ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Md. — BWI Airport announced new technology that aims to make traveling more accessible for passengers.
The airport is now the second nationwide to add this technology in partnership with ReBokeh, a Towson-based company.
BWI Airport is now offering ReBokeh, a visual accessibility app for travelers
The ReBokeh app allows users to make adjustments to their phone screens to make things easier to see for people with low vision.
"We're excited to have everyone be able to use it and everyone be able to try it out and see if it works for them," Rebecca Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg is the founder and CEO of ReBokeh (derived from the photography term "Bokeh," a technique in which all light sources are out of focus. Re-Bokeh is the re-clarification of what is out of focus).
She has low vision herself and said the app was made to close a gap in accessibility.
"People who are diagnosed blind or low vision, 90% of us actually retain some amount of usable sight, but when we think about accessibility for this population, we're normally thinking about audio-only options or tactile-only options," Rosenberg said.
This solution is visual-first and uses AI and smartphones so users can adjust what's in front of them in the palm of their hands.
"So when they get to BWI, they should be able to open it up and have access to all of the features, things like contrast adjustments, color adjustments, brightness adjustments, different AI capabilities," Rosenberg said.
It's a free app with some added paid features, but if you have it downloaded, as soon as you approach the airport, you have access to all features.
For example, if you wanted to know how long it would take to get through security, you could point the app toward the screen at TSA, and it'll read you the wait times.
"It helps us to make sure that we can provide the best travel experience for anyone that comes into the airport, and that has to be our #1 priority," Shannetta Griffin, executive director and CEO of BWI, said.
Griffin noted that this will also improve safety and keep the airport on the cutting edge of innovation.
"What I think is also important is the fact that this is a local company; we're tapping into local expertise and knowledge," Griffin said. "We're really looking out for all of our passengers. We have about 7 generations of passengers that come through this airport."
And it's not just for those with low vision; the app is designed to help a wide variety of travelers navigate the terminals or other aspects of life.
"It doesn't matter whether you have low vision or whether you are an older adult dealing with a little bit of a vision challenge, or you know we have people with no vision condition at all, but are still trying to benefit from just getting a little bit more from the sight that they have," Rosenberg said.
The technology is up and running at BWI now. To learn more about the app and download it, click here.
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