Why Are We Blind to Innovation?

By Dinesh C Sharma, DailyO, May 19, 2015

Last week almost every news outlet in India published a wire copy from New York about an Indian-origin school kid, Shubham Banerjee, who has developed a low-cost Braille printer and is now working with Microsoft to commercialise the technology.

It was a typical "feel good" story which had all right ingredients - an interesting innovation, Microsoft and an Indian connection. I felt good too, but the story set me thinking. Just a couple of months back I had seen a similar innovation - a low-cost Braille printer - by a couple of Indian boys at the innovation fair hosted at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

The low-cost Braille printer developed by Santokh Singh and Khushwant Rai from Jallandhar, however, remains in oblivion because Indian media hardly wrote about it. This was despite the innovation having been showcased to the Indian President, just like Shubham who had displayed his innovation at the White House science fair. Shubham could get Microsoft's attention and float his own venture, while Santokh and Khushwant are struggling to get their innovation even noticed.

"The two Braille printers are completely different, but Indian printer is going to be much lower in cost," said Nitin Maurya of National Innovation Foundation (NIF) which had scouted the printer from Jallandhar and included it in the innovation fair at Rashtrapati Bhawan in March 2015.  

The Braille printer developed by Jallandhar boys is a modification of conventional dot matrix printer. By altering the size of printer's roller and removing its ink ribbon, its pins are made to strike on paper directly, resulting in desired impression. 

The idea occurred to Santokh and Khushwant when they visited a blind school for a school project. They noticed that much of the printing work was being done manually. One of the teachers there asked them to see if they could help in any way. The duo soon found that all Braille printers in the market were very costly, so they decided to develop a low-cost one. They started working on the innovation while in school and are now pursuing engineering degrees.

Read the full story here in DailyO