For a science fair project, young Shubham Banerjee decided to take on a new idea. As he states, “I took a plunge into the land of darkness experienced by the visually impaired in January 2014, after a flyer arrived in the mail from a charity asking my parents for a donation. I then started my journey into the world of darkness, with a hope to bring light to the visually impaired.”
At only 13 years old, Shubham studied and did his research
He states, “Just before going to bed one night, I studied online literature about Braille and its variants. There were approximately 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and some 90 percent of them live in developing countries. I found out that Braille printers/embossers are very costly, with a price tag of $2,000 and upwards, and many millions of people across the world have limited access to them.”
So he worked and worked and created a Braille printer. The kicker, he made it entirely out of Legos.
Here is the Lego kit that he used to build it. It’s called the Lego Mindstorms EV3.
Here are some of the parts he used.
This is the part that holds the “brain” of the product.
Here is his initial prototype.
Impressed by his product and vision, Intel contacted him and told him that they would be investing in his company. This makes Banerjee the youngest entrepreneur ever funded by a VC firm.
Now at 14 years old, he is the owner of a multi-million dollar company Braigo Labs Inc and continues to work to find cost-effective solutions to the Braille printer.
He also presented at the Intel Capital Summit. You can watch the entire video here: