Oswald Labs

Oswald Labs

Oswald Labs' logo since December 2017
Formerly	Oswald Foundation (2016–2017)
Company type	Private
Industry	Software
Founded	15 August 2016; 8 years ago (2016-08-15) in New Delhi, India
Founders	Anand Chowdhary Nishant Gadihoke
Headquarters	New Delhi , India
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Anand Chowdhary, CEO
Products	Agastya (JavaScript library and plugin) Shravan (Mobile operating system) Valmiki (Browser extension)
Services	Startup accelerator
Website	oswaldlabs.com

Oswald Labs (formerly Oswald Foundation) is a Dutch-Indian based accessibility technology company that builds products for individuals with disabilities.^[1][2] It specializes in enterprise web accessibility, offers smartphone apps, and also runs a startup accelerator.^[3][4][5] It was established in 2016 by Anand Chowdhary, Nishant Gadihoke, and Mahendra Raghuwanshi after their product, Oswald Extension, won an event at the AngelHack hackathon in New Delhi.^[6]

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Chowdhary stated that he believed "Oswald (Labs) can enable a Web 4.0, a web centered around accessibility and equality".^[7][8] Oswald Labs is named in honor of Oswald Berkhan, the German physician who first identified dyslexia in 1881.^[9]

History

Chowdhary at a Facebook event in July 2017

Chowdhary and Gadihoke started working together as students at The Mother's International School, as part of their computer club, MINET, which Chowdhary presided over.^[10] Chowdhary shared his idea of developing an accessibility tool with Gadihoke, and they decided to develop the extension during the AngelHack Hackathon Delhi in 2016.

After the development of the tool, Chowdhary and Gadihoke purchased the domain oswald.foundation on 14 August 2016 and founded Oswald Labs as Oswald Foundation on 15 August 2016 along with Mahendra Singh Raghuwanshi, Chowdhary's partner in previous ventures.^[11] Oswald Labs won an award at Startup India Rocks in Bengaluru and is a part of IBM's Global Entrepreneur Program.^[12][13] They are also incubated in the London- and Berlin-based EyeFocus Accelerator, a startup accelerator program for companies developing for living with visual impairment.^[14]

On 8 April 2017, the organization qualified to the finals of The Economic Times's Catapoolt Changemakers Challenge after winning the first round in Delhi.^[15] On 17 and 18 June 2017, they organized BharatHacks, a hackathon to solve India-specific problems, in collaboration with DigitalOcean, IBM, the Delhi-NCR chapter of Facebook Developer Circles, HackerEarth, and other technology companies.^[16][17] In June 2017, they raised ₹100,000 in a crowdfunding campaign.^[18][19]

In September 2017, the firm moved parts of their operation to Enschede, Netherlands^[20] and in December 2017, Oswald Foundation was renamed to Oswald Labs to focus on research and development.^[21][22] In December 2017, they launched a startup accelerator for early-stage startups.^[23]

In October 2018, Oswald Labs exhibited smartphone apps for people with disabilities at the Dutch Design Week, in collaboration with 4TU, the consortium of Dutch technical universities.^[24][25]

In 2020, Chowdhary stepped down as CEO to start a new Swiss company Koj that offers a furniture subscription service with Carlo Badini, former CEO of Cleverclip.^[26]

Products and services

Agastya

Agastya is a cross-platform JavaScript library and web accessibility plug-in for websites.^[27] It adds support for keyboard navigation, automatic generation for alternate text for images using computer vision, and font adjustment.^[28] It also includes a mode that adjusts the color temperature of the display to reduce eye strain and disruption of sleep patterns (like the program f.lux), a night mode that converts a webpage to a dark theme, and a dyslexia-friendly mode that uses Open Dyslexic and dyslexia-friendly colors.^[29] For uses with visual impairment, it has a built-in screen reader with summarization.^[30][31] Websites can also access analytics about their user's disabilities. It is available for free for websites with less than 10,000 pageviews per month, and has a subscription model for larger websites.^[32]

Shravan

Shravan is a set of research-based products for smartphones.

