The American Printing House for the Blind is revolutionizing the way blind people read.
The Louisville nonprofit is calling it the Holy Braille for education.
Kentucky Edition's Kelsey Starks has more on what's called the monarch.
And game changing project that you all are working on is called the Monarch.
So a lot of people know, of course, what Braille is, but this is really moving it into the 21st century.
What exactly is it and how does it work?
So Braille, which is a fascinating code, and it allows people who are blind to have a sense of literacy, ability to read and write is wonderful in itself, but it has some challenges.
One is it's cumbersome, it's big, and to do, you know, we think of our standard algebra book that we all had in high school and and, you know, it may be three inches thick, two inches thick.
To get that in Braille would represent about 30 plus volumes, all of which are about three and a half to four inches thick.
So when it's time to turn to page 121 problem 15, it's not as simple as opening your book.
You have to figure out which volume page 121 is.
You've got to go find it and 121 will usually be displayed over three or four pages.
So you could imagine trying to sift through that to stay up with your peers.
Then on top of that, oftentimes the graphics, all those wonderful graphs and angles and math equations will be located in separate supplemental manuals.
So then a student has to have a math book.
If the graphics are there, they have them.
Otherwise they have supplemental things.
Plus, whatever tools they're using to answer the problem, be it a computer, be it or a traditional Braille or this device that we are creating and we're working with to amazing companies to make this happen.
But this device will put all that into a single tabletop multi-line Braille display unit that shows graphics and Braille at the same time.
It's never been done before.
There's been tactile tablets and there's been some experience with some multi-line tablets.
But to get almost a full sheet of Braille on a single tablet.
So when the teacher says turn to page 121 problems, problem three, the student can just type in one, go to 121 page.
Problem three the problem will be their real time.
What this means for the student is we're no longer a passive learner.
We're an active learner keeping up with our sighted peers.
And so from an educational perspective, and having been a former educator working in the classroom with students who are blind and low vision, this is a game changer.
It is.
It's going to be revolutionary.
And we're quite excited about.
We have prototypes out right now and they're working phenomenally.
So more work to be done because we have to create this entire educational ecosystem.
Wow, that supports this.
If you think about it, if the viewers will think about when when the first iPad came out and how small that iPad universe was, that the number of apps that were out there, but how quickly it grew, we are, in essence, doing the same thing.
We're we're producing this, in fact, an iPad for the blind.
But now we've got to create that educational ecosystem with apps programs.
So we're in conversations with the usual suspects Google, Microsoft, Apple, because we want this platform to work for all.
And so we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're excited about the progress.
Really incredible technology.
The American Printing House for the Blind recently partnered with the Daisy Consortium, a global organization to help develop this new electronic Braille standard.