In February of this year Shubham developed a low-cost Braille printer using Lego Mindstorms EV3 that slashed the price of a Braille embossing device by 82% compared to devices available in the market. He called it “Braigo”TM and made the design and code open source (www.braigolabs.com). The next natural progression for him after multiple feedbacks from the visually impaired community was to make a real consumer version that could eventually be bought off-the-shelf. This is a social impact project and can bring relief to more than 53 Million legally blind people in this world and more than 200 Million people who are on the verge of being blind. " What I did with Lego has me convinced that I’m onto something here. I want to bring a Braille printer to market that’s at an affordable price point. To do that I needed something small and powerful to drive the system. Intel Edison is a great fit for that. I’m so passionate about solving this problem that I spent my summer building what you see here. I got membership at the Techshop in San Jose to learn design tools, worked with other individuals to get 3D printed mechanical parts and also machinist to design new braille heads and assembly"
Shubham commented that - " Intel's new chip Edison Edison was the perfect choice for being connected to the cloud/internet and at the same time reduces the BOM price by not using separate components/drivers. It is less power hungry and has the future possibilities of using batteries for using in remote places of the world. The design uses new (patent pending) technology and also using Edison opens up the possibility to potentially use the same mechanism for other assistive technology products, like a refreshable reader and a display. The ability to use the backend cloud for software upgrades (without requiring any user interface) can make it much easier for a visually impaired person to install drivers or programs. The capabilities of Edison enabled me to do a whole set of use cases I hadn’t previously thought about. For example, when we wake up in the morning we look at our smartphone or tablet to see the headline news. With Edison, we’ve set it up so the CNN headlines are printed off automatically every morning."
At this moment the price point for Braigo 2.0 cannot be disclosed or when it will be launched since development is still ongoing. The announcement by Intel to invest in Braigo Labs Inc. to take the concept and idea into a final product gives the company and Shubham Banerjee the validation that the idea is good and a socially relevant product that will change lives of many people in this world.
Shubham commented " The announcement by Mike Bell took me by surprise. I was working on bootstrapped funds from my parents for so many months, with Intel's investment I can launch Braigo 2.0 in the market. Its a great validation that this braille market needed a disruption from price point and technology perspective"
