A James Dyson Award Journey

Run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson's charitable trust, the James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages, and seeks to inspire the next generation of design engineers and to get young people excited about design engineering.

- KEN WONG

In fact, our Editor-in-Chief, Vijay, was also part of the James Dyson Award's judging panel back in 2020.

Despite being in different universities, the four boys came together to develop yaR, a small, wearable pendant taps on artificial intelligence (AI) to help the visually impaired understand their surroundings and navigate their environment.

As a team, the yaR boys ended up as the "National Runner-up, Singapore" in this year's iteration of the James Dyson Award.

What inspired you to develop vaR?

Ajay, a visually impaired consultant at Deloitte, was the source of inspiration behind yaR. His daily challenges of navigating a world not designed for the visually impaired, to do things that many do seamlessly without a second thought opened our eyes to new problems we never considered before.

We were fortunate to be introduced to Ajay through Yajat's mother, who happens to work at the same firm as him. What really impressed us about Ajay was his role as a passionate advocate for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at their company.

When we decided to work on yaR, Ajay was one of the first people we thought to reach out to. His unique perspective has been invaluable in helping us ensure our designs are accessible and inclusive for all users.

It's been amazing to have someone like Ajay to bounce ideas off of and to help validate our designs from an inclusivity standpoint.

The goal was straightforward - we wanted to enhance independence and quality of life for people like Ajay. We called it yaR, which means "friend" in Hindi. It felt right as we wanted to create a trusted companion, not just another gadget.

How do you balance your roles as students and developers?