Braille Phone: Smartphone for the blind

It was during interaction with the non users of technology in a village that made Sumit Dagar, an interaction-designer and a post-graduate from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, think and realize how isolated they were from technology. The challenge for him was how to design technology that was simple and accessible by them and in the process came up with the idea of Braille phone, a user-friendly smartphone for the blind.

Braille phone is a user-friendly phone designed specially for visually impaired people. The touchscreen is comprised of a grid of pins which move up and down creating braille characters.When a person receives an email or SMS, braille characters are created on the phone screen. The screen uses shape memory alloy technology, meaning the the material remember their original shape and rebound to their normal flat shape. It also has all the features that a smartphone has: the phone can create braille maps so that user can navigate and know its own location. Also, the phone turns a photo into braille enabling the person to recognize the emotions in the photo.

Sumit Dagar is collaborating with IIT Delhi to develop a working prototype which is expected to be ready by mid 2014 and the company, Kriyate Desgin Solutions Pvt. Ltd.,  is being incubated at Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, IIM Ahmedabad .

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