The film
Three movements: Story, Engineering, Vision. The founder tells it in his own recorded voice. The photos, his footage and the kit's part files are real; the motion graphics are drawn in code; no image or footage in it is AI generated.
It does not play until you press play. Captions are off until you turn them on in the player. The audio described version opens up the pictures in words, read by a synthetic voice (Google Gemini text to speech), not by the founder.
Download the transcript as text
The whole film in words
Every word spoken and every word on screen, in order, with a description of each picture. The founder speaks in his own recorded voice. No line in the film is a cloned voice. The audio description is read by a synthetic voice (Google Gemini text to speech), not by the founder. Every photo, the founder's footage and the kit's part files are real; the motion graphics are drawn in code; no image or footage in this film is AI generated.
Story
00:00
Picture: Black. A slow ring of warm amber light pulses out from the centre, the haptic pulse of the kit.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: Technology connected the rest of humanity, but left them behind.
Sound: soft haptic thumps.
00:06
Label on screen: Our belief.
On screen: Accessibility should not be expensive.
On screen: If it is expensive, it is not truly accessible.
On screen: It is just another barrier.
00:15
On screen: Third Eye Kit
On screen: Feel the world before it touches you.
00:19
Picture: Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, the founder, from Afghanistan, with a short beard, sits in a suit and speaks to us.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: Hello, my name is Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, and my story begins at the Kabul airport
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: in August 2021.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: Once we got there, an explosion changed everything.
00:29
Picture: As he speaks of the dark, the picture sinks into deep blue, then returns to his face.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: I woke up 15 days later, and everything was dark.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: For 8 months I lived in total blindness, in a blind center.
00:36
Label on screen: Said Mohaddes Sadeqi.
On screen: I lost my sight in the war and was blind in both eyes. I recovered sight in one eye. I am still blind in the other.
00:45
Picture: the founder, Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, speaking to us.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: There I met with people of every kind: children, young adults, the elderly.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: Some are blinded by war, others by accident, by illness, or by time itself, all living in a world that often pretends not to see them.
01:01
Picture: the founder, Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, speaking to us.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: I saw their strength, their honesty, their calm. When you lose sight, you learn to hear the truth in voices, to feel kindness in the air, to move by trust.
01:14
Picture: the founder, Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, speaking to us.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: These people taught me what courage really means, and how forgotten they are in our modern world.
01:21
Picture: A photo: the first prototype on a table, goggles with ultrasonic sensors and a small fan on the headband, and white shoes with sensor modules on the toes.
Label on screen: History: the first prototype.
On screen: The first Third Eye, built in Afghanistan.
01:28
Label on screen: History: the first prototype.
On screen: Smart glasses: obstacles at head height.
On screen: Smart shoes: a vibration at the feet.
On screen: Smart gloves: indoors, at home and at work.
01:42
Picture: A simple drawing: an obstacle slides toward a person, and the warning grows stronger as it nears.
Label on screen: History: the first prototype.
On screen: Ultrasonic sensors warned at about 70 cm, stronger as the obstacle came closer.
On screen: The glasses used a fixed distance. The gloves, made for indoors, could be set by hand.
Sound: a beep that quickens as the obstacle nears.
01:52
Label on screen: History: the first prototype.
On screen: A GPS and GSM pack sent live location to family with a phone call. No strong internet needed.
On screen: A light sensor lit LEDs in the dark, so others could see the wearer. Built on Arduino.
02:00
Picture: Photos from the blind center in Herat: a blind man wears the goggles while the founder explains; the same test from another angle, others watching; a blind man in dark glasses at a desk, the goggles beside him.
Label on screen: History: field test, Herat.
On screen: Tested at a blind center in Herat, with the people it is for.
On screen: One user called it his magical friend.
02:13
Picture: The founder reads from a page to a seated group, the kit in hand; then he holds the goggles, explaining them to a seated elder.
Label on screen: History.
On screen: Taken into the community.
02:20
Picture: At the TEKNOFEST booth, the shoes, the goggles and an Arduino build on the table while a judge tries a wristband. Then a news article from Anadolu Agency.
Label on screen: History.
On screen: TEKNOFEST 2022 finalist, Best Presentation.
On screen: In the press: Anadolu Agency, 4 September 2022.
02:28
On screen: Tens of kits built by our team.
On screen: Hundreds more built by others, because the design is open.
Engineering
02:35
On screen: Engineering
On screen: Real now: the second generation, in build, nearing MVP.
02:39
Picture: A 3D rendering of the second generation kit, built from its real part files: a collar strip, a waist belt with a sensor pod at the front, two ankle bands, and small motor pods along each band. The parts come together and the kit turns slowly.
