Lofgren Announces $1 Million+ Federal Grant for Groundbreaking Vision Research Based in Gilroy

GILROY, CA - Today, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (CA-18) announced that XR Navigation, Inc., based in Gilroy, has received a $1,010,897 federal grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This funding will help to develop a map viewer that provides blind and low vision individuals full access to thematic maps for the first time.

"California is where great minds come to take their ideas and change the world, and I'm proud to see this groundbreaking research happening in Gilroy," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren. "As the leading Democrat on the House Science Committee and as a longtime advocate for accessibility, I'm proud to see XR Navigation receive this NIH grant. I'm very happy about the potential this technology holds to open opportunities for blind and low-vision people, and I commend the researchers on their important work."

"XR Navigation is excited to perform research and commercialize digital maps that state and local governments subject to the April 2027 Americans with Disabilities Act Title II rule deadline, and other welcoming entities, can incorporate to make their digital maps fully usable to blind and low-vision users for the first time," said Brandon Biggs, CEO of XR Navigation. "This research is focused on reducing implementation time to keep costs low for entities to role out accessible maps, and on optimizing hearing shapes and route following on the Audiom interface. This work enables blind and low-vision people to independently participate in over a thousand new professions, reducing their 70% unemployment rate, engaging in civic activities as responsible citizens, and traveling without fear."

There have already been remarkable personal stories from blind individuals using the Audiom interface:

• Newton Nguyen, a blind Climate and Ocean Research Fellow at Stanford University, uses Audiom to explore complex climate and oceanographic datasets that previously required him to work with raw coordinates, numerical data, and manually constructed mental maps. Using NOAA data, he can now explore variables such as ocean depth and energy spatially through sound, allowing him to investigate relationships in the data more directly.
• Steven Daugherty, a blind cartographer and developer at XR Navigation, has been fascinated by weather since childhood but found weather information inaccessible to his screen reader. Using XR Navigation's technology, he can now explore live weather radar and precipitation data and has developed his own audio weather application, Weather Cat. He is now considering pursuing a degree in meteorology, which he has always dreamed of doing.