Echo is a wireless, audio wayfinding kit that helps people who’ve recently become visually impaired to develop awareness of their surroundings. This was a challenge lead designer Yee Jek Khaw experienced first-hand in 2012, where he scratched his cornea while working in the woodshop as an industrial design student at the National University of Singapore. He initially believed he just had something in his eye, but after a few weeks, it had swelled shut. While his eye healed, Khaw began to wonder how people who experience abrupt vision loss adapt to their day-to-day lives. But the available resources—mostly training centers that focused on outdoor wayfinding—sometimes didn't serve individuals who were scared to go outside without being able to see. To address the gap in the resources he'd seen, Khaw came up with a prototype for Echo. If learning to navigate by sound is like learning to ride a bike, Echo is the training wheels.