Making braille literacy accessible to all

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What Drives Us

There are 250 million blind and low vision individuals worldwide, of which approximately 90% cannot read braille. Not being able to read braille severely reduces an impaired individuals access to information, independence and ability to pursue an education and employment.

Despite the proven impact of braille illiteracy, the unavailability and unaffordability of qualified braille tutors and the fact that it takes several years to learn braille with existing learning methods have led to the current braille illiteracy crisis.

BrailleWear

Our product, BrailleWear, is a low-cost braille learning device that enables blind and low vision individuals to learn braille intuitively, quickly and independently.

"Google translate for braille"

While wearing our device a user can feel any braille text with their exposed fingers and hear its audio translation simultaneously — allowing them to correlate the braille pattern felt with its meaning, therefore helping them learn braille.

Patent-Pending Technology

Our patent-pending technology makes use of a tiny light shining at an oblique angle which casts 2D shadows of the 3D braille dots. Our ML-based computer vision model receives this input from the on-device image sensor and decodes the pattern of shadows and reflections. This allows BrailleWear to accurately detect braille in a vast variety of conditions, without any contact with the braille dots.

Key Milestones

Click right to learn about our company's journey

2018

Initial Inspiration

April 2022

Meeting Mr. Roger Ferguson

Kushagra was volunteering for a school for the blind in Bangalore, India where he discovered that 90% of the visually impaired cannot read braille.

Mr. Roger Ferguson, former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and current Google Board Member, gave us his support for our mission and initial funding.