’t worry, you have plenty of time to practice before you get one.
“It’s not as scary as it sounds. You’ll get a call once a month if you’re lucky,” encouraged Jensen. “Volunteers that sign up will never receive a call in the middle of the night and they will always be paired with someone that speaks the same language as them. Sometimes the way we connect our users is based on language.”
What’s great is the accessibility of the app. You can help someone with an everyday task at your convenience.
“It’s a convenient and flexible way of volunteering. You can volunteer whenever you have time,” said Jensen. “The connection between human generosity and technology is really something. You get a sneak peek into a world that not many people understand.”
