News Stories

20 January 2015

Boy, 13, Builds Braille Printer With Legos, Starts Company

Terence Chea

Shubham Banerjee works on his lego robotics braille printer at home, Jan. 6, 2015, in Santa Clara, Calif. - Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo:

In Silicon Valley it's never too early to become an entrepreneur. Just ask 13-year-old Shubham Banerjee.

The California eighth-grader has launched a company to develop low-cost machines to print Braille, the tactile writing system for the visually impaired, Tech giant Intel Corporation recently invested in his startup, Braigo Labs.

Shubham built a Braille printer with a Lego robotics kit as a school science fair project last year after he asked his parents a simple question: How do blind people read? "Google it," they told him.

Braille, Blindness, Lego Mindstorms, EV3