Hello, my name is Jude Al Sharqawi and I’m a tenth grader at The Ahliyyah School for Girls. For this year’s personal project; I decided to do something that revolves around special needs, specifically “blind” individuals. The reason why I chose this theme is because my brother is diagnosed with multiple disabilities, one of which is vision loss. Once I started researching this topic, I reflected on how my brother learned to navigate our home; and how difficult it is for him to move without the support of someone beside him. During my research I concluded that there were minimal technological solutions created for blind individuals; this triggered me to create a solution. 
My goal for the personal project was to research the navigation of blind individuals in an external environment, to provide a reliable solution to ease the difficulties of moving and present the solution using an explanatory motion graphic. My proposed solution is a gadget called ‘Wrist Buddy’, which is a watch-navigator-bracelet connected to GPS by Bluetooth. The GPS allows for an end location to be set and would direct the visually-impaired-individual to their intended location using voice commands. The watch includes an ultrasonic sensor and sound sensor which detect bodies in the surrounding area “up to 5 meters”. When an object is detected by the sensors, a vibration will be created in order to inform the person to change their direction; once the person moves away the vibrations will gradually stop.  
As for the motion graphic, it provides a detailed guide about the ‘Wrist Buddy’, its functions and benefits. The target viewers include individuals over the age of 5 years old, who either suffer from visual impairment or not. My goal relates to the global context of “Fairness and Development”, since the ‘Wrist Buddy’ helps achieve equity of treatment between visually impaired individuals and those who are not. It encourages those individuals to move freely and independently in outdoor areas. It will hopefully provide them with an improved quality of life by empowering them. 
Creating the ‘Wrist Buddy’ impacted me in many ways; I learned more about the topic and more about my global context of “Fairness and Development”. I learned that not being able to navigate is one of the major obstacles affecting the self-esteem of blind individuals. I also learned about the many tools created that can actually help these individuals move around, such as the Sunu band and the buzz clip. In addition, I learned that fairness does not only come from governmental rules, it comes from the equality among individuals in our society. I further learned the importance that these technological innovation plays in the improvement of the quality of life.  
During this project I faced many challenges, but the main challenge were in “Criterion B”. I had to work on new features, like sound sensors, to differentiate my product. Lastly, the personal project developed my organizational skills, as I created a timeline to organize my tasks and the wrote specifications of the ' Wrist Buddy' breaking them into rubrics.

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