The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) has launched its myNCBI Smart Hub skill on Alexa-enabled Amazon and Google Home devices to assist the estimated 55,000 people in Ireland who are blind or visually impaired in Ireland.

myNCBI Smart Hub is a voice assistant AI-based skill that has a suite of features, including a library with the latest articles on sight loss from national newspapers and magazines, NCBI Labs technology services and advocacy, and the NCBI podcast. Users and their families can also use it to request a referral or call back from an NCBI staff member.

The sight loss charity said the Covid-19 lockdowns showed it needed to provide alternative avenues to its services, and that a portion of visually impaired and blind people in Ireland are often isolated and may not have access or the skills currently to avail of assessments, training, referrals and detailed medical information on sight loss and its conditions.

This is the first time an innovative voice-based platform of scale such as this has been developed in the charity sector. There are many barriers for people with disabilities and we wanted to remove some financial and location restrictions to our services and supports," said Kyan O'Mahoney, CTO at NCBI.

"From research, we knew that most of our service users have either an Alexa-enabled or Google device in their home already so we opted to design and build the myNCBI Smart Hub to allow us to assist them directly on these platforms, whilst also creating a ‘path of least resistance’ to technology for the older generation who are predominately new to sight loss.”

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“The use of disruptive technology enables us to expand and further reach and help people who are blind or live with visual impairments. The launch of myNCBI Smart Hub will have profound impacts to support people with disabilities world-wide.”

O'Mahoney added that the Smart Hub was built to be completely white labelled, so that it can be implemented across multiple charities cheaply and quickly.

"We also chose to partner with Irish-based Cation Consulting as the AWS Conversational AI Partner who worked with our team to enable us to deliver our services in an easy-to-use conversational manner for our service users," he said.

Dennis Stansbury, Alexa UK Country Manager, said: “We’re delighted that customers in Ireland can now access myNCBI through Alexa. The myNCBI skill is another great way that Alexa is helping our blind or vision impaired customers feel more independent and connected by simply using voice commands.”

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (19 May), NCBI is giving away Amazon 500 Echo Dot (4th generation) devices with Alexa to support those with disability and their families. Offered on a first come first served basis, email Smarthub@ncbi.ie to avail and learn more about how to access and use myNCBI Smart Skill.

For those with access to an Alexa-enabled device or Google Home device, myNCBI Smart Hub can easily be enabled from the Amazon Skill section of the Amazon app or the Google Action section of the Google App.

Once enabled, the full suite of features can be accessed for free by linking the skill to a myNCBI account.

Photo: Former Rose of Tralee Aine Sullivan at the launch of myNCBI Smart Hub. (Pic: Andres Poveda)