Poseidon (Türkiye) | Tactile signal-based swimming aid

For many of us, swimming is a social activity and an act of personal liberation, in addition to being a type of exercise. For people who have physical limitations, such as being visually impaired, it does not offer the same experience. Even now, people who are visually impaired and wish to swim are often physically guided with sticks or constantly relying on other people, which produces an experience that is not as liberating as the one that able-bodied swimmers experience. For Umut Devrim Deveci and Efe Cem Öztürk of Türkiye, this is an issue that his close to home. They both have a relative who’d been a big swimmer, but lost his sight later in life as a result of illness. This firsthand experience motivated them to develop a solution that enabled safe, enjoyable swimming for visually impaired people. With Poseidon, a swimming assistance system consisting of a buoy placed near the swimming area and a wristband that receives signals from the buoy when the swimmer approaches boundaries or unsafe areas, Umut Devrim and Efe Cem have earned the honor of being named Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Ambassadors.

A Desire to Bring the Freedom of Swimming to Everyone

Having someone close to them lose their sight and not be able to swim in the way they used to stirred something inside the Poseidon team. They believe that swimming is a way to exercise freedom, and that freedom should never be a luxury. They also believe that technology should be used as a means for removing barriers rather than reinforcing them, and it is this belief that guided their development of Poseidon. By wearing a wristband that provides vibration alerts rather than depending on another person to physically guide them, visually impaired swimmers are able to regain the independence and dignity that able-bodied people enjoy when they swim because they can make their own decisions while swimming.

The key to developing Poseidon was balancing safety, simplicity, and affordability, since the product needs to be accessible and reliable, especially since people are meant to be using it in the water. Umut Devrim and Efe Cem want the solution to be precise in real swimming conditions, but also simple to use. Additionally, swimming environments can change quickly, and even small errors in the product can lead to critical safety issues. Because of this reality, the team knew that they needed to sharpen their product and make it genuinely helpful.

Refining Poseidon's Technical Capabilities and Business Savvy

At Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, Umut Devrim and Efe Cem received the training and mentorship they needed to develop the project not just in terms of technical capabilities, but in entrepreneurship. Of course, the program helped them learn how to continuously test, improve, and rethink their design to ensure that Poseidon is truly helpful rather than technically impressive, but if they want Poseidon to really uplift people in the real world, the real-world application of the project as a business model is a requirement. Now the team feels they have the ability to address these real-world considerations, including the need to clearly communicate their vision, think sustainably, and game out the impact. In short, they feel Solve for Tomorrow has equipped them to take Poseidon to the next level, professionally and globally.

Schools, Recreation Centers, the Paralympics?

Umut Devrim and Efe Cem have ambitious goals for Poseidon. Looking ahead, they want it to benefit adults and children with visual impairments all around. It could be used at schools, recreation centers, holiday destinations, and rehabilitation centers everywhere. In fact, the team has their sights set on eventual use in professional settings, such as the Paralympic games. Ultimately, the goal is to create lasting change by making independence in sports a normal and accessible reality.

To achieve these goals, Umut Devrim and Efe Cem know that they need to make technical improvements. But it isn’t just that, though. To maximize their impact, they plan on reaching out to more visually impaired individuals to listen to their experiences and utilize what they learn to create a truly impactful, liberating swimming experience for as many people as possible. After all, the project is grounded in the desire to help people.

“You do not need perfect resources or advanced tools to begin, what matters most is empathy, curiosity, and persistence,” the team says to any other students who might be interested in making a difference through innovation. “If your idea can improve even one person’s life, it is worth pursuing. Real change begins when you choose to act.”

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Ambassadors will be officially appointed at a ceremony held in Milan on Feb. 10-11, in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Find out more about Solve for Tomorrow at [link].