Visual impairment: what solutions for visual impairment in 2040?

Louis Braille (1809-1852), the eponymous inventor – at the age of 16! – of the tactile writing system using raised dots that allows blind people around the world to read with their fingertips, would undoubtedly have loved to participate in the workshop. Let's imagine the life of a visually impaired person in 2040. That was the title of a morning of reflection offered to about ten visually impaired people by the Braille Campus, a new place dedicated to research and innovation in the field of visual impairment, just inaugurated in December 2024.

Gathered at the end of October 2025 at theNational Institute for Young Blind People (INJA)They were all able to express and share their needs and expectations, without ruling out dreaming of the improvements hoped for over the next 15 years.

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The course of this workshop which Science and Future what he attended has just been presented in the form of a documentary available on France 5 TV (emission " It's up to you." ) presented at the bicentenary celebrations of braille writing (November 13-15, 2025, Paris) organized by INJA, ApiDV (Supporting, Promoting, Integrating Visually Impaired People), the Valentin Haüy Association, the Louis Braille Campus and the French Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired.

200,000 people are eligible to obtain a guide dog, but only 11% of visually impaired people actually receive one.

“ For our first anniversary, we wanted to think together about the concrete uses we could imagine by 2040."This is a very important aspect of the organization," explains its director, Thibaut de Martimprey, himself visually impaired and accompanied by his invaluable assistance dog. But the partnership he forms with this animal is not so common. In France, it is estimated that more than 200,000 people are eligible to obtain a guide dog, yet only 11% of visually impaired individuals actually receive one. This training remains a long and specialized process..

But actually, visually impaired, deficient, blind… Where do we draw the line?

In France, according the Homer study conducted in 2023According to the largest scientific study ever conducted on the visually impaired population at the national level, 1.7 million French people have a visual impairment, including 200,000 who are blind (or severely visually impaired, with no perception of light). These figures are expected to increase in the coming years due to the aging population and the resulting diseases (glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, etc.).

Therefore, beyond the help that everyone can find to get around, through possible animal assistance but also – and especially – through support from family and friends and/or the use of a white cane, connected or not (different models exist, such as Rango, Icane… ), what solutions can we imagine by 2040 to be even more connected with the world?

“ We still don't see anything coming“ 

Twenty years after the 2005 Disability Act, it must unfortunately be acknowledged that it is still struggling to be fully implemented. We still don't see anything coming“,” a famous slogan in the visually impaired community, which, in today's 24/7 connected world, serves as a reminder that visually impaired people are indeed among the victims of the digital divide (see the box below). In France, it is estimated that more than half of visually impaired people experience daily difficulties, One in two visually impaired people is unemployed.

Obviously, in the last ten years smartphones, digital technology, social networks have arrived… and the daily life of the visually impaired community has improved in various areas, such as the essential area of mobility.

While the possibility of home deliveries (shopping, meals) has become widespread, getting around can still very often be complicated: guide dogs are too rare, there is a lack of mobility instructors… and here again, everything obviously depends on the severity of the disability, the place of residence (city, countryside), the age, the support of those around them and their financial means.

“"Before, when trying to get around, we were truly lost anywhere and we would ask for help in the street.", summarizes Mathys, in charge of strategic studies and financial partnerships at the Louis Braille Campus. Today, various GPS navigation and audio guidance solutions (Ezymob, Sonarvision, Eyeview), sometimes with augmented reality, exist and " on thinks today plus the earphones, the batteries and the network quality", notes Mathys.

Another very useful tool, sometimes available right at the entrance of certain places (administrative buildings, museums, sports halls, schools, professional premises, etc.), is tactile maps. Those like Virtuoz, developed by FeelObject They are the size of a book (13 cm x 23 cm) and these relief maps that can be held in the hand allow the visually impaired to build, by simple touch, a mental representation of their environment, which helps them to move around more autonomously.

