María José Cervera Martínez: My experience with Eyesynth

At first I listened with my eyes, then I learned to see without seeing, with blindness there are only two things, your hands and your ears. The first time I heard about Eyesynth was through a colleague from ONCE, and I immediately wanted to know what it was.

So I got in touch with Antonio Quesada, and from the first moment I wanted to be part of this project.

I did an apprenticeship with Antonio Quesada and Daniel Fuertes, it was a very amusing virtual reality, and it was surprising to me how they had conceived it, it was like the dynamics of a children’s game with advanced technology.

I have internalized the rumor that you hear every time your eyes look at an object or an obstacle, “pssssssssssss” or “pppppppppps”, depending on the volume of the object, it was as if I was listening to the sea, but that rumor did not prevent me from continuing the conversation with Antonio or Dani, and that fascinated me, I could talk, move, and know what was in front of me.

It was easy to get used to how the glasses work; I firmly believe that a person who is blind or has low vision can be given an autonomy that we did not have before.

Can you imagine what it means for a blind man to be able to detect a table before he stumbles upon it? Or that the glass of water is right in that place?

The more Antonio Quesada told me about all the innovations that could be added in the near future, the more I liked the idea. It was not something closed, but that could evolve and continue to improve.