It’s October, and that means it’s Meet The Blind Month! I love this month because it highlights one of my favorite parts of my role at WayAround—talking to people who are finding innovative and resourceful ways to become more independent. Like the woman who was moving and used WayTag stickers to keep track of the contents of her boxes. Or the man who was recently widowed. He added WayTags so he could remember the words his wife had used to describe his clothes.

There are many other creative ways people are using WayAround in their lives, and we’re happy to share those methods with you as well.

Meet our Co-founders

We’ve grown a lot over the past year! For those who are new to the WayAround community, I’d like to take a moment to introduce our co-founders, Darwin Belt and Armand Fisher. Armand and Darwin are retired architects and they both have vision loss. This fueled their passion to provide better information about the world, so that anyone can access important details like directions, instructions, or product descriptions whether or not they have good eyesight.

Armand Fisher

As a co-founder of WayAround, Armand provides direction and strategic advice about user experience and accessibility standards. In 2005, he developed idiopathic ischemic optic neuritis and lost his vision over only a few weeks. Armand created WayAround because of his personal experience with vision loss and a passion for creating more efficient and accessible spaces.

Armand wants WayAround to be a reminder that when people lose their vision, there is a resource or place for them to go. Read more about Armand on our blog.

Meet Darwin Belt

Darwin created WayAround after retiring from a thirty-year career as an architect and software developer. Darwin is a lifelong innovator. For example, he has pursued leading medical advancements to correct a number of his own vision issues and other complications of Type 1 diabetes. Darwin first lost his vision at age thirty. He successfully underwent a vitrectomy to restore his sight. Since then, he has been diagnosed with wet macular degeneration, significant peripheral vision loss, and nyctalopia (night blindness). He received a kidney transplant from his brother, Craig, in the mid-1980s. Then in 2007, he received a pancreas transplant, curing his diabetes after forty years.

Darwin’s goal is to take any problem thrown his way and turn it into an advantage. Read more about Darwin on our blog.

Darwin and Armand both use WayAround to make it easier to identify and fully utilize things independently, without having to rely on other people. They created something that solved problems they experienced. Now, they want to share WayAround with anyone who has vision loss. Visit our online store to stock up on your favorite WayTags.