Credits: FeelObject

Another project also aimed at improving mobility, currently under development at the Braille Campus, is the amazing haptic (tactile) belt. ArthaMade in France and awarded the 2024 Lépine competition prize, this device is worn around the lower back and connected to a mini-camera clipped onto glasses that captures real-time information (even at night) about the visually impaired person's environment. Thanks to embedded computing algorithms, the images are transcribed and reproduced on the user's back as haptic vibrations—small taps generated by the belt. These impulses, felt through clothing, allow the visually impaired person to maintain a tactile perception of their surroundings, thus aiding them in their mobility.

Credits: Artha

Its commercial launch (€2600) is underway, while other companies in the same haptics niche are planning to release headsets, such as the one from Dotlumen developed with Dassault Systèmes.

Finally, everyone here has obviously seen or heard about the "robot guide dog" developed by Glidance which looks more like a vacuum cleaner than a quadruped. This self-piloting robotic cane (€5,000) promises to assist visually impaired people as well as a guide dog, without the constraints, according to the marketing materials…

Credits: Glidance

Fewer than 101% of blind people access higher education

But as is often the case, it all starts at school. And there, everyone agrees, there are currently neither enough teaching assistants (AESH) for students with disabilities, nor are they sufficiently trained. The same goes for specialized learning spaces, which are still too few and far between, participants point out. And while many digital tools exist to promote independence (screen reader software, text enlargement software, voice assistants, etc.), they are not always readily available or even known.

The result: fewer than 101% of blind people access higher education. As for braille—the 63-character system that allows for letters, numbers, accents, mathematical and scientific symbols, and even music!—only blind people learn it. But here again, the shortage of instructors raises fears of its disappearance.

As for culture (reading, cinema, etc.), the path remains fraught with obstacles. A few figures illustrate this: to date, only 101 websites are accessible to blind and visually impaired people, 61 books are adapted, 100 out of the 500 films released each year are audio-described, and only 41 television programs are…

Hence the interest, for example, in the work praised by the participants of the workshop of theassociation Les Yeux Dits who developed The Chatterbox, a completely free application that centralizes audio descriptions and synchronizes them with films, whether the visually impaired person is in a theater or at home.

Another example that everyone gathered around the table knows and uses is the application BemyeyesFree of charge, it allows a visually impaired person facing a mundane daily task (finding a dropped object, describing images, reading a label, etc.) to contact, via a live video call with their smartphone, one of the many volunteers located somewhere on the planet who will help them remotely, the visually impaired person's smartphone filming their environment and providing information on the task to be accomplished.

The tech and healthcare sectors don't communicate enough yet.

While waiting for autonomy, digital accessibility and inclusion to truly become concrete realities for the entire community, the workshop participants, who are quite familiar with the various voice assistants and AI tools already available, say they are ready to move to the next stage.

Mehdi can easily imagine himself wearing connected glasses all the time, talking to a humanoid robot that would accompany him on his travels, while Hugo expects a lot from his autonomous car and Marie plans to travel everywhere on the planet without help with equipment that is as efficient as it is discreet.

But they all agree that the tech world doesn't yet communicate enough (and vice versa) with the healthcare world. The two are still very far apart, the former focused on its algorithms, the latter remaining concentrated on exclusively medical or surgical solutions.

But that should change. "NOrWe want to build bridges between the two and will soon be working with certain hospitals, such as the one in... Quinze-Vingts“ , explains Thibaut de Martinprey.

The task will be arduous. Because even the official actors, who are supposed to be well-informed, are not always. For example, one of the participants in the... Departmental House for Disabled Persons (MDPH), a single point of contact per department established since the Disability Act of February 11, 2005

“I contacted them for help in obtaining a so-called thermorelief oven, Hugo testifies. However, no one knew that it was a device for printing diagrams and images on special paper using touch, and they thought I was looking for a restaurant cooking oven.…And the young man continued: "Developers also need to take visual impairment into account when designing their digital tools to make them truly accessible to us; this is not yet the case." "We must also be mindful of the risk of isolation caused by too much technology."Mathys warns, "Human connections are good too.".

No doubt it will finally be necessary by 2040 for the many associations and other federations of visually impaired people to modernize and change their discourse which is perceived as too victim-oriented by "Gen Z" who, unlike the older generation, do not identify with it.