Who knew a trip to a blind school would have the potential of completely changing the future of blind technology.
 
When 23 year old Rakshith visited an institution for the blind in his city of Bangalore,he was shocked at how difficult learning was for the visually impaired, specially the beginners for whom each lesson was torturous.
 
“They had to punch holes in order to write in Braille with the help of a sharp object. They told me it was sometimes painful to keep punching holes at a fast rate,” he says. “It was then that a few of my friends and I decided to develop a Braille pad to open up the digital world to them.”
 
The team devised a way to convert text in digital books to Braille with the help of what they now call a Universal Digital Braille Book. Until now, learning for the visually impaired has been limited to whatever books are available in Braille.They are largely unable to access the vast amounts of data on the internet that rest of us take for granted. The Digital Braille Book makes this tremendous reserve of digital knowledge as easily available to them as to anybody else. For the blind students that Rakshith shared his idea with, his concept was the equivalent of an ‘open sesame’ into a world where they could learn on an equal footing with their sighted counterparts.
 
How the Digital Braille Pad works“Universal Digital Braille Book is designed using the principles of embedded systems. It converts any document on computer to Braille instantly,” explains Rakshith.“The data is sent serially from the computer to the micro-controller where it actuates a sequence of vibrators thus impressing upon paper to form corresponding Braille letter of the received English alphabet. This way any text document on the computer can be converted into Braille text with ease.”
 
However,Rakshith and his friends have taken the concept even further to create a Digital Braille Pad. This will allow visually impaired students to take their exams without assistance. Currently in most schools they depend on other students to write for them while they dictate. The Digital Braille Pad would free them of this necessity. The pad simply reverses what the Digital Braille Book does. 

“The Digital Braille Pad uses a micro-controller to enter Braille codes into the computer just as any other normal keyboard,” explains an excited Rakshith.“This will then convert the Braille code into English alphabets or any other language depending upon the code conversion”. 

They have already developed a prototype for both the Digital Braille Book and the pad and successfully tested each of them on blind students. However Rakshith points out, “We are trying to improve the design by reducing the size of the models and increasing the number of cells in the Braille Book so that many letters can be displayed simultaneously.”
 
Meanwhile, Rakshith continues to innovate furiously in the field of assistive technology. Going beyond the classroom he has come up ASHWA, an autonomous vehicle for the visually impaired. And it’s not just the visually challenged he intends to help. Rakshith and his friends are working to develop a device that converts sign language into speech with the help of image processing. Other projects include an Unmanned Fire-fighting Robot, an online health care solutions provider, and a process that helps generate electricity from traffic on roads.
 
Having completed his bachelors in Electronics and Communication from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, Rakshith is currently employed as a software engineer in the research wing of a multinational conglomerate. However the Nicola Tesla disciple intends to return to his true calling pretty soon - a rebel and a social innovator with an entire list of causes

SOURCE: In.news.yahoo.com