Project Mudra

Revolutionizing education for the visually impaired.

Problem

Visually Impaired Children: Learning Braille is tough, and it takes around 1 year for 1 student to learn how to read, write and type when being taught by 1 teacher. There is a high dependence on the teacher and there exists no interactive educational content for self-learning. Braille literacy has been correlated to higher employability. 

Teachers: No. of Students per teacher (teacher caseloads) are high as there are limited number of teachers qualified to teach visually impaired students. User progress tracking, evaluation and monitoring is an entirely manual process. There exists no way to create or customise content keeping in mind desired outcomes.

Parents: Most parents can’t participate in the studies of their visually impaired child and are in the dark about how their children are progressing. 

Governments: Local and central governments are not able to achieve learning outcomes as hiring QTVIs (Qualified teachers for the visually impaired) for the requisite amount of time isn’t financially feasible. It is one of the major reasons why governments are unable to make a big dent to this problem. (Governments spend billions on social security and support.) 

Solution

Visually Impaired Children:  Thinkerbell’s flagship product Annie, addresses the pain point of low Braille literacy by helping them learn how to Read, Write and Type in Braille. Annie can be used directly by the CYP (Children and Young People with Visual Impairment) to self-learn Braille in a fun gamified manner. It is a device which has all the hardware modules tailored to teach Braille along with pre-loaded interactive content designed by curriculum experts and teachers. It enables one teacher to simultaneously teach many students at the same time (something completely missing in the education of the visually impaired)                                        

Teachers: The startup has developed a companion app which enables teachers and parents to track user progress, schedule tests, homeworks and experience new content and buy it for the device. The startup also has a content creation platform (Louie) in the works which would allow teachers & educators to create and publish interactive audio tactile content in order to reach this audience of visually impaired students (This audience has been underserved in terms of measurable and interactive content)

Governments: The device sits really well within the current allocated budgets for Special Education Needs and the Annie Cloud Platform gives key stakeholders access to analytics to track learning outcomes and compare with other geographies, age groups & international benchmarks. It also allows them to pick and deploy specific content / test simultaneously to a group of devices. 

Vision

Our vision is that Annie dramatically increases the literacy rate of Braille worldwide. We believe that by onboarding millions of visually impaired people onto the connected platform and empowering them with relevant content, we would be able to convert people who were left out of the education pipeline to citizens who contribute positively to the economy. 

Annie is a fully connected hardware device with software which allows for monitoring & evaluating multiple students at the same time. 

Special Education Needs (SEN) budgets are increasing in the US and UK but not proportionately as the growth of number of pupils with high needs. 

This is the sweet spot for our proposition of amplification of the educators to achieve better learning outcomes within same budgets. 

Annie is an audio-tactile device that makes self-learning and classroom teaching of Braille. (Its fully connected) 

It runs on a Raspberry Pi and consists of hardware components such as a refreshable braille display, a digital braille slate, and a Perkins style braille keyboard - in one device. 

This combination thus helps students learn how to read, write, and type, with all modules complementing one another.

• Complete Design for assembly and manufacturing (DFMA)
• Obtain CE mark 
• Finalise on the manufacturing partner
• Start medium scale production
• Pilot out and validate content on other devices
• Sell 700 Annies by end of financial year

We plan to broaden our value proposition by:

1. Port content to other devices and platforms

2. Design and develop content for other age groups

3. Work on topics which stay relevant as the student progresses from Early Education (literacy) right till Skilling for jobs (employability)

4. Become an indispensable part of a visually impaired person’s learning journey

In developed countries, we will reach the beneficiaries through networks of special educators and distributors of assistive technologies. Our continuous delivery of educational content will retain the customers and keep them coming back. 

In developing countries, we work with partners such as Sightsavers (multi national NGO working for the visually impaired at the grassroots) and organisational patrons /governments to pay for the deployments of Annie devices. 

I am extremely excited to announce that we recently completed our first deployment of 20 Annie devices in a government blind school in Ranchi on 13th July 2018. This came from the Government of Jharkhand (our first paying customer) as a pilot order. Currently the devices have been installed in a lab setup where K6 students can use them to learn the basics of reading, writing and typing of English & Hindi Braille with localised instructions. 

We hope to sell 1000 Annies in the next 12 months across India and UK. We envision that Annie will bring in a much awaited change in making Braille self-learning fun and achieving better learning outcomes among K6 visually impaired student across India and UK. 

In 3 years, we plan to affect 8000 visually impaired people all across the world (3800 by Annie and 4200 by educational content on other devices and platforms). Our content creation tool (Louie) will allow educators and teachers to make content ranging from literacy to employability which would in turn make vi people more employable. 

We have a diverse team capable of research, design, development, fundraising, partnerships and an elaborate advisory which helps us with the skillsets we don't possess (marketing, branding, manufacturing). 

The company aims to have two revenue streams. The first, from the sale of the physical product i.e. Annie and the second, from selling content that can be accessed through the product. For the USA, UK and Canada, the company plans to have a B2G & B2C  model and Annie will be sold for US $940 while the content price is $150 per year. For India, Annie will be priced at $625 and the company is aiming to have a patron driven model (organisational and individual).

Projected Revenue: US $500,000 for FY '18-19

We have been a part of several incubator and accelerator programs over the years and we are big believers in the power of peer to peer learning. We believe the talented cohort that Solve will connect us to will teach us a lot and hopefully we shall contribute to their progress as well. 

Impact assessment and efficacy studies. We need to carefully prove (with data) that Annie is the best solution to solve this problem. This is an area which requires research studies and we think Solve can connect us to the most diligent researchers on the planet.