How a Bengaluru 2nd-year engineering student built a navigation device for the blind and won a national Samsung award

A second-year engineering student from Bengaluru has won one of India’s biggest youth innovation awards with a device that helps people with complete blindness navigate their surroundings independently. Percevia, an assistive AI tool created by Tushar from Scaler School of Technology (SST), was named the national winner of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2025, earning a ₹25 lakh grant.

From a mid-term idea to a life-changing solution
Percevia began as a mid-term assignment at SST. What followed was months of testing and fine-tuning. Tushar visited blind schools, spoke directly with visually impaired users and tested early prototypes with them. Each round of feedback shaped the next version, improving spatial awareness, adding comfort, speeding up responses and ensuring the device provided information only when needed.


These user-driven improvements slowly transformed Percevia from a college project into a device shaped entirely by the people it aimed to help.

Turning an idea into a functional product required more than curiosity. Scaler School of Technology provided the structure, mentorship, and resources needed to bring Percevia to life.

Tushar reached the national finals, where his device competed with some of the strongest student-built projects in the country. Before the finale, the participants visited Samsung’s R&D centres and FITT at IIT Delhi, engaging with industry leaders and fellow innovators.

“It felt like discovering a tribe of builders. We exchanged ideas, debated designs and pushed each other to go beyond what we thought possible,” he said.

A journey that reshaped his idea of innovation
Tushar said the Solve for Tomorrow experience changed how he views the innovation process, teaching him to take risks, stay curious and build things he cares about. Percevia’s rise from a classroom assignment to a national-winning solution shows how simple ideas, when shaped by real user needs, can create tools that genuinely change lives.