Thimphu: A group of former students of the College of Science and Technology have created Bhutan's first-ever prototype of electronic Dzongkha Braille, The Bhutan Live reported. The device developed by former college students is called as Digital Dzongkha Braille Board.
Initially, it was a college project, however, the innovation has evolved into a passion to help the visually impaired in reading and writing Dzongkha, according to The Bhutan Live report.
Project to passion
The group of young people - Mani Kumar Basnet, 24, Ugyen Tshering, 25, Sonam Wangmo, 24 and Garab Gyeltshen, 23 decided to have Digital Dzongkha Braille Board as a project for the final year of their Bachelor’s in Electronic and Communication Engineering course at the College of Science and Technology. However, the college project turned into a passion.
The aim of young people was fuelled by the lack of accessible Dzongkha electronic Braille machines and the high price of Braille devices available in other nations. The device developed by young people features six buttons that enable users to effortlessly write Braille alphabets.
The device converts the input into an audible sound or tactile pop-up that can be read by touch, providing multiple ways for the visually impaired to interact with the text.
"We always thought of working with assistive technology to help those in need. We decided to help the visually impaired. While researching, we found that there are lots of devices to help the visually impaired, but we saw that they were also very expensive. So, we thought that we could develop one for our own country, why not even in Dzongkha since there are no such devices in Dzongkha," the Bhutan Live report quoted Mani Kumar Basnet, a team member.
Affordable and accessible
Less than Nu 15,000 have been used to develop the prototype. The team has planned to further reduce the price to less than Nu 10,000 to make it accessible to more people, The Bhutan Live reported.
Mani Kumar Basnet said, "We have currently focused on writing, reading and saving files. Saving happens over SD cards right now but we would like to use cloud storage in the future. We can interface with our PC even now."
"In the future, we are hoping to design it so that we can even interface with our mobile phones through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections. We will be working on that. We are also planning to develop it for classroom purposes," he added.
United efforts to create the device
Despite being scattered after graduation in June this year, the team continues to engage in creating the device. The team even sought the guidance and feedback of the Disabled People’s Organisation to further refine their invention.
Recently, the team presented their prototype to Bhutan's Ministry of Education and Skills Development. The team said they received some suggestions to improve their initial work. However, they further said that they mostly received positive reactions from visually impaired people.
