Saskatoon student receives national recognition for innovative braille device

Sarah Onyango · CBC News

· Posted: May 30, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Watching his gramps statesman to suffer his proceeding sparked a passionateness successful Joti Gokaraju to enactment the deafblind assemblage and the thought for an invention that would gain him a nationalist award.

Gokaraju, a Grade 11 pupil astatine Walter Murray Collegiate in Saskatoon astatine the time, grew acrophobic astir however his gramps would pass the proceeding information worsened.

"That's what truly started, you know, my passionateness for helping the deaf unsighted community, because I recovered retired that it's not conscionable my gramps who could endure from this situation," Gokaraju said.

That passion led him to create TouchTalk, a braille-based connection strategy that is present the winner of a 2025 nationalist Ingenious+ Award.

"There are astir 160 cardinal deafblind radical astir the satellite who look this nonstop aforesaid problem," Gokaraju said. "I conscionable wanted to marque definite that these radical person a mode to link with their communities and their families."

With TouchTalk, deafblind radical person and nonstop messages done braille, inputting substance done a machine app that translates the connection into braille for the TouchTalk's carnal display.

Gokaraju has conscionable finished the preliminary investigating for TouchTalk. He said he built the instrumentality for nether $100, portion akin products connected the marketplace usually cost overmuch more.

"The astir communal exertion close present costs astir $5,000. And if you deliberation astir however a batch of deafblind people aren't successful first-world countries, having that debased outgo is truly important," Gokaraju said.

Youth starring innovation 

Ingenious+, tally by the Rideau Hall Foundation, seeks retired originative solutions to analyzable challenges erstwhile selecting its finalists. Amy Mifflin-Sills, a manager astatine the foundation, calls it "innovating for good."

"With Joti, what he's done truthful acold with his innovation is simply a wide illustration of innovating for good," Mifflin-Sills said.

The Ingenious+ Award is unfastened to younker aged 14 to 18 with projects focused connected innovation successful areas similar assemblage and civic engagement, clime change, equity and inclusion, health, technology and entrepreneurship.

"There are astonishing ideas retired determination and unthinkable prototypes, conscionable similar Joti's. Our extremity is to enactment arsenic galore of them arsenic imaginable each twelvemonth done fiscal awards, mentorship and learning opportunities," she said.

"To springiness them that archetypal effect wealth truthful they tin get started and determination guardant with their innovations. Ideally, we privation to assistance them scope commercialization, determination beyond the investigating and prototype stages, and adjacent instrumentality these projects with them arsenic they spell connected to assemblage oregon university." 

Servicing his community

Gokaraju credits overmuch of his occurrence with TouchTalk to hands-on enactment from researchers astatine the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, whom helium connected with to larn much astir issues with blindness and deafness. 

"It's been truly bully to really get immoderate tract investigating done," Gokaraju said.

His enactment successful unsighted and deaf connection was besides recognized by the Loran Scholars Foundation, which awarded him with a four-year assistance valued astatine much than $100,000.

"It's besides bully to, I guess, consciousness that your innovation has besides been recognized, and it's thing I deliberation tin spell guardant and I tin really marque a institution retired of it to bash thing meaningful." 

Gokaraju hopes much young radical go inspired to make solutions to the world's problems.

He made definite to enactment that helium wouldn't beryllium present without the enactment of his household and community.

"This is thing that I could lone bash by having that full assemblage down me."