Inducement prize: Tactile Displays for the Visually Impaired

People with visual impairment have serious difficulties in accessing digital information. This is a growing challenge as digital content becomes increasingly reliant on graphics which are particularly challenging to translate. Existing solutions are very costly and provide limited reading experience, usually in braille and not graphics. The objectives of this inducement prize are: to address this significant gap in the ICT market with a tactile graphical display that makes visually impaired people benefit from digital technologies and improves the quality of their lives especially in the area of education and navigation; and, to stimulate broader European efforts in developing solutions for this societal need.

The indicative budget for the prize is EUR 3.00 million from the 2019 budget[[The budget amounts for the 2019 budget are indicative and will be subject to a separate financing decision to cover the amounts to be allocated for 2019.]].

An affordable, full-page tactile display, which is able to convey digital information in both braille and tactile graphics form to improve access to digital information for people with visual impairments. The solution should benefit visually impaired people (30 million in Europe) but also a wider range of people in need of multitasking solutions where, vision being engaged, the touch function of hands needs to be applied.