Braigo

Braigo (Brai-lle +Le-go) is the name of a Braille printer design. Braigo version 1.0 uses a Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit, which includes a microprocessor with assorted components such as electric motors, sensors and actuators. Braigo v1.0 was designed by 13-year-old Shubham Banerjee in January 2014, as an entry in 7th grade school science fair project. The cost was said to be about 350 USD or 250 Euros for the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit and some extra commonly used hardware whereas a conventional Braille printer retails starting from about 1,900 USD. Over the summer of 2014, Banerjee reported about working on 'Braigo v2.0' which promises to be a consumer version of a braille printer/embosser.

In August 2014, a new company called Braigo Labs Inc. was formed with an office in Palo Alto, California. Since Shubham Bannerjee is a minor, his mother Malini is listed as the President of the company and the law firm Inventus Law acting as advisor.

On September 9, 2014, at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF 2014), at the Mega Session: The Next Revolution in Computing: Edison, Wearables, and New Devices with Intel VP & GM, Mike Bell, Banerjee demonstrated 'Braigo v2.0', which promises to be the world's first - most cheapest, silent, IOT enabled, and light weight braille printer or embosser using new patent pending technology along with the Intel's Edison Chip with associated development board to bring a consumer oriented braille printer/embosser to the market.

The inventor

Inventor Shubham Banerjee with Braigo v1.0

Shubham Banerjee is a 13-year-old boy. He was born in Hasselt, Belgium. The family moved to San Jose, California when he was 4 years old. Later he moved to Santa Clara, California and completed his elementary schooling at Don Callejon School. He joined Magnolia Science Academy in Santa Clara in middle school for a couple of months, before moving to Champion School in San Jose for middle school. He lives in Santa Clara, California with his parents and younger sister.

Braigo v1.0

Braigo - Braille Printer with Lego Mindstorms EV3

Braigo Braille Print Head

In Banerjee's own words, taken from the abstract submitted at Synopsys Science Fair:

The challenges with assistive technologies currently available are either too expensive or difficult to obtain for normal people without government or non-profit sponsorships. According to WHO reports, there are estimated 285 million visually impaired people worldwide and 90% of them live in developing countries. At this moment the cost of a braille printer is more than $2000 for a basic version. Thus many millions of people across the world have limited access. If we could reduce the cost to below $500, we could already reduce the cost by 75%. To give access to easily assemble and build a braille printer for the masses, the basic ability of DO-IT-YOURSELF (D-I-Y) is key. The kit should be readily available at stores or procured online from reputable websites to make the process easy for adoption. Most printers operate in X (to move the print head) -Y (to push the paper) – Z (to print or not to print) co-ordinates. The printer has to be compact and self-explanatory. Engineering as a discipline is the application of scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to design, build, maintain, and improve structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. In this experiment, I relied on my love of LEGO and readily available Mindstorms EV3 robotics kit to build a D-I-Y Braille printer and program the device to print in Braille. I worked with a constraint that all parts should be from one kit and maybe some low cost readily available add-ons to make such a printer. After studying the Braille language; I understood that a visually impaired individual feels through his/her fingers the bumps on a paper through a combination of 6 dots. If we could make a printer that prints (by making holes in a paper) as a mirror image of the letter and when flipping the page we should be able to translate letters into BRAILLE. I used rapid prototyping concepts where I tried to build models and programing it to see if I am able to get the desired results. I had to build and break 7 different models before settling on a final one that was able to print the six dots in a desired sequence according to the Braille standards. After which, I programmed the letters A-Z. I used a normal calculator paper to provide the proof of concept. I have validated my version 1.0 of BRAIGO and potential small updates in software necessary to perfect for the next version 2.0 at Santa Clara Valley Blind Center based in San Jose and also with Hoby Wedler at his laboratory in UC Davis. I would say that the first prototype of the proof of concept has been successful and me providing the building instructions and software as open source will provide a low cost alternative solution to the visually impaired community. I achieved a 82% reduction in cost and have been overwlemed by the encouraging feedback from both the sighted and the blind equally!

