Sesame Enable Touch-Free Smartphone Named a Finalist for the SXSW Innovation Award

TEL AVIV, Israel, February 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Sesame Enable today announced  that SXSW 2016 has named it a finalist for its Interactive Innovation Award. The 19th annual SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards celebrate the most inspiring and creative innovations in the connected world. Sesame Enable was recognized as a finalist for the best way to connect and communicate.

• Sesame will present at the Finalist Showcase on Monday, March 14 - details here
• Winners will be announced at the SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, March 15 in Austin, TX
• Sesame Enable's leadership team is available to meet at SXSW with reporters, relevant organizations and companies. To set up a meeting in Texas March 13 - 16, please contact [email protected]

"We are honored to be recognized by SXSW for using technology to improve the lives of people with disabilities, who have until now been shut out of the smartphone revolution," said Sesame Enable CEO and co-founder Oded Ben Dov. "The Sesame Phone empowers people with limited or no use of their hands to gain independence and privacy and become digitally connected - things many of us take for granted in the digital age."

Sesame Enable just kicked off a groundbreaking initiative in collaboration with Google and Beit Issie Shapiro to supply complimentary touch-free Sesame smartphones to every disabled adult and child in the State of Israel who has limited or no use of their hands. The initiative is to serve as a pilot program that could be replicated in the US and elsewhere around the globe. This marks the first time the digital needs of an entire disabled population is being addressed. The project, made possible by a $1 million grant from Google, enables Sesame phones to be distributed over the next year to people with spinal cord injuries, ALS, severe Parkinson's disease and other conditions that severely limit range of motion.

Sesame Enable developed the world's first completely touch-free smartphone. Designed by co-founders Giora Livne, a quadriplegic veteran and former electrical engineer, and computer vision expert Oded Ben Dov, Sesame Enable won Michael Bloomberg's Genesis Generation Challenge (2015), the Verizon Powerful Answers Award (2014) and Nominet Trust 100 (2014).

About Sesame Enable 

Sesame developed the first completely touch-free smartphone, created for the disabled by the disabled. Powered by voice control and cutting-edge head-tracking technology, the Sesame Phone opens a new world of communication and independence to a population that needs it most: quadriplegics, people suffering from ALS, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, Multiple Sclerosis, severe Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and others that have limited to no use of their hands.

Link to media kit: http://bit.ly/1xfdJC0

Note -- Photo credit: Basti Hansen 

Media Contact
Leron Kornreich
[email protected]
+1-415-937-1724

SOURCE Sesame Enable