A maker and technologist by trade, Franklin Williams has spent his career working with pharma and consumer clients alike, from oncology, rare disease and mental health to brands such as P&G, Citi and Cadillac.
At Area 23, he was integral to the creation of the Eyedar innovation in partnership with Horizon Therapeutics. This first-of-its-kind app teaches the blind to visualize their world leveraging the phenomenon of echolocation — using the sense of hearing to spatially map one’s surroundings. Using the newly available LIDAR 3-D technology in iPhones, Eyedar maps a user’s environment and translates it into audio information. With around 50 million blind people in the world and LIDAR technology increasingly available, Eyedar can change the lives of an unprecedented proportion of the blind community by making echolocation a learnable and accessible skill.
