Blind opera star ANDREA BOCELLI is funding a project to help develop a personal radar system for the blind through his self-named foundation.

The Italian tenor, who was discovered by Luciano Pavarotti, set up the Andrea Bocelli Foundation last year (11) in an effort to help combat and ease problems faced by the disabled in less economically developed countries.

The foundation is financing the project run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, which aims to create technology to help blind people pursue the activities of daily life more independently.

He tells British newspaper the Daily Express, "We have multiple other projects with food and water supply. This is not generosity, this is just the intelligent thing to do."