The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is Ireland’s leading national charity to transform the lives of children and adults who are blind or vision impaired, by seeking to ensure access to the same opportunities, rights, and choices as anyone else in society.

The Possibility Lab is an accessibility initiative working towards overcoming barriers in the built environment, through partnership with businesses and stakeholders.  Launched in 2022, with a one-off donation from Microsoft, the lab aims to utilise technology as an enabler for people who are blind or vision impaired to maximise their independence and participation within the community.

The Lab purchased our Empatheyes VR technology to use for technology training and demonstrations with staff, learners and stakeholders to understand the impact of visual impairment and utilise our software to simulate accessibility issues within the build environment.  The core staff were trained by our Eye Clinician and CTO to help them use the power of VR to design buildings and environments from an accessible and visual viewpoint, in order to reduce barriers for visually impaired users.

This is an exciting use of Empatheyes technology and we look forward to developing a long-term partnership with the Lab and wider NCBI group of companies who share our vision of making the world accessible using virtual reality to demonstrate the impact of visual impairment.