A method of identifying and recognizing characters using a dual-stage neural network pipeline, the method including: receiving, by a computing device, image data; providing the image data to a first convolutional layer of a convolutional neural network (CNN); applying, using the CNN, pattern recognition to the image data to identify a region of the image data containing text; providing sub-image data comprising the identified region of the image data to a convolutional recurrent neural network (CRNN); and recognizing, using the CRNN, the characters within the sub-image data.