Seekr: Envisioning Global Access for the Visually Impaired

Name: Seekr: Envisioning Global Access for the Visually Impaired
SKU: W43812_P

Frank Ng, Kevin Au, Daphne Yiu

Product #:W43812_P

Supplier:Ivey/CUHK

Discipline:Entrepreneurship, International Business

Setting:United States, Hong Kong, 2025

Details:Case (PDF) • 10 pages • 2025-11-10

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At the beginning of 2025, Lamia Sreya Rahman, the co-founder of Vidi Labs Ltd. (Vidi Labs), faced a significant decision regarding the expansion of her start-up. Founded in 2021 in Hong Kong, Vidi Labs developed Seekr, a compact AI wearable device for visually impaired persons (VIPs). Adopting a user-centric approach, Rahman and her co-founder put painstaking effort into understanding the needs of VIPs and optimizing the system. Despite early challenges, Seekr eventually gained traction and won multiple local and global entrepreneurship and innovation contests. Having established its presence locally, Seekr was now presented with international opportunities to expand its business into the United States and other markets. Should Seekr consolidate and scale its operations within Hong Kong first before venturing overseas, or should it leverage international expansion as the vehicle to accelerate its growth? Rahman and her team needed to decide if they were ready to expand into other markets, and more fundamentally, whether Seekr should scale up before going out or go out for scaling up.

Learning Objectives

This case is designed for entrepreneurship international business courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurship, and new venture creation. This case can be used in executive development programs to introduce sector-specific topics such as accessibility and the AgeTech industry, or market-specific topics such as social entrepreneurship.

The case examines a young social venture at a crossroads between consolidating its operations locally and pursuing international expansion. It explores the strategic considerations involved in scaling mission-driven enterprises, including the need to adapt business models to different market contexts while maintaining social impact. The case also highlights the role of technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence, in addressing complex social challenges such as accessibility for visually impaired individuals. Students are invited to consider how decisions about growth, market entry, and innovation influence organizational strategy, stakeholder engagement, and long-term mission fulfillment. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:

Understand business model innovation as social ventures expand internationally.
Assess the opportunity identification of social ventures in achieving both social and economic objectives.
Discuss the insights for social entrepreneurs aiming to scale.
Learn about technology and innovation related to accessibility and technology for older adults (AgeTech).