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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.
Select media features
The Cornell Daily Sun
By Isabela Wilson