Nine-year-old inventor wins award for ingenious Smart Stick for the Blind

Nine-year-old Mihika Sharma has been named winner of the BT Young Pioneer Award 2019 for her smart stick for the blind.

As part of this year's AbilityNet Tech4Good Awards, a promising young inventor has won one of the top awards. Mihika Sharma, 9, was named winner of the BT Young Pioneer Award for her device that she named Smart Stick.

His goal is to take the familiar walking stick used by the blind and visually impaired to navigate the streets and open spaces. Sharma started developing her smart stick just six years old after seeing a blind woman stumbling across the road.

This new stick uses left and right vibrating alerts, a water sensor, LED lights and a camera with computer vision capabilities to recognize and track obstacles. For her work, Sharma will receive £ 5,000 worth of technical equipment of her choice, as well as targeted sessions with BT experts to help her develop her project.

"I was so excited to be on the list of finalists and I can not believe I won!" Said Sharma.

"My brother Arnav was part of the Tech4Good Awards in 2016 and it really inspired me to start thinking more about how technology can help other people. I look forward to working with BT to develop the Smart Stick to reach more people who really need it. "

Robin Christopherson was one of the award judges who, speaking of Sharma's success, said: "Mihika's ingenious entry combining several smart technologies and the potential to help dramatically improve the lives of many white rod users blind and partially sighted. "

He added that his haptic remarks make him a "life-saving element for deafblind people".

Joshua Lowe and his creation, Edublocks, were awarded the Best Merit Award in the BT Young Pioneer category. It is an easy-to-use tool that allows young people to code with the Python 3 programming language and has already been deployed in various UK schools.