Shravan OS

Shravan OS is an operating system for smartphones and tablet computers based on the Android mobile platform. It uses vibrational and speech feedback as its primary user interface and is more accessible than regular smartphone operating systems.^[33][34] It can be used by people with dyslexia or visual impairment, senior citizens, and illiterates.^[35] It is also reportedly the first smartphone operating system with built-in Digital India technologies like Aadhaar integration and Unified Payments Interface payments. It works in over 25 native Indian languages.^[36][37] Shravan OS powers the affordable smartphone from Oswald Labs, Shravan Phone.^[38]

Augmenta11y

Augmenta11y

Developer(s)	Oswald Labs
Initial release	May 2019; 5 years ago (2019-05)
Operating system	Android, iOS
Available in	1 languages
List of languages English
Type	Accessibility
License	Proprietary software
Website	oswaldlabs.com/platform/shravan/apps/augmenta11y/

Augmenta11y is a mobile app that which helps users with dyslexia read more easily.^[39][40] It uses augmented Reality and optical character recognition to display computer-generated imagery on top of books, signage, and other text in a dyslexia-friendly mode.^[41][42] Users choose their preferred typeface, line height, letter spacing and color scheme, and then point their cameras to pieces of text.^[43] The app also incorporates Agastya for read aloud functionality and is available on iOS, iPadOS and Android.^[44][45] It was developed by students from Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management & Engineering as part of their bachelor thesis and presented at Dutch Design Week.^[46][47][48]

The word Augmenta11y is a portmanteau of Augmented Reality and a11y, the numeronym for accessibility. In a research study, it was found that using Augmenta11y reduces reading times for school students with dyslexia by 21%.^[49][50]

Valmiki

Valmiki, formerly known as Oswald, is a browser extension based on independent research by the British Dyslexia Association and the World Wide Web Consortium to allow people with dyslexia or visual impairment access the web.^[51][52] Users with dyslexia can change the typeface to Open Dyslexic and colors to dyslexia-friendly colors, and visually impaired users can listen to the content available on a webpage.^[53] It also allows users to customize a webpage's typography and design based on their reading preferences.^[54][55] It is a free and open-source software available in the Chrome Web Store.^[56]

Accelerator

In early 2018, the organization announced Oswald Labs Accelerator, a startup accelerator for early-stage startups.^[57][58] The program is equity-free and offers coworking spaces, legal support, business development and technology consultancy, and partnerships with universities and companies. Oswald Labs has partnered with Amazon Web Services to offer cloud credits.^[59]

References

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34. "Anand Chaudhary - Necessity Leading To Innovation". Humans of Entrepreneurship. 25 October 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
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39. "Augmenta11y · Dyslexia-friendly reading app · Shravan Apps by Oswald Labs". oswaldlabs.com. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
40. "Augmenta11y – Dyslexia-friendly reading app - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
41. "Episode 83: Tushar Gupta and Mudita Sisodia chat about Augmenta11y, the app they created that helps people with dyslexia read". Gibby Booth. 26 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
42. Scherlund, Helge (3 May 2019). "Helge Scherlund's eLearning News: These 20-year-olds developed an app to help students with dyslexia learn better | App - YourStory". Helge Scherlund's eLearning News. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
43. "#TechThursdays - Augmenta11y, an app developed by students, helps children with dyslexia read better". newzhook.com. 23 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
44. "Assistive Technology Update - A fast-paced weekly update for AT professionals and enthusiasts: ATU414 - Flashback to Days Past". atupdate.libsyn.com. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
45. "Augmenta11y". App Store. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
46. Gupta, Tushar. "Tushar Gupta - Product Designer, Engineer, and Entrepreneur". www.tushar.work. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
47. NewzHook - Changing Attitudes towards Disability (22 May 2019), #TechThursdays Augmenta11y, an app developed by students, helps children with dyslexia read bett, retrieved 7 June 2019
48. "This app developed by 20-year-old Mumbai students makes use of AR to help dyslexic children read better". The New Indian Express. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
49. Chowdhary, Anand (5 May 2019). "Introducing Agastya 4 + Augmenta11y". Oswald Labs Blog. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
50. "Improving Accessibility for Dyslexic Impairments using Augmented Reality · Oswald Labs". oswaldlabs.com. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
51. "DAISY Consortium's News Brief - # 2016-10b". DAISY Consortium. 1 October 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
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54. "Teens create tool to help dyslexics access web". Inshorts - Stay Informed. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
55. Tarana (14 September 2016). "Two Indian Teenagers Built an App To Help Dyslexic People Use the Internet". The Timeliners. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
56. "Valmiki - Oswald Foundation". Oswald Foundation. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
57. "Oswald Labs Accelerator". oswaldlabs.com. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
58. "Oswald Labs". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
59. "Partners · Oswald Labs Accelerator". oswaldlabs.com. Retrieved 12 June 2018.

External links

• Official website