Label on screen: Rendered from the real part files.
On screen: A collar, a belt and two ankle bands.
On screen: Twenty vibration motors.
Sound: soft haptic thumps.
02:52
Picture: The belt pod's drawing, with each sensor marked in turn.
Label on screen: Sensor head, belt pod.
On screen: Two time of flight grids: forward, 4 by 4 at 60 Hz; ground, 8 by 8 at 15 Hz, tilted 35 degrees.
On screen: A 24 GHz radar, for moving things only, over UART at 256000 baud.
On screen: Two sonars, left and right, 20 degrees out, their 5 V echo through a divider.
On screen: An IMU for orientation, and to tell the wearer's own movement apart from what the radar sees.
Sound: a tick for each sensor, a sweep for the radar, a ping for the sonars.
03:10
Picture: The real circuit schematic of the belt hub, slowly panning, with the two controllers marked and a line drawn between them.
Label on screen: From the record's KiCad schematic.
On screen: RP2350 reflex controller: the warning path.
On screen: ESP32-S3 spine: Bluetooth LE to the phone.
On screen: An isolation boundary: the warning works with no phone and no internet.
03:23
Picture: The kit turns. The collar glows amber with a pulse, then the belt, then each ankle.
Label on screen: Rendered from the real part files.
On screen: One DRV2605L closed loop driver per motor.
On screen: Three multiplexers, twenty channels: belt 8, collar 4, ankles 8.
On screen: Where it buzzes is where it would hit you. Stronger means closer.
Sound: soft haptic thumps.
03:39
Picture: Exploded drawings of the belt pod, the motor pod and the chest cradle, from the record's part files.
Label on screen: From the record's OpenSCAD parts.
On screen: Magnetic pogo pin breakaways between the bands.
On screen: A protected 3.7 V LiPo, 3000 to 5000 mAh; TP4056 and DW01; a 5 V boost for sonar and radar; an inline fuse; a 3.3 V regulator.
On screen: Belt pod about 128 by 62 by 28 mm, a design value.
03:52
Picture: A line of light travels from the world, through the sensors and the controller, to a motor on the skin.
On screen: From the world to the skin in about 70 milliseconds.
On screen: Modeled, until the bench measures it.
Sound: soft ticks, then a thump.
Vision
04:01
On screen: Vision
On screen: In development.
04:05
Picture: the founder, Said Mohaddes Sadeqi, speaking to us.
Label on screen: Planned: the online university and the social platform.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: I'm the founder and president of Third Eye Worldwide, a global house for the visually impaired. Its mission is to connect and empower every blind person around the world.
Said Mohaddes Sadeqi: It will serve as an online university, a social platform, and a technology brand that makes assistive tools for the visually impaired.
04:23
Picture: A screen recording from the website: a top-down street, a person walks along the sidewalk, and a small body beside it lights in amber at the collar, then the belt, as obstacles come near.
Label on screen: On the website now. The street simulation: in development.
On screen: TEK is a platform, not only a kit.
On screen: Practice in a simulated street. Then live in the real one, in the same language of touch.
04:36
Label on screen: In development.
On screen: A braille or refreshable display.
On screen: An input for the blind person.
On screen: Deeper apps.
On screen: Smart glasses.
On screen: Partnerships.
04:44
On screen: At least 2.2 billion people live with a vision impairment. Source: World Health Organization.
On screen: Nine in ten people with vision loss live in low and middle income countries. Source: Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health, 2021.
On screen: Access to assistive technology can be as low as 3 percent of need. Source: WHO and UNICEF.
On screen: 89 percent of visually impaired people live in low and middle income countries. Source: Bourne and colleagues, The Lancet Global Health, 2017.
05:00
On screen: Anyone, anywhere, can build it: open, affordable, simple to make.
On screen: Ability, talent and passion, not deficit.
On screen: The third eye is the eye of the heart. No one's heart is blind.
On screen: Nothing about us without us.
05:11
On screen: Test it.
On screen: Back the mission.
On screen: Connect us to funders.
On screen: Fund it.
On screen: tek.sadeqi.me
05:19
On screen: The Third Eye Kit is developed by Third Eye Worldwide in collaboration with researchers at Columbia University's Computer Enabled Abilities Lab (CEAL).
On screen: Third Eye Worldwide is an Oregon nonprofit corporation that has filed for IRS recognition of 501(c)(3) status; upon recognition, which is subject to the IRS's discretion, donations are expected to qualify as deductible charitable contributions retroactively.
On screen: Every photo, the founder's footage and the kit's part files are real. The motion graphics are drawn in code. No image or footage in this film is AI generated.