# Image Captioning as an Assistive Technology: Lessons Learned from VizWiz 2020 Challenge Source: [Image Captioning as an Assistive Technology: Lessons Learned from VizWiz 2020 Challenge]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-26T03:33:53.801Z Authors: Pierre Dognin, Igor Melnyk, Youssef Mroueh, Inkit Padhi, Mattia Rigotti, Jarret Ross, Yair Schiff, Richard A. Young, Brian Belgodere Published: 2020-12-21T21:48:18.000Z ## Abstract Image captioning has recently demonstrated impressive progress largely owing to the introduction of neural network algorithms trained on curated dataset like MS-COCO. Often work in this field is motivated by the promise of deployment of captioning systems in practical applications. However, the scarcity of data and contexts in many competition datasets renders the utility of systems trained on these datasets limited as an assistive technology in real-world settings, such as helping visually impaired people navigate and accomplish everyday tasks. This gap motivated the introduction of the novel VizWiz dataset, which consists of images taken by the visually impaired and captions that have useful, task-oriented information. In an attempt to help the machine learning computer vision field realize its promise of producing technologies that have positive social impact, the curators of the VizWiz dataset host several competitions, including one for image captioning. This work details the theory and engineering from our winning submission to the 2020 captioning competition. Our work provides a step towards improved assistive image captioning systems. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()