The world's cheapest Braille printer got its start with a single piece of mail. Upon seeing a letter soliciting donations for the blind, Shubham Banerjee, then 12 years old, asked his parents how blind people read. They suggested he Google it. Banerjee's Internet search turned up Braille printers, all of which cost more than $1,800. So he set out to make a cheaper alternative using his favorite toy--LEGOs.

Banerjee finished building his first prototype, Braigo, in February 2014. But the device was limited to printing on narrow rolls of paper. "I still love LEGO, but I had to move on to something that would be released into the market," he says.

In summer 2014, Banerjee formed Braigo Labs with the help of his parents. That fall, he released the prototype for Braigo 2.0 at the Intel Developer Forum, and Intel Capital offered him seed funding for further R&D.