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Good practice Imported

ScribeMe — Blind-Founded AI Visual-Description App from Cairo, Now Used in 140 Countries

Egypt · Cairo · See the Egypt profile · See the Cairo profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 39% 76/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Mark Morad, a blind Cairo developer who taught himself to code after losing his sight in 2021, built ScribeMe, an AI app narrating a phone or Meta smart-glasses feed in 20 languages. After winning a 2024 Vodafone Egypt hackathon, it scaled to thousands of users in 140 countries.

140
Countries with reported users (as of Aug 2026)
20
Languages supported

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
ScribeMe (founded by Mark Morad)
Period
2023–ongoing
Keywords
disability inclusion, assistive technology, artificial intelligence

Context

Mark Morad lost his sight completely in late 2021. Existing screen readers could not describe the charts, diagrams and equations in his physics and chemistry textbooks, and when developers of similar tools abroad did not respond to his emails, he taught himself to code from YouTube tutorials, reaching a working prototype, ScribeMe, by 2023.

Results

In 2024, Morad won Vodafone Egypt's AI Assistive Tools Hackathon, which brought him a co-founder and helped ScribeMe grow beyond document scanning into an app that answers real-time spoken questions about a scene captured through a phone or Meta smart-glasses camera. As of August 2026, wire reporting carried by outlets including Arab News, TimesLIVE and The Star put usage at 'thousands' of users across 140 countries and 20 languages, including Arabic. The app is free to download, with optional paid features at $20/month or $200/year.

Conclusions

These figures come from a single syndicated news feature rather than an independent audit, and no third-party accuracy or usability evaluation of ScribeMe's AI descriptions has been published; as with any AI-generated scene description for blind users, misdescriptions carry real safety implications that have not yet been externally assessed.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Self-funded/bootstrapped development; freemium model with an optional $20/month or $200/year paid tier; no institutional budget reported.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Working prototype by 2023; scaled after winning Vodafone Egypt's 2024 AI Assistive Tools Hackathon; reported usage across 140 countries by August 2026.
Staffing & skills
Founder Mark Morad (self-taught developer), A co-founder who joined after the 2024 Vodafone Egypt hackathon

Conditions for success

  • Direct lived experience of the accessibility gap driving product design
  • A hackathon win (Vodafone Egypt AI Assistive Tools Hackathon) providing a co-founder and growth support
  • Integration with mainstream hardware (phone camera, Meta smart glasses) rather than a bespoke device

Common failure modes

  • No third-party accuracy or usability evaluation published; AI misdescriptions carry real safety implications for blind users that remain externally unassessed

Where it fits

Governance type
private individual/startup
Scale
global (reported across 140 countries)
Income level
lower-middle-income origin, global user base

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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