Let's Build This Bridge
My mother has been blind for thirty-eight years. She has built businesses, raised children, navigated a world that was never designed for her, and done it with more grace than most people bring to a trip to the grocery store. She is not helpless. She is not a case study. She is one of the most capable people I have ever known.
And she is falling behind.
Not because she lacks will. Not because the technology doesn't exist. But because the world decided that the future would be screens, and then moved on without looking back to see who couldn't follow.
I want to tell you what it's like to be someone's eyes.
It starts small. "Can you read me this email?" Sure. "Can you check if this payment went through?" Of course. "Can you help me log into this new app they're requiring for my benefits?" Absolutely.
Then it becomes your second life. You're on the phone at 9 PM walking her through a password reset that some website forced because they updated their security policy. You're screenshotting a government form and reading it line by line because the PDF isn't accessible. You're explaining that the button she needs to press is the third one from the left, except it's not a button anymore — they redesigned the app last Tuesday and now it's a swipe gesture. Nobody told her. Nobody told anyone. It just changed.
You learn to feel a quiet kind of rage at how carelessly the digital world is built. Every "improved user experience" is an earthquake for someone who memorized where things were. Every app update is a setback. Every website that requires visual CAPTCHA verification is a locked door with no key.
And through all of it, the best support my mother has ever received was from kind, helpful humans. A woman at the DMV who actually walked her through the process instead of handing her a form she couldn't read. A neighbor who sat with her for an hour to set up her new phone. A stranger at the grocery store who read her the nutrition labels without being asked twice.
Computers are a terrible replacement for human compassion and connection. But here's the thing — those kind humans aren't always there. They can't be. And the systems that are supposed to help? They're built for people who can see.
Here's an experiment, and I mean this seriously. Tonight, go into your room and block out all the light. Turn on Screen Curtain on your phone — it's an accessibility feature that makes the display go completely black while the phone stays on. Now, try to use your phone.
First, try to turn on VoiceOver. Then try to check your email. Read one message. Reply to it. Now download a new app. Find it in the App Store, install it, open it, and log in.
I'll wait.
If you actually did that — and most people won't, because it's uncomfortable, and that discomfort is the entire point — then you just experienced five minutes of what my mother navigates every single day. Except she doesn't get to turn the lights back on. She doesn't get to peek. That's her life.
And she's good at it. Better than you were just now, I promise. Thirty-eight years of practice. But even the best VoiceOver user in the world is still working ten times harder than you are to do the same thing. Every app. Every update. Every new login screen. Every two-factor authentication code that arrives as a tiny six-digit number on a screen she'll never see.
Now let me tell you about the tools that are supposed to help.
Screen readers cost money. Good ones cost real money. JAWS, the industry standard for Windows, runs over a thousand dollars for a license. Braille displays — the kind that let you feel text with your fingertips — start around two thousand and go up to fifteen. Refreshable Braille notetakers? Five to ten thousand dollars.
These aren't luxuries. These are the basic instruments that let a blind person participate in the digital economy. And like most things in the medical and assistive technology world, they are terribly expensive and largely inaccessible without government assistance.
Don't get me started on how difficult it is for a blind person to engage with the United States government. The forms are inaccessible. The websites fail basic screen reader compatibility. The phone trees are labyrinths. The in-person offices require you to fill out printed paperwork. It is a system designed by sighted people, tested by sighted people, and deployed without a single thought for the millions of people who cannot see it.
My mother has dealt with all of this. For decades. With patience I do not possess.
So I'm building something.
It's called The Blind Computer, and the idea is simple: you pick up the phone and call a number. On the other end is an AI assistant that knows you. It knows your name, your schedule, your email, your businesses, your preferences. You talk to it like a person. It talks back. No screen. No app. No gestures to memorize. No updates that rearrange everything overnight.
You say, "Read me my emails." It reads them. You say, "Reply to Linda and tell her Tuesday works." It does. You say, "What's on my calendar this week?" It tells you. You say, "Help me write an invoice for the Peterson consultation." It writes it, reads it back, and sends it when you approve.
Voice is the interface. A phone call is the terminal. The AI is the bridge between a person who cannot see and a world that refuses to be heard.
I want to be clear about something: this computer would be totally unnecessary if our world was not rushing headfirst into the software generation without considering the needs of those who don't have easy access to these tools. Many blind people are thriving in the computer generation — brilliant, technical, capable people who've mastered screen readers and Braille displays and every workaround the sighted world forced them to learn. But just like sighted computer users, there's a level of depth to these machines that most people never approach. For blind users, it requires immense learning just to get your foot in the door.
My mother shouldn't need a computer science degree to check her email. She shouldn't need her son on speed dial every time a website changes its layout. She shouldn't have to wait for a kind stranger to show up at the right moment.
She needs a bridge. Millions of people need this bridge.
Seventy percent of blind Americans are unemployed. Not because they can't work — because the digital tools required to work were never built for them. Forty-three million people worldwide are blind. Nearly three hundred million more have significant visual impairment. Ninety-five percent of the top million websites fail basic accessibility standards.
These aren't edge cases. This is a crisis hiding in plain sight, invisible to a world that only builds for eyes.
This computer is a lifeline for people who truly need to engage with the twenty-first century way of life. Not a replacement for human kindness — we'll always need that. But a reliable, patient, always-available bridge for the moments when there's no kind stranger, no helpful neighbor, no son on the other end of the phone.
My mother taught me that capability has nothing to do with sight. Now I want to build something that proves it.
Let's build this bridge.