Blind people do not need to see | Santiago Velasquez | TEDxQUT

Why should blind people need to see? There are 285 million people around the world with a vision impairment, and why should they all need to see. Are they broken, or is that just the sighted world’s perspective? In this video you will hear the perspective from a blind person about sight, while getting to look at his cute Guide Dog along the way. In this emotional video, your perceptions, assumptions and current stereotypes about blind people will be challenged. However, don’t worry, you will get to laugh. Santiago Velasquez is the founder of EyeSyght, a budding tech company with a focus on solving one of the biggest accessibility issues in the modern world. Additionally he is a two times participant for the Kokoda challenge, has completed the Oxfam trail-walker, Ride for Life challenge, participated in the Opti Minds challenge, and has also taken part in the Griffith and Google robotics challenge. He is the first visually impaired person to attempt an electrical engineering degree in Australia and has repeatedly been invited to participate in the MIT innovation and entrepreneurship boot-camp. In addition to all of the aforementioned experiences, he was invited to be a Mentor and a judge at the first Hackathon that was run by the Perkins School for the blind in Boston. Massachusetts. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx