2024-01-04 19:10:46
In recent weeks, strange relief tablets have appeared in the corridors of the National Assembly. Designed by the company FeelObject, whose headquarters are located in Petit-Quevilly (Seine-Maritime), near Rouen, this device called Virtuoz is intended for visitors suffering from visual impairments.
The company founded by Céline Favy-Huin and Sylvain Huin near Toulouse in the mid-2010s did not wait for January 4, World Braille Day, to take an interest in this question. And it has since developed an innovative concept of 3D tactile and voice maps which allows visually impaired or blind people to move around independently in buildings they have never visited.
“On a daily basis, to go from point A to point B, a visually impaired person learns a path by heart, little piece by little piece, by memorizing as many landmarks as possible,” recalls Céline Favy-Huin. But in a new environment, she must be accompanied, if only to know where reception or the toilets are. It’s very restrictive. »
The idea of Virtuoz is therefore to allow them to create a mental representation of each place using small relief pictograms arranged on a map, accompanied by an audio description of the environment. A solution which has already won over the Rouen Museum of Fine Arts or the Kindarena in Rouen but also companies like Orano, the University of Perpignan, hotels and also “the largest amusement park in Europe located in Marne -la-Vallée”, smiles the general director of FeelObject without being able to mention the name of the American firm (we will have recognized Disneyland).
“For the National Assembly, everything started from the fact that I discovered that a blind elected official sat there,” continues Céline Favy-Huin. José Beaurain (RN), from the 4th constituency of Aisne, is in fact the first blind deputy of the Fifth Republic. “We therefore contacted the services of the president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who was very interested. » For the moment, Virtuoz is only offered as part of the guided tours of the Palais-Bourbon. The mobile device and its series of tactile maps are available at the building reception on request.
Coming soon to the Olympic sites
A new stage in the development of the company which is preparing to take on another challenge by equipping certain sites for the next Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris 2024, both for blind athletes and for the general public. “Beyond the international reputation of the event, we especially hope that it will be a fantastic accelerator to make Virtuoz known to as many people as possible, in order to promote accessibility to as many places and businesses as possible,” hopes Céline Favy-Huin.
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