Lingampalli Himaja wins James Dyson Award for voice-enabled RUDHRA printer
Lingampalli Himaja, an engineering student from Andhra Pradesh, just won the 2026 James Dyson Award (India) for her voice-enabled Braille printer, RUDHRA.
Inspired by the challenges faced by visually impaired students around her, Himaja designed RUDHRA so visually impaired people can create Braille documents just by speaking: no tricky reverse writing needed.
RUDHRA uses Alexa and Raspberry Pi
RUDHRA uses Alexa to turn speech into text; then a Raspberry Pi translates the text into reverse Braille patterns, and a printing mechanism embosses the required dots onto paper.
This means less effort and more independence for users.
With the £5,000 prize (about ₹600,000), Himaja plans to upgrade her prototype and share it with more people.
Other cool entries this year included a device for preserving organs (ViabilityX) and an electric patrol trike (Trike 2p), showing how young engineers are solving real-world problems.