Build
Apps, tools, prototypes, and experiments designed to solve practical problems.
A public laboratory
Building technology that expands independence.
Open Independence explores how technology, media, accessibility, and thoughtful design can give people more choices — and help them live life on their own terms.
Our definition
Independence is the freedom to live the life you choose, to the fullest extent possible, on your own terms.
It does not require doing everything alone. It means having meaningful choices, useful tools, appropriate support, and the autonomy to decide what works for you.
What we do
Everything here fits somewhere in this shape. Some pieces move between categories over time.
Apps, tools, prototypes, and experiments designed to solve practical problems.
Accessibility insights, technology reviews, independent-living ideas, and lessons from the development process.
Practical discussions about autonomy, support, employment, communication, daily life, and personal choice.
New possibilities for AI, assistive technology, media, interfaces, and the future of independent living.
Featured apps
Three shipping apps from the Open Independence lab. Each one explores a different way technology can hand more choice back to the person using it.
An AI visual interpreter that discusses what your camera sees in real time. Point your camera at anything and have a live, voice-driven conversation about it, with customizable AI agents, spatial audio voice commands, and task-specific focus modes. Also available as a downloadable Mac app. AiVi is now being built in partnership with Embr Technologies (embrintellegence.ai) to make the app as good as it can be, with the first build from that partnership rolling out to beta testers soon.
Open live appAn AI-powered augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app that predicts and speaks text. It learns user patterns to predict what someone wants to say, with a text-only mode and a picture mode that pairs images with words to support diverse communication styles.
Open live appA gamified educational app that teaches typing skills to users of all abilities, using audio and video to create an engaging, accessible learning experience for diverse learners.
Open live appMirebound is an audio-first adventure game. The world is built entirely from sound: spatial cues tell you where paths open, ambient layers reveal rooms and weather, and characters speak with distinct voices and directions. You move with the keyboard or gamepad, interact with a single action button, and listen to understand where you are. The objective is to explore the town of Mirebound, complete small quests for its residents, and piece together what happened to the place through conversation and discovery. Because every clue is delivered as audio or text, the game can be played with eyes closed, with a screen reader, or with visuals on.
Open live appOpen Builder is a live, hands-on program for turning ideas into working apps, games, websites and tools using AI development agents. It is designed first for blind and visually impaired builders and works for anyone with little or no coding experience. Every lesson asks you to do something, and the course ends with your own published project.
Open live appLatest from Open Independence
Language Explorer — release
Language Explorer teaches useful, contextual vocabulary through real-world situations. Learners encounter phrases and words inside scenarios such as catching a bus, ordering food, asking about a job, or understanding a lease. It is currently a prototype in active development and is not yet a finished public release.
Jen — Wellness Planner — release
Jen is a supportive wellness-planning tool based on the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) model. It helps you identify what keeps you well, notice early changes, build a personal action plan, and organize strategies for harder times. Jen is designed to be calm, autonomy-centered, and non-medicalized: it supports reflection and planning, not diagnosis or treatment. It does not replace professional care, therapy, or emergency help.
Just Tell Me — release
Just Tell Me is a focused food-label assistant within the AIVIS Vision mobile experience. A user asks a specific question—such as whether a product contains an allergen, what the ingredients are, what the nutrition facts say, whether an expiration or best-by date is visible, or what product a barcode identifies—then points the rear camera at the package or selects up to six photos. Because food information is often spread across different sides of a package, the app combines evidence from multiple camera angles or selected images, then gives a short spoken and on-screen answer supported only by what is visible. It can read ingredient lists, identify potential allergens from visible ingredients, summarize nutrition labels, locate expiration or best-by dates, and recognize barcodes. For supported food items, verified product information from Open Food Facts may be used when a reliable barcode or product match is available. It must never invent an ingredient, allergen, nutrition value, or date that is not visible or supported. Users should verify critical allergy and food-safety decisions because AI analysis can be incomplete or incorrect. Simple positioning guidance such as move closer, hold steady, or slowly turn the package helps the user capture what the app needs. Other visual questions, such as finding a Start button, reading a price, or comparing two items, are secondary uses.
Howe — Just Ask Howe — release
Howe is a simple assistant for understanding how to do tasks in plain language. A person asks Howe how to do something, and Howe explains it as clear, manageable steps without unnecessary jargon or assumed knowledge. The guiding invitation is simple: just ask Howe.
Beth — release
Beth is a body-double and executive-function assistant. It stays present while a person works, helps define the next manageable action, breaks tasks into smaller steps, checks in at a useful pace, and helps someone recover when attention or energy shifts. The experience is meant to feel collaborative and grounding rather than like a productivity tracker or a generic chatbot.
Cue Interpreter — release
Cue Interpreter is an AI-assisted social-cue and body-language interpretation tool. During or after an interaction, it identifies meaningful observable changes — turning toward or away, leaning closer or farther, nodding, head shaking, pointing, waving, posture changes, increased movement, or a possible attempt to enter or leave the interaction. It always separates what was observed from what it might mean, states its confidence, and offers alternative explanations. It never claims to read minds or presents emotion as fact, because body language varies across people, cultures, disabilities, neurotypes, and situations.
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Technology should adapt to people — not require people to adapt to it.