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Luminous white cane: smart innovation by father and son

For many years, Peter Meuleman (61), ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø alumnus Information Technology and TEMA, has been working as a coach for innovative ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø student teams. Together with his son Tijmen (20), an Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation student at Tilburg University, he has now developed the LumiCane, a white cane that is equipped with integrated lighting. The design - the result of many hours of fine-tuning, consultation and further development - is certainly not a simple matter of 'stick a light on'. The LumiCane increases the visibility of users and thus offers blind and visually impaired people a sense of security and freedom of movement. In addition to its social relevance, the project also shows the increasingly close collaboration between Eindhoven University of Technology (ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø) and Tilburg University.

When he went out with a white cane for the first time one evening in 2012 – the year that Peter, as he calls it, came out as a visually impaired person – he realized that with his traditional cane he was not visible to others in the dark. The cane is an indispensable tool to help other identify a visual impairment in addition to help guide the user. Because there was no variant with integrated lights on the market, Peter felt the need to develop something like this himself. But - in the middle of coming to terms with his condition - he lacked the focus and the time. Every year when it started to get darker again, I thought about the cane. In the end, the inventor in me won and we got to work, he says laughing next to his son Tijmen in a room on the campus where he graduated in 1994 from the – at the time - Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Visual cacophony

He refers to his career as a researcher at the Philips Natlab where he worked as a researcher for many years with great pleasure and enthusiasm. First generating patents, inventing things and later as a system architect at Philips Healthcare where I was involved in the development of X-ray equipment for heart and brain surgery. A wonderful time, he looks back. Unfortunately, his declining eyesight due to retinitis pigmentosa, or tunnel vision, forced him to quit his job in 2017. I feel like I just have a full view, but that's not right. My brain just fills in the missing part of the field of vision.  So I can't rely on that part, because it's one big visual cacophony, a kind of theme park with blinking and flickering and moving images, he describes his condition. But it just comes down to being blind. Or at least extremely visually impaired.

Tipping point

Saying goodbye to his job was a difficult time in which he had to both let go of his work and accept that he had to live on with an irreversible eye disease. In his own family, he more or less admitted that his eyesight was getting worse and worse. And especially because of the strong reactions from those around him, he regarded the future bleakly . The tipping point came just before Sinterklaas in 2012, when my nine-year-old daughter suddenly said: Dad, you're going blind, aren't you? My first reaction was to soften and deny it, to protect her, I thought, but even more so myself. But when she said, That must be difficult, I suddenly saw the difference with the nightmare and horror I made of it myself. A big difference, because 'difficult' is manageable and tangible, something I could learn to deal with – although also painful and complicated. The comment afterwards: Dad, if you go blind, we'll get a dog, gave me just that push towards acceptance. It was the space of thought, that mindset, that helped me a lot to accept it, as well as the help of my family, specialists and therapy. You can't do something like this on your own.

Of vital importance

Together with his son Tijmen, who studies Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at Tilburg University, he decided two and a half years ago to take the development of the cane seriously. One in three people with a visual impairment has to deal with a serious accident in his or her life because they are often noticed too late or not at all in traffic as pedestrians. Tijmen: In addition to the tactile function, the message to the environment: 'Be careful, I'm blind, I can't anticipate well', is perhaps even more important. By just putting on a vest or attaching a light to the cane, you are not recognized as visually impaired. And that visibility and recognizability is of vital importance, he explains the need for the lighting on the cane. Tijmen won the audience award with the LumiCane in May this year in the finals of the Tilburg University Challenge. The jury, which consisted of top entrepreneurs, was very charmed by the innovative character, the involvement of the target group and the no-nonsense approach.

Impact

The LumiCane is now being developed by an entire team; a mix of young guns and very experienced entrepreneurs. The prototype is ready, the cane is recognizable both day and night as an official white cane and can be used in all weather conditions. The tool – which works on a battery – has a user-friendly, ‘vision-less’ operation and has different types of tips, such as a roller ball or touch point, that can be adapted to the user's needs. It was, and is, a big challenge for us to come up with a good design, while the quality of life of people who will use the stick can get a huge boost. It really has an impact. With the estimated number of about 18,000 to 20,000 seriously visually impaired and blind residents in this region alone, Peter expects that this group will be a lot more mobile and visible with the help of the cane. Because without a luminous cane, there is a higher threshold to go outside. That stick can lighten up their lives, both figuratively and literally.

Developments

The development of the cane is the first innovation project of Videlio, the foundation that Peter founded together with fellow visually impaired John Willemse with the aim of advocacy for the blind and visually impaired. We actually want to use our developments to finance new developments. In addition, there are already many ideas in which we also involve people from the target group itself. Blind and visually impaired people who live life to the fullest, as well as entrepreneurs and other interested parties who think this is a beautiful design, are now joining in. People with a lot of experience who are now retired but would love to contribute. That is very supportive and inspiring, says Peter. In March, Tijmen pitched this idea during the ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø x Tilburg University Startup Night, with the appropriate theme 'Innovation in Healthcare'. There he not only gained new inspiration, but also made valuable contacts.

On the market

Neither of them has yet made a statement about when the product will be launched on the market, but according to them it will not take long. Soon focus groups, which consist of people who are also visually impaired or blind, will test the cane. Mobility trainers from the rehabilitation associations teach people how to walk with this cane because that is really a skill. Not only the way you use the product, but you also 'speak' a different 'language' with this cane - at least in the evening and at night. That testing phase is a careful process that needs to be properly supervised. The production of the mechanical and electronic parts is partly outsourced. When we receive them, we can assemble the luminous cane ourselves. If all goes well, we can be on the market very quickly, Tijmen suspects.

Perfect combination

With the technical and material knowledge of ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø and the entrepreneurial spirit that Tijmen brings from Tilburg University, father and son form a complementary and powerful duo. They both look back on an intensive and special collaboration in which they spent many hours - at all times of the day - puzzling and talking about the cane. It makes a difference that I moved into a student room last week, because we continued 24/7, Tijmen laughs. Developing a beautiful product with someone I know so well, while enjoying a glass of good Scotch whisky every now and then, involves a much more personal and in-depth way of reflecting than with an ordinary companion, he says as he looks at his father.  His enthusiasm, and daring to acknowledge and follow that, I think that's very nice to see in you, Peter gives back to his son who, according to him, has the same drive for innovation as he does. But he is more of an entrepreneur than I am. So, together we form a perfect combination, he concludes.