Tech Talk: West Lafayette Start-Up Makes Breakthrough for Blind and Visually Impaired

A small group of engineers in West Lafayette were told countless times their vision to help the blind and visually impaired was impossible.

But Dave Schleppenbach, CEO of Tactile Engineering, kept toiling at his start-up company situated near Purdue University.

All that swimming against the current paid off for Schleppenbach – a serial entrepreneur, inventor and tireless advocate for people with disabilities – and his firm.

Schleppenbach won the Rising Entrepreneur Award during TechPoint’s 24^th annual Mira Awards, the state’s biggest awards programs for the tech sector.

Tactile Engineering, inventor of the Cadence electronic braille tablet, won the Mira award for Product Innovation of the year.

One look at the company’s web site and it’s easy to see Tactile officials are more concerned about helping the visually impaired and people with disabilities than they are winning awards.

While attending Purdue, Schleppenbach was troubled by the plight of two blind students whose inability to get adequate educational materials led to difficulties in the classroom.

He created a content development lab in Purdue’s chemistry department and produced accessible college-level STEM content for the blind. He learned three different braille codes, developed new software to make math braille content and began improving technology and access for people with disabilities while also working on a doctorate in chemistry.

The core Tactile team – Schleppenbach, Tom Baker, Alex Moon and Wunji Lau – combined their engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, accessibility and education expertise to develop an affordable braille tablet with minimal maintenance.

Last year, the Tactile Engineering team unveiled the Cadence tablet, a mass-produced, affordable, reliable and portable electronic braille and graphics display for the blind and visually impaired community. The Cadence table was piloted at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in preparation for full deployment to schools and organizations across Indiana this year.

Already, Tactile officials say, the company has several customers committed to buying the tablet once production ramps up. After many years of self-funding the company, Tactile last year secured $2 million in venture capital to boost production efforts.

Until Cadence, millions of blind people, including tens of thousands of Hoosiers, lacked adequate access to braille and tactile graphics. That barrier to education directly contributed to literacy rates lower than 5%, college graduation rates that are one-half the graduation rate of the sighted population and an unemployment rate of more than 50% among the blind and visually impaired, according to the National Federation of the Blind.

The Cadence tablet brings educational tools for blind and visually impaired individuals into the modern age, Schleppenbach explains, giving them many of the modern computer-based conveniences that sighted people take for granted and have had for decades.

Schleppenbach says he and his team never let the skeptics deter them from their goal. He admits, though, pioneering a product and starting a company is not for everyone. “You hear ‘no’ and ‘it can’t be done,’ a lot,” he relates.

“I have learned to take those times as challenges and opportunities as opposed to a reason to stop working,” he noted in his Mira acceptance speech.

The Cadence tablet is all about providing opportunities where there once were none.

“Blind individuals deserve the same opportunities in life as their sighted peers, but the world is online now and traditional tools just aren’t cutting it,” Schleppenbach stresses.

“They want to be productive, feel valued, and have the independence to interact with the digital world without assistance. Our team has developed a braille tablet that empowers the visually impaired to overcome these challenges at school, in the workplace and in life.”

Anthony Schoettle is the director of communications for the Indiana Chamber. He started with the Chamber in 2021 after a long career in journalism. He’s won multiple awards for his storytelling ability on a wide range of business topics.