Egyptian Entrepreneur Creates AI App to Make the World More Accessible

Egyptian Entrepreneur Creates App to Make the World More Accessible

Karen Morad went blind five years ago, but on a family holiday in Kenya this June, the 16-year-old Cairo schoolgirl felt like she could see again — thanks to an app built by her own brother that described the safari scene around her in real time.

Using the assistive app paired with Meta smart glasses, Karen received a running commentary on the animals nearby, their distance from her, and what they were doing, letting her build a full picture of the scene and feel the atmosphere around her. “I always thought this would be impossible to happen — but it did and I could truly see,” she said of the app, called ScribeMe, which is designed especially for people who are totally blind and is now used by thousands across 140 countries.

The app works on iPhones, Android phones, and Meta glasses, and was created by Karen’s 20-year-old brother Mark, who is also blind.

Mark first began noticing vision problems in 2018. Doctors in Egypt and abroad couldn’t pinpoint a cause, only warning that he would eventually lose his sight to a rare, incurable optic nerve condition, with no clear timeline. By late 2021, both siblings had gone completely blind — Karen’s vision faded over six months, while Mark’s took nearly three years. Their mother, Marian Maurice, struggled to find guidance, often stepping out under the pretext of errands just to process her grief privately.

Education proved especially difficult. Mark found that the screen-reading tools he relied on went silent whenever they encountered charts, diagrams, or equations in physics and chemistry. After reaching out to developers abroad and receiving no response, he taught himself to code through online tutorials and had a working app by 2023.

Recognition followed, including at the Vodafone Assistive Tools Hackathon in 2024, part of a Vodafone Egypt initiative supporting tools for people with disabilities. The exposure brought in a co-founder and helped expand ScribeMe well beyond simple document scanning. The app now answers real-time questions through a phone’s camera and supports 20 languages, including Arabic — a gap Mark said he noticed in every competing tool. It has since been integrated with Meta’s smart glasses, freeing up blind users’ hands to hold a cane. ScribeMe is free to download, with additional features available through a $20 monthly or $200 annual subscription.

For Karen, the app now helps her find her classroom, recognize shops, choose outfits, and study. “If someone told me four years ago that your son and daughter would be where they are today, I would have laughed it off,” said their father, Morad Sedky. “Dreams grow, they grow, and we, as a family, stopped saying anything is impossible.”

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