Braigo v1.0 made Open Source As announced in a CNN and other interviews, Banerjee has decided to give away the design and software for free. He said on an NBC program "I think I'm doing something that could actually help people,". He has uploaded building instruction on his YouTube channel, and also uploaded the software project file .ev3 on the LegoMindstorms EV3 community page. He said that "I think Braigo making the news will rejuvenate others and the beneficiary will be the visually impaired individuals. All good for humankind." Detailed download and build information is available on-line and detailed directions on how to build Braigo were published in Makezine.

Braigo v2.0

Banerjee on stage with Mike Bell, Intel Corporate VP & GM - New Devices Group, at the keynote in IDF14 showing Braigo v2.0

Banerjee with Braigo v2.0 at IDF14

On September 9, 2014, at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF 2014) Mega Session: The Next Revolution in Computing: Edison, Wearables, and New Devices with Intel VP and GM, Mike Bell, Banerjee demonstrated Braigo 2.0. Braigo 2.0 promises to be the world's first - cheapest, silent, IOT enabled and light weight braille printer or embosser using new patent pending technology along with the Intel's Edison Chip with a development board to bring a consumer oriented braille printer/embosser to the market. After Braigo v1.0, the natural progression for Banerjee, after feedback from the visually impaired community, was to make a real consumer version that could eventually be bought off-the-shelf. He said:

What I did with Lego in February of 2014 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". "Intel's new chip 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 haven’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."

Transcoding of documents to braille on-chip

At Campus Party Keynote in São Paulo, Brazil in February 2015. Shubham Banerjee gave a demonstration of a new method of transcoding documents to braille without any software installation on the computer. The technology involves uploading any document from a computer into the memory of the Intel's Edison chip that’s the brain of the Braigo Braille printer. The idea behind this new method is to reduce the cost of ownership of the Braigo printer without having to buy any transcribing software for braille.

Awards/Recognitions

Year	What	From
2015	2015 Next Generation of STEM Leaders	US News
2015	2015 Invention Award	Popular Science
2015	20 under 20	Veckans Affärer
2015	40 under 40	Silicon Valley Business Journal
2014	Nominet Trust 100 Winner	Nominet Trust
2014	Technology Innovation of the Year	Trusted Reviews Time Inc. UK
2014	25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child	UNICEF publication (ISBN 978-92-806-4780-8) "Reimagine the Future: Innovation for every child"
2014	Certificate of Recognition	California State Assembly Member Bob Wieckowski
2014	Best of America	Readers Digest
2014	Winner of 2014 Synopsys Outreach Foundation n+1 Prize	Synopsys Outreach Foundation, Inc.
2014	Lego Build 4 Good Challenge (Inspired by Braigo) - Seattle	Lego
2014	2014 Youth Innovator Award	OPEN Silicon Valley
2014	NBC & AACI APA Heritage Month Honoree 2014	NBC & AACI
2014	Special Congressional Recognition	Mike Honda
2014	Maker Faire Editor's Choice Ribbon	Maker Faire
2014	White House Maker Faire 2014	White House
2014	The Queen Latifah Show & Lego Trophy	The Queen Latifah Show
2014	Honorable Mention	The Tech Awards

Media coverage

Television

On February 21, 2014 CNN International in their program Quest Means Business, hosted by Maggie Lake, aired an interview with Banerjee about Braigo titled "Boy Genius makes Braille printer from Lego". On February 28, 2014 Lake commented on Twitter "Am I going to look back and say I interviewed the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates?". On February 29, 2014, NBCs Bay Area Proud program, hosted by Garvin Thomas, aired a full program dedicated to Banerjee and his invention of Braigo. On May 13, 2014, NBC aired a "Bay Area Proud Updates" to inform viewers of progress with Braigo since their February 29, program aired. The program took segments of the official Lego "Build 4 Good" event video in Seattle, published in YouTube. On March 15, 2014, MSNBC Melissa Harris-Perry program made Banerjee the "Foot soldier of the week". On March 4, 2014, Janet's Planet, hosted by Janet Ivey, an interview titled "Lego Braille Printer - Braigo Inventor on Janet's Planet" was made available. On June 23, 2014; Banerjee was featured on The Queen Latifah Show and also a surprise recognition from Lego was presented to him by Queen Latifah- "Queen Latifah gives a special award to 12-year-old Shubham Banerjee who created a low-cost Braille printer out of LEGOS".

