For the first time in India, the researchers and scientists of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-D) Delhi, has developed a ‘DotBook’- the country’s first Braille Laptop for the blind students and the community. This laptop which is exclusively created for the differently abled will be afforadable and have refreshable Braille display.
“Presently, 40 cell Refreshable Braille Devices is available of Rs 1 lakh but this laptop built on IIT Delhi’s patented Shape Memory Alloy Technology will bring down the cost down by almost 60%, and thus helping make this solution accessible to the millions who were previously un-catered-to. This becomes very significant as low income countries contribute to over 90 per cent of the world’s visually impaired population,” said Professor M Balakrishnan, Head of the project.
The laptop, known as the DotBook which was launched on Wednesday have two types of variants such as DotBook 20P:20-Cell Braille Variant with Perkins Keys and DotBook 40Q:40-Cell Braille Variant with QWERTY Keyboard.
Our vision with the DotBook has been to enable VI persons to compete and succeed independently in an office or educational environment and hence, the DotBook comes packed with all the applications and features that a VI User would need to independently carry out their tasks with ease. These features include Email, Calculator, Web Browser and comes with a QWERTY Keyboard, added the professor.
According to, project-lead, “DotBook represents an excellent example of user oriented applied research. On one hand it is not only inter-disciplinary in nature as it brings together advanced techniques in mechanical, low power electronics, software and UI design together but is also a result of sustained efforts over four years of a multi-organizational team comprising academics, two industry partners and a user organisation.”
