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National Braille Press Presents $10,000 to Winners of Touch of Genius Awards

Bristol Braille Wins for Braille Display and ObjectiveEd for interactive learning application

(Photo from the CSUN conference in Anaheim, CA: Brian Mac Donald and Marty Shultz, Brian Mac Donald and Ed Rogers, courtesy of the National Braille Press)

(Boston, MA) – March 14, 2019 – National Braille Press (NBP) presented a total of $10,000 to the winners of this year’s Louis Braille Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation at the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in Anaheim, California. NBP awarded $5,000 to Bristol Braille for its braille display and $5,000 to ObjectiveEd for its interactive learning app.

Bristol Braille developed the Canute, a 360-cell refreshable braille display with 9 rows of 40 cells. The Canute is the first affordable multi-line display on the market. Ed Rogers, Director of Bristol Braille Technologies of Bristol, UK, accepted the award from NBP.

“We applaud Bristol Braille Technologies for their ingenuity in creating the Canute,” said Brian Mac Donald, President of the National Braille Press who presented the Touch of Genius Awards at the CSUN conference. “This new braille display is like a Kindle for the blind and is undoubtedly an innovative game-changer and will only push forward braille literacy.”

The other Touch of Genius award was presented to Marty Shultz, Co- founder of ObjectiveEd of Miami, Florida, and founder of Blindfold Games for Objective Ed’s learning app Braille Sheets.  ObjectiveEd is an organization that provides students with disabilities with educational games to achieve the best educational outcomes. Braille Sheets makes it easy to enter programs and lessons for students, see lessons from other teachers and pair with an actual braille sheet where the student “tactile-y” learns letters and words as they receive real-time audio feedback. Braille Sheets is a collection of lessons and games and will help students learn braille and become literate in an affordable way.

“Marty’s commitment to the blind and visually disabled community has been tremendous throughout the years,” said Mac Donald. “Braille Sheets, developed by ObjectiveEd, will go a long way toward the teaching of braille and the improvement of braille literacy among youth.”

The Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation is provided by support from The Gibney Family Foundation that works with non-profit organizations and provides grants to help them create sustainable solutions and assist in making the non-profit world strong and connected. The Touch of Genius Prize attracts innovators from around the world in the fields of education, technology, engineering, graphics, and literacy. It fosters and rewards innovation by offering a compelling incentive to support and expand braille and tactile literacy efforts for the blind.

(Photos from left to right: The Canute and Braille Sheets, courtesy of the NBP)

About National Braille Press

National Braille Press is a non-profit braille publisher and producer of braille products. NBP creates products and programs to support braille literacy in the blind community and to provide access to information that empower blind people to actively engage in work, family, and community. For more information visit www.nbp.org

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