Radio

on February 22, 2014 CBC Radio aired an interview of Banerjee on their program As it Happens titled "California seventh grader makes Lego braille printer" On February 22, 2014 NPR aired an interview with Banerjee titled "Boy Builds Braille Printer Out Of Lego"

Creation of Braigo Labs Inc.

In August 2014, Braigo Labs Inc. was formed with Banerjee announcing that he is working on his next version of the Braille Printer and named it as Braigo v2.0. Since he is a minor, his mother Malini Banerjee is named as the President of the company with him listed as Founder. Braigo and BraigoLabs are both now registered trademarks of Braigo Labs Inc. Banerjee is quoted saying, "Technology should help us to make our life easier and not become a burden due to high cost". The Mission of the company states "Our mission is to bring "Humanely Optimized" technologies that are innovative, affordable simple and catering to solving life's problem". The offices of the company is located in Palo Alto , California.

Intel Capital Investment

Intel was so impressed with Banerjee's efforts that Mike Bell, Intel's VP and GM of New Products Group announced at Intel Developer Forum (IDF 2014) that Intel will invest in Braigo Labs Inc. to help bring the printer to market. In Intel Capital Global Summit 2014, it was announced that they have closed the seed investment round for Braigo Labs Inc. founded by Shubham Banerjee,

Youngest entrepreneur to receive Venture Capital funding

On November 4, 2014 at the Intel Capital Global Summit, Intel Capital announced that they have funded Braigo Labs Inc. the startup founded by Shubham Banerjee. CBS News’ John Blackstone reports, "the eighth grader is already a star; the youngest person ever to get venture capital investment for a start-up", reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone; Silicon Valley Business Journal reported "Shubham Banerjee is among a couple dozen entrepreneurs who received funding from Intel Capital on Tuesday, but he is probably the only one whose father had to drive him there". Venture Beat Editor-in-Chief reported "Banerjee had to take the day off from middle school. That’s because he’s just 13 years old — making him, quite possibly, the youngest recipient of venture capital in Silicon Valley history. (He’s definitely the youngest to receive an investment from Intel Capital.)" San Jose Mercury News reported on their front page on November 4, 2014 newspaper "And on Tuesday, Intel Capital, the company's global investment arm, will announce it has invested in the teenager's company, making Shubham the world's youngest tech entrepreneur to receive venture capital funding." In the Wall Street Journal article titled "Intel Capital’s Arvind Sodhani: Unique Companies ‘Rarer and Rarer’" on November 4, 2014 - journalist Deborah Gage asked the question "You’ve been at Intel Capital for a long time. How much longer are you going to keep doing this?", Arvid Sodhani answered "I’m having fun. We’re having a successful year. The fun part is meeting people like Shubham Banerjee [the 13-year-old creator of the Lego Braille printer] who are passionate about pursuing their dreams and feeling comfortable that this is a risky business. It’s not just a risk for us, but the individuals doing this are taking a risk at a personal level. I like pinpointing the risk—it’s rewarding to have a success down the road." As reported by Johnny Dodd, reporter from People Magazine ""We've funded young entrepreneurs, but no one this young – certainly not in middle school," a spokesman for Intel Capital says. The venture-capital firm recently announced an investment deal with Banerjee's company, Braigo Labs, that one source estimates is worth several hundred thousand dollars."

Microsoft Relationship

Shubham Banerjee was invited by Microsoft for their Student Tech Fair on May 13, 2015 in New York to display his work with Braigo. After the event Microsoft published that Shubham is working with the Windows team at Microsoft to integrate the Braigo with the Windows 10 for easy integration of the solution that he is developing. "Now Shubham is working to bring the Braigo 2.0 to market. He’s started working with my colleagues on the Windows team to integrate Braigo drivers with Windows for easy deployment." The article also stated Shubham's quote about why integration with Windows 10 will help the visually impaired once Braigo is available in the market "Our relationship with Microsoft will help Braigo achieve a seamless experience for a visually impaired person who wants to use a computer at home or at the office to print documents for offline reading," he said. "Also, think about the banks, the government institutions or even the libraries where Windows-based computers are widely used. They will all benefit from having a Braigo to provide accessibility services to their visually impaired customers."