Empowering Nonprofits with Azure AI Vision: Enhancing Operations and Achieving Missions

Azure AI Vision is a powerful tool that enables organizations to analyze images and extract meaningful descriptions. Nonprofits can leverage AI Vision in various impactful ways to enhance their operations and achieve their missions more effectively. Here are some practical applications:

Smart Stores

Nonprofits operating retail stores can implement "smart store" solutions using AI Vision. By analyzing images from store cameras, they can identify customers needing assistance and direct employees to help them, improving customer service and operational efficiency.

Event Management

AI Vision can analyze images and videos from events to monitor attendance, track engagement, and gather insights on participant behavior. This data can help nonprofits improve future events and tailor their programs to better meet the needs of their audience.

Security and Safety

AI Vision can be used for security purposes, such as monitoring premises, detecting unauthorized access, and ensuring the safety of staff and beneficiaries. This technology can also identify potential hazards and prevent accidents.

Now that we understand what Azure AI Vision is and some practical use cases, let's analyze a few images.

Creating a Project in Azure AI Foundry Portal

Pre-req: You will need to have an Azure account

1. Navigate to Azure AI Foundry: Open a browser tab and go to the Azure AI Foundry portal.
2. Sign In: Use your account credentials to sign in.3. Create a Project: On the home page, select "Create a project." Projects in Azure AI Foundry help organize your work.

   4. Configure Project and Hub: You will see a generated project name. Depending on your previous hub creations, you will either see new Azure resources to be created or a drop-down list of existing hubs. Select "Create new hub," name your hub, and proceed.

   5. Customize Location: Select a location for your Azure AI services resource (East US, France Central, Korea Central, West Europe, or West US) and create the project.

Resources Created

Take note of the resources that are created:

• Azure AI services
• Azure AI hub
• Azure AI project
• Storage account
• Key vault
• Resource group

After the resources are created, you will be brought to your project’s Overview page. 

Using AI Services

1. Access AI Services: On your project's Overview page, select "AI Services" from the left-hand menu.

    

2. Select Vision + Document: On the AI Services page, choose the Vision + Document tile to explore Azure AI Vision capabilities.

Generating Captions for Images

1. Image Captioning: On the Vision + Document page, select "Image" under "View all other vision capabilities," then choose the Image captioning tile.

    

2. Upload Image: Upload an image by dragging it to the Drag and drop files here box, or by browsing to it on your file system. For demo purposes I used a provided sample file.

    

3. Observe Captions: The Caption functionality generates a single, human-readable sentence describing the image's content.

Dense Captioning

1. Dense Captions: Return to the Vision + Document page, select the Image tab, and choose the Dense captioning tile. 

    

2. Upload Image: Upload an image by dragging it to the Drag and drop files here box, or by browsing to it on your file system. For demo purposes I used a provided sample file.
3. Multiple Captions: Dense Captions provide multiple human-readable captions for an image, each describing essential objects detected in the picture.

Tagging Images

1. Extract Tags: On the Vision + Document page, select the Image tab and choose the Common tag extraction tile.
   

    

2. Upload Image: Upload an image by dragging it to the Drag and drop files here box, or by browsing to it on your file system. For demo purposes I used a provided sample file.
3. Review Tags: Extracted tags include objects and actions, with confidence scores indicating the likelihood of accurate descriptions.

    

Conclusion

Azure AI Vision is a transformative tool that nonprofits can leverage to enhance their operations and achieve their missions more effectively. By implementing smart store solutions, nonprofits can improve customer service and operational efficiency. Event management can be optimized by analyzing images and videos to monitor attendance and track engagement. Security and safety measures can be strengthened by using AI Vision to monitor premises and detect potential hazards.

As we have explored the practical applications of Azure AI Vision, it's clear that this technology offers significant benefits for nonprofits. By integrating AI Vision into their operations, nonprofits can make data-driven decisions, improve their services, and ultimately better serve their communities. To learn more about Computer Vision and analyzing images, please visit: Fundamentals of Computer Vision - Training | Microsoft Learn.