Press Releases

ColorADD enables colour blind people (over 350 million people worldwide) to detect the colours of objects via a mobile phone camera, so ensuring equal accessibility for all where colour is the determining factor in identification, orientation and choice (such as public transport lines or hospital triage).

The way the app works is simple: the user points the phone camera at the surface they want to identify and the name of the colour appears at the top of the screen together with the corresponding ColorADD symbol. As well as analysing images in real time, the user can analyse previously recorded images. The images so generated can be shared on social networks.

The Portuguese developers responsible for the ColorADD app received in Brussels the award of 30,000 euros to be invested in the development of this app for colour blind people. “Part of the amount will enable us to improve the app’s performance, finish the Android and Windows Mobile versions (currently the app exists only for iPhone) and add new features to the existing version such as new languages (Spanish and French) and a voice system to dictate the colour”, explain the creators of the app, Rui Cardoso, Rui Seiça and Marta Lisboa. “Developing games for colour blind children to identify colours is another of the aims that the Vodafone Foundation award will enable us to achieve.”

The Vodafone Foundation launched the international Mobile for Good Europe Awards to support the development of specially designed apps for smartphones to improve people’s lives and provide a substantial public benefit through new mobile communication technologies. The awards were designed following the success of the Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards held in 2011 and 2012, also in partnership with AGE Platform Europe and the European Disability Forum (EDF).