{"id":3775,"date":"2020-02-11T15:43:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T23:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/?p=3775"},"modified":"2020-02-11T15:48:05","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T23:48:05","slug":"spotlight-on-zuby-onwuta-turning-personal-problems-into-global-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/spotlight-on-zuby-onwuta-turning-personal-problems-into-global-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on Zuby Onwuta: Turning Personal Problems into Global Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When\nlow vision ended Zuby Onwuta\u2019s military and medical career, he turned his focus\nto engineering and used his problem-solving skills to develop a device that\nallows people to enlarge something, just by thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pursuing A Dream<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Zuby grew up in Onitsha, Nigeria, dreaming of becoming a\nmedical doctor in the United States. After high school, he won the visa lottery\nand boarded a plane with \u201chis dream, $200, and a duffel bag\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he realized that $200 was not enough to fund medical school, he joined the U.S. Army to help fund his education. Two years into his military service, Zuby began to struggle with his vision. He was diagnosed as legally blind due to Stargardt\u2019s Macular Dystrophy, and was medically discharged from the Army. He was no longer able to continue with his dream of becoming a doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Beginnings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Zuby, who had always enjoyed problem solving, decided to go into computer\nengineering. Throughout his education, his eyesight continued to get worse. After\nearning degrees from Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Zuby\nworked for firms such as Goldman Sachs & Co, IBM, and Nokia and served clients\nincluding the White House and NASA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His engineering career came to a halt however when, in his search for answers to his degenerating vision, he went to John Hopkins University and was diagnosed with two additional vision impairments, cone dystrophy, and rod dystrophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning Problems into Solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Zuby was frustrated not only with the effort and expense of gaining his complete diagnosis from 300 different eye care professionals, costing over $500,000 but also with the fourteen years it took to find answers. Determined to aid early diagnosis in others, he developed Kenti<\/a>, an app available in the Apple App Store which shrinks the time it takes to diagnose vision impairments by monitoring children at play over time and detecting patterns of visual decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, Zuby\u2019s skill for problem solving moved him forward. He identified that the downside of current low-vision assistive technology (AT) is its manual operation<\/em>, meaning that users had to activate the device with their hands For those with low-vision, the current solution of using a magnifier is not as intuitive nor responsive as the experience of those who do not have low-vision. The AT which would truly break down visual barriers needed to be hands free, automatic and effortless. <\/strong><\/a>Zuby thought, \u201cIs it possible to think and bring something into focus?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs it possible to think and bring something into focus?\u201d <\/strong> <\/p>Zuby Onwuta<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The result of this question was his development of the Think & Zoom: Brain Control for Blind Assistive Tech<\/a>. The Think & Zoom is an app which works with devices that can read your mind (electroencephalography or EEG<\/strong> readers and Google Glass. It uses the EEG reader to measure brain waves, Think & Zoom then analyzes when the brain is struggling to focus and then provides the appropriate magnification for the user using the associated Google Glass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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