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How an aspiring Faridabad model made it to Foreign Policy’s list of 100 Global Thinkers

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Roopam Sharma, 23, invented a text-to-speech device that makes life and learning easy for millions of visually impaired people.

New Delhi: Five years ago, Roopam Sharma of Faridabad, Haryana, was strutting down a ramp in college, fascinated with modelling.

Cut to the present, the 23-year-old has been named in Foreign Policy magazine’s 2019 list of 100 ‘Global Thinkers’ for inventing a text-to-speech device that can ease life and learning for millions of visually impaired people.

“In my first year of engineering college I really enjoyed modelling and being on the ramp,” Sharma told ThePrint. “But I was taught three things: Enter college, get a degree, and find a job. I had two options before me: My personal computer, or modelling,” he added.

Sharma, who grew up in a middle-class family, is being feted worldwide for his invention, Manovue, a unique text-to-speech device that acts like an integrated mobile phone app and is wearable like a glove. A small camera fixed to the tip of the finger reads aloud whatever text it is pointed towards, for example, a book.

A visually impaired boy using Manovue | Roopam Sharma

The device has earned worldwide acclaim, winning Sharma a string of accolades, from India’s National Youth Award (2017) to the Gifted Citizen Prize (2016), given out by the UK-based Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce.


Also read: How IIT-Delhi start-ups are helping draw visually impaired students into science


Where the journey began

When Sharma enrolled in Manav Rachna University, Faridabad, there was no earning member in his family, and the pressure to perform — and more importantly secure a job — was high.

However, it was an encounter with a frail, helpless elderly woman that put him on the path to innovate.

In his second year of college, Sharma and a friend were distributing wedding cards in a village in Haryana when they heard piercing screams. Tracing their source, they reached an old woman who was tied to a bed, shouting for help.

“We asked her family why they had tied her up and then didn’t help her,” Sharma told ThePrint. “They bluntly told us that she was ‘crazy’, and couldn’t recognise her own children.”

Disturbed, Sharma went home and began researching what the condition might be. Torn that he couldn’t do anything to help the woman at the time, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Design Technology Workshop in 2015 with her needs in mind.

What resulted was among Sharma’s first inventions — a position tracking device that would alert caregivers if a patient wandered too far.

“I felt terrible that I couldn’t do anything for her at the time,” Sharma said.

“That’s when I began thinking more deeply about problems that we overlook, and trying to solve them.”

It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Sharma devoted hours experimenting and designing products that could help people with disabilities, to the extent that he was missing classes regularly, leaving friends and family concerned for his future.

It was at this point, however, that Sharma drew the inspiration for Manovue.

“I was talking to a friend who told me he wanted to join the Army, but couldn’t because he was colour blind,” he said.

“At the time I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked him to explain. The end of our conversation left me wondering what being completely blind must be like.”

An incomplete solution

While doing his research, Sharma said, he discovered that braille, the reading system for the blind, was failing miserably. According to him, only 1 per cent of India’s visually impaired population can read braille, leaving an overwhelming majority illiterate.

“Braille is an obsolete solution. No one wants to learn it; it’s difficult, it’s expensive, and very few things are printed in braille anyway,” Sharma said. “That leaves a vast amount of literature untouched. No one is paying attention to that.”

With smartphones still out of reach for millions in the country, Sharma was determined to build a product that was accessible and easy on the pocket.

As of now, the basic version of Manovue is still expensive, priced at $28, roughly Rs 1,980 (The highest price it can fetch is $650). But, for Sharma, who is currently based in Washington DC, returns are meaningless, and his sole priority is reducing the price even further.

The first trial included 800 people from India, and the feedback has been incorporated into the device. A second trial, due to begin in April or May, will take place in Washington.

“I don’t want to be someone with lots of money,” Sharma told ThePrint.

“My primary concern is that it reaches the people who need it the most. It’s about time we focused on impact, rather than returns,” he said.

Talking about his journey so far, he added, “I didn’t get here through a stable job, though.”

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