SMARTPHONE FOR THE BLIND

AHMEDABAD: The world's first
smartphone for blind people is here. Soon, they will be able to read SMSes and emails on this phone, which converts all text into Braille patterns.

"We have created the world's first
Braille smartphone," says its innovator, Sumit Dagar, whose company is being incubated at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship , located in IIM Ahmedabad campus.

"This product is based on an
innovative 'touch screen' which is
capable of elevating and depressing the contents it receives to transform
them into 'touchable' patterns," he
says.

Dagar, who is a post-graduate from the
National Institute of Design (NID), says
he was motivated to develop the
device when he realised that so far,
technology was only serving the
mainstream and ignoring the
marginalised. He is collaborating with
IIT Delhi on making the prototype,
which is currently being tested at L V
Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad.
"The response during the test has been
immense. It comes out as a companion
more than a phone to the user. We
plan to do more advanced versions of
the phone in the future," Dagar adds.
Dagar started the project three years
ago while studying interaction
designing at NID. After working with a
couple of companies, he gave up his
job to concentrate on his technology,
formed a team of six people and
started his venture, Kriyate Design
Solutions. Currently, the venture is
being funded by Rolex Awards under
its Young Laureates Programme, in
which they select five people from
across the world every two years and fund their projects.

How it works
· The smartphone uses Shape
Memory Alloy technology, based on
the concept that metals remember
their original shapes, i.e. expand and
contract to its original shape after use.
B. The phone's 'screen' has a grid of
pins, which move up and down as per requirement. The grid has a Braille display, where pins come up to represent a character or letter.
C. This screen will be capable of
elevating and depressing the contents
to form patterns in Braille.
D. All other elements are like any other
smartphone.