‘Dot Pad’ of Dot (Co-CEOs Joo-yoon Kim and Ki-gwang Ki), a social venture specializing in developing devices and software for the visually impaired, received the Best of Innovation Award in the Accessibility category at CES 2023, the international electronics fair.
On the 17th, Dot, a member of the Born2023Global Center (Director Kim Jong-gap), announced that its ‘Dot Pad’ was selected in the Accessibility, Mobile & Devices, and Virtual & Augmented Reality categories at the 3 CES. It was announced that each was selected as a finalist and was selected as an award winner in all three categories.
The CES Innovation Award is an award given by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which hosts the expo, to world-leading innovative technologies and products, and is called ‘CES’ highest honor.’
Established in 2015, Dot has created a variety of assistive device products using ‘Dot Cell’, a core technology it has researched and developed, and introduced the world’s first tactile display (hereinafter referred to as Dot Pad) in 2021. The dot pad has a total of 2400 pins and displays visual graphics such as shapes, symbols, tables, and charts from PCs, mobile devices, and electronic whiteboards in tactile graphics. You can recognize the content by touching pictures and images with your finger, and this is expected to be used to increase accessibility in various fields of daily life such as education, music, and entertainment.
In December 2021, Dot collaborated with Apple to update the DotPad using Voice Over starting with iOS 12 or later or iPad OS 15.2 or later. As a result, visually impaired users can now access text and various pictures that appear on the iPhone and iPad on the Dot Pad. Dot is evaluated as having laid the foundation for allowing the visually impaired to access a variety of content, and is carrying out innovative projects with companies, organizations, and research institutes around the world in addition to Apple.
Dot’s co-founders Kim Joo-yoon and CEO Seong Ki-gwang said, “We are grateful that the value of the world’s first tactile display has been recognized globally. We hope this will serve as an opportunity to attract more interest in the education and job environment for the visually impaired around the world.” said.
Dot Pad has been recognized for its educational value, and has been registered as a procurement product by the U.S. Department of Education and will be enrolled in U.S. public schools for the visually impaired starting in 2023. In addition, it has been researched and developed into a product that improves rehabilitation and work productivity by making Excel, Keynote, and PowerPoint, which are essential in the work environment, accessible through collaboration with APPLE and NV ACCESS, and is used in the daily lives of visually impaired people around the world. We expect that we will be able to bring about many changes.