Build
Apps, tools, prototypes, and experiments designed to solve practical problems.
A public laboratory
Open
Independence
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
Four ways in
Everything here fits somewhere in this shape. Some pieces move between categories over time.
Learn
Accessibility insights, technology reviews, independent-living ideas, and lessons from the development process.
Live
Practical discussions about autonomy, support, employment, communication, daily life, and personal choice.
Imagine
New possibilities for AI, assistive technology, media, interfaces, and the future of independent living.
Featured apps
Real tools, built to expand independence.
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.
- Artificial IntelligenceReleased
AiVi — See & Speak
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 app - CommunicationReleased
Kaidence — Speak Genius
An 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 app - EducationReleased
TypeRight — Type Together
A 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 app - AccessibilityRetired
Mirebound
Mirebound 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 app - EducationReleased
Open Builder
Open 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 app
Latest from Open Independence
Recent signals
- Project update
Open Builder — release
Open 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.
- Project update
Visual Narrator — release
Visual Narrator watches a video alongside you and narrates what is happening — action, places, people, and on-screen text — so the description arrives in time with the scene rather than after it.
- Article
Why We Sometimes Write Letters Instead of Code
Technology is only one part of expanding independence. Sometimes the work begins by protecting the services, opportunities, and support systems that make independence possible.
- Article
ASL Projects at Open Independence: Signing Should Be for Everyone
Two projects — Sign Sense and ASL Speaker — are working to make American Sign Language easier to learn, use, and share across blind, sighted, Deaf, and hearing users.
- Project update
Career Compass — release
Career Compass helps people build a resume around transferable strengths and then find work that fits their real needs — accommodations, schedule, remote options, and physical demands — instead of matching on job title alone.
- Project update
SpeakEasy Translator — release
SpeakEasy Translator listens through the microphone in one language and speaks the translation aloud in another in near real time, with simple from/to language pickers and no reading required.
Follow the Experiment
Occasional signals from the lab.
Receive occasional project releases, new ideas, and lessons from the Open Independence lab. No frequent sends, no tracking pixels.
Technology should adapt to people — not require people to adapt to it.