St. Catharines teen wins prestigious tech award

While he didn't always dream of a life in tech, one St. Catharines teenager plans to change the world with his inventions.

Elijah Cosby, 17, has been working on an ultrasonic visual assistance device, and that device recently won the national Ingenious+ award for technology and innovation through the Rideau Hall