Bristol Braille Technology CIC invents, manufactures and distributes radical new Braille technology from our workshop in Bristol, England. We developed the world’s first affordable multiline Braille display, the Canute 360. We are a not-for-profit committed to increasing literacy, numeracy, employment and independence for blind people through the transformative power of Braille. We work closely with our friends and partners in the blindness community to design products that fulfil the real needs of Braillists across the world.
“Braille is ten times the cost of print. Affordable Braille is essential for blind literacy, education and employment, yet Braille use has declined, due in no small part to stagnant technology.
“So as a team we’ve dedicated the last twelve years to creating better Braille technology and breaking down the barriers blind people face. Bristol Braille Technology CIC is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to serving blind communities through the invention and provision of Braille devices. Some of us are engineers, others specialise in supporting accessible products.
“After trialling various single-line prototypes we decided, in 2012, to concentrate all our efforts on multiline refreshable Braille. Making Braille more affordable wasn’t enough. Reading Braille twenty or forty cells at a time is no better than reading print off a ticker tape, or a calculator screen. We began work on the Canute.
“Finally, in 2020, after fourteen prototypes and years of love had gone into the design, both by our team and our community in the Braillists, the Canute 360 launched.”
Ed Rogers, Managing Director
Canute Was Designed Within The Community
The Canute was co-designed with our partners in the Braillists Foundation CIO, the National Federation of the Blind and many more. Hundreds of people put in thousands of hours to test and feedback on the designs, break them, shape them and generally make the whole thing work.
In recognition of the role of so many members of the community, we have open-sourced the source code for the Canute 360’s ebook reading software. View the sources on Github and feel free to open an issue to suggest an improvement.
We regularly hold public meetings testing, redesigning and explaining Canute’s electro-mechanical design. These were held at local Braillists groups, membership of which is open to everyone with an interest in Braille, and are now hosted at our own workshops in Bristol.
Our Team
The current team is a mix of staff and freelancers, doing anywhere from five days a week to a couple of hours a month.
- Hollie Baker, Programmer
- Roger Firman, Director
- Ben Wright, Programmer
- Chris Turner, Communications
- Charlie White, Assembler
- Andy Wood, Programmer
- Yanan Yu, Researcher
- Nic Marshall, Developer and Production Manager
- Stephanie Sergeant, Director and Customer support
- Nick Rogers, Treasurer and Company Secretary
- Ed Rogers, Founder and Managing Director
- See previous team members
Designed And Made In The United Kingdom
We are proud that Canute 360, the world’s first commercially available multiline Braille display, is manufactured in the UK. We’ve been operating in one form or another since 2008. Have a look at the development of the company, prototypes and community on our timeline page.
We design, prototype and assemble Canutes in our workshop in Bedminster, Bristol. Get in contact, we’d love to show you around!
Our Backers – Past And Present
For a full list of our backers see the projects page.
Dedications
We are devastated to announce the death of Zac Wilcox, our friend and colleague, without whom the Canute project would never have come close to succeeding. Zac died in 2021, aged 40.
We also remember the redoubtable N Krishnaswamy, who was a true inventor at the vanguard of affordable Braille and inspired the Canute project, and George Bell, a pioneer of accessible technology in the UK, co-founder of Sight Village, and one of our earliest commercial partners. NK died in 2017. George Bell died in 2026.