To help people who are visually impaired.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: When Shubham Banerjee, then 12-years-old, created a prototype Braille printer out of nothing more than a Lego Mindstorm kit and a few items from Home Depot, he began to dream of a future where versions of his low-cost device could become ubiquitous enough to aid the 285 million visually impaired people around the world on an unprecedented scale.
Now one year wiser, Banerjee is on the cusp of making his ambition a reality after revealing that he is working with Microsoft to integrate his Braille-printer, called the Braigo, with Windows operating system to make it easily accessible to the visually impaired and plans to launch it in November.
“Our relationship with Microsoft will help Braigo achieve a seamless experience for a visually-impaired person who wants to use a computer at home or at the office to print documents for offline reading,” he said in Microsoft blog post.
Microsoft also invited the Santa Clara, Calif. eighth-grader to showcase his Braigo printer at a tech fair organized by the company.
The Belgian-born Indian American, who moved to San Jose when he was 3-years-old, is targeting a price point of about $500 for public consumption — significantly more affordable than any Braille printers that currently occupy the market space.
“I discovered that typical Braille printers cost about $2,000 or even more, and I felt that was unnecessarily expensive for someone already at a disadvantage,” Banerjee stated. “So I put my brain to work, and the first thing that came to mind was to create an alternative using my favorite toy.”
After much trial and error — “I had to build and break seven different models” — he eventually constructed a working Braille printer which he named the Braigo 1.0, a portmanteau of Braille and Lego. It cost $350 and Banerjee made DIY instructions available online to anyone who wants to build their own.
The Braigo 2.0 was the first low-cost, IoT (Internet of Things)-enabled, silent, and lightweight Braille printer, according to Microsoft. After the Braigo 2.0’s success, Banerjee, who was still 12 at the time, became the youngest entrepreneur ever to receive venture capital funding when Intel Capital invested in Braigo Labs.
“I achieved an 82 percent reduction in cost and have been overwhelmed by the encouraging feedback from both the sighted and the blind,” he told the Microsoft blog.
The consumer-viable iteration of the Braigo will house an Intel Edison chipset and will be entirely silent.
Current Braille printers, generally referred to as embossers — aside from being limited by their high cost and lack of widespread support — are rather noisy. The current crop of embossers also requires special paper which is more expensive than the standard fare.
“… think about the banks, the government institutions or even the libraries where Windows-based computers are widely used. They will all benefit from having a Braigo to provide accessibility services to their visually impaired customers,” Banerjee marveled.
The Braigo has attracted widespread acclaim from around the world, and been recognized by several organizations on both the domestic and international fronts. The Lego Corporation commended Banerjee for the Braigo via their Twitter account, and Banerjee also received a Recognition Award from the California State Assembly.
Banerjee completed his elementary schooling at Don Callejon School. He joined Magnolia Science Academy in Santa Clara in middle school for a couple of months before moving to Champion School in San Jose. He lives in Santa Clara with his father, Neil, who serves as director of integration and validation at Intel Corp., and his mother, Malini, who is president of Braigo Labs. He also has a sister, Anoushka.