Hoh Kim
Case Western Reserve University - Weatherhead School of Management
David Cooperrider
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If the whole population of the world is 100, then about 4 people are visually impaired, and 0.7 people are totally blind. There are 285 million visually impaired people in the world and 39 million are totally blind. If there are 100 books in the world, only one book is translated into Braille. If there are 100 visually impaired people who need Braille readers, only five of them have the readers. If there are 100 visually impaired people who can be better connected to the world by knowing Braille, only ten of them know Braille.
Who can solve this problem? Dot Inc. founded by Eric Ju Yoon Kim, a young entrepreneur based in Seoul, Korea is nearly solving the problem and is about to launch the first Braille smartwatch in the world at an affordable price of USD 290.
While innovation has been a big agenda in business, there has been zero innovation in the Braille industry for the past 20 years. Traditional Braille readers weigh 4-6 pounds and costs 2,000 USD. The size and the price of the first Braille smartwatch by Dot Inc. will be reduced to nearly one tenth. The initial price of the watch will be 290 USD and weighs 2.6 ounces.
When the founder, Kim, was a student at the University of Washington, he encountered a blind girl carrying a heavy Braille Bible around her neck and came to know about the life of a blind person. For visually impaired people, if we translate one Bible book into Braille books, it becomes 22 huge ones. That was the moment that Kim was inspired to develop a new technology to solve the problem.
We've been enjoying smart technologies, including smart phones, ipads, kindles, etc. However, visually impaired people were ignored from the benefit, and no one really provided any innovative ideas or products for the blind people. Dot Inc. starting its first ever Braille smart watch, will provide smart technologies for visually impaired people including Dot pad (ipad for blind people) and refreshable Braille display for bus stops, etc. This can potentially change the lives of 285 million visually impaired people and reduce the information gap.
As of July 2016, Dot Inc. already received over 100,000 preorders for the Dot Watch. In terms of sales revenue, it will be around 31 million USD. Stevie Wonder is one of the preordered customers. The expected launching date for the Dot Watch is December 25th of 2016. Dot Inc. is also cooperating with Google so that Chromebook can add refreshable Braille technology.
Dot Inc. is working with Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to teach Braille for the visually impaired people in the third world. Its plan is to provide low-end Braille modules for visually impaired children in Nairobi and Kenya. 95% of visually impaired African population do not know Braille.
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