Eyeluminati is a technology company based in Washington DC which developed from a project led [1] by Roopam Sharma and Neeraj Saini. [2] They entered for the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2015 and won the innovation category with the Manovue project. This is an intelligent personal assistant in the form of a glove for the visually impaired [3] which reads printed or digital text aloud. It also helps people to move around and to use computer technology. [4] It went on to win the World Health Summit Startup Award 2018. [5] They also won the Cognitive Computing & Internet of Things in the fourth season of Yahoo Accenture Innovation Jockeys in 2015. [6]
It has been suggested that the Manovue eliminates the need for Braille. It combines vision intelligence and the internet of things. [7]
Braille is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or with the use of a computer connected to a braille embosser.
Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.
Sashi Parvatha Reddi is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and a philanthropist. Sashi Reddi was the CEO and founder of AppLabs. Sashi Reddi was born in Madras, India and later migrated to the US. He grew up in Guntur but attended boarding school at Lawrence School, Lovedale. He is a recipient of the Louis Braille Award from the Pennsylvania Council for the Blind, for the year 2017. He currently sits on the advisory board of the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs and the advisory board of IIT Hyderabad.
Manav Rachna University is a private university located in Faridabad, Haryana, India. Established as a university in 2014, it started out as Manav Rachna College of Engineering (MRCE), established in 2004.
Marita Cheng is the founder of Robogals. She was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year. She is the founder and current CEO of Aubot, a start-up robotics company. She co-founded Aipoly, an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones. She was named as one of the World's Top 50 women in Technology by Forbes in 2018 and was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016. On 9 June 2019, Cheng was appointed a member of the Order of Australia for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics.
Chakshumathi is a nongovernmental, not for profit organization based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, working for developing resources for the use of visually impaired people. It is an "Empowerment and Assistive Technology Centre for Blind". The organization, which was inaugurated in June 2011, is a member of DAISY Forum of India. The organization is currently headed by V.K. Damodaran, a former President of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad.
Braigo is 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 model was based on the PLOTT3R, a bonus model released with the EV3 kit and originally designed by Ralph Hempel. 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 US$1,900.
Vinod Prakash Sharma was an Indian malariologist and entomologist, known for his work in vector biology and bioenvironmental control of malaria. Recipient of many awards, including the Padma Shri, he was again honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.
Jawahar Lal Kaul is an Indian social worker and the founder of the All India Conference of the Blind, an NGO working towards the rehabilitation of the blind. He was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, which bestowed on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the field of arts.
Bertha Gyndykes Dkhar is a visually impaired Indian educationist, best known as the inventor of the braille code in Khasi. In 2010, the Government of India awarded her with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award.
Tiffany Brar is an Indian community service worker who became blind as an infant due to oxygen toxicity. Brar is the founder of the Jyothirgamaya Foundation, a non-profit organization that teaches life skills to blind people of all ages. She is a trainer, a campaigner for disability awareness and an advocates for an inclusive society.
Neeraj Chopra is an Indian track and field athlete who is the reigning Olympic champion and world championship silver medalist in javelin throw. He is the first Asian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in men's javelin throw. A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) in the Indian Army, Chopra is the first track and field athlete to win a gold medal for India at the Olympics. He is also the first track and field athlete from India to win at the IAAF World U20 Championships, where in 2016 he achieved a world under-20 record throw of 86.48 m, becoming the first Indian athlete to set a world record.
Roopam Sharma, is an Indian scientist. He is best known for his work on Manovue, a technology which enables the visually impaired to read printed text. His research interests include Wearable Computing, Mobile Application Development, Human Centered Design, Computer Vision, AI and Cognitive Science. Roopam was recently awarded the Gifted Citizen Prize 2016 and has been listed as one of the top 8 Innovators Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review for the year 2016 in India. In 2018, he was honoured as part of Asia's 21 Young Leaders Initiative in Manila.
The Indian 2000-rupee banknote (₹2000) is a denomination of the Indian rupee. It was released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 8 November 2016 after the demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes and has been in circulation since 10 November 2016. It is a part of the Mahatma Gandhi New Series of banknotes with a completely new design.
Gargi Gupta is the founder and secretary of Voice Of World (NGO), a multi-unit non-profit organization for visually impaired, disabled, and orphaned children in Eastern India, headquartered in Kolkata, India.
Upasana Makati is a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, founder of White Print, and activist for the visually impaired. In 2016, she was named one of Forbes India's 30 Under 30.
Swagat Thorat is a wildlife photographer, playwright, painter, editor, and director. Known as the Braille Man of India, he published India's first registered fortnightly Braille newspaper in the Marathi language, called Sparshdnyan. He has also directed plays with blind performers.
SkyHive Technologies Inc. is a cloud-based workforce management and reskilling software provider founded by Sean Hinton and Sergiy Osypchuk in 2017. It has headquarters in Vancouver, Canada and offices in California, United States. It's platform extracts employee skills and matches skill gaps against job/future job requirements, identifies optimized career pathways, and recommends training. This connects workers to new opportunities within and outside their current organizations, based on their individual skill sets, career goals, and retraining needs.
Nikisha B. Jariwala is an Indian computer scientist. She is a professor in Smt. Tanuben & Dr. Manubhai Trivedi College of Information Science. She is recognized for her work in devising a computer model for converting Indian text into Braille.
Joshua A. Miele is an American scientist and inventor who specializes in adaptive technology design. Since 2019, Miele has been a Principal Accessibility Researcher at Amazon Lab126, a subsidiary of Amazon that works on hardware products. Before assuming his current position, Miele conducted research on tactile graphics and auditory displays at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute for fifteen years. Among his work at Smith-Kettlewell is Tactile Map Automated Production, a web application for generating tactile maps of streets printable with a braille embosser, and YouDescribe, a web platform for creating and listening to audio descriptions of YouTube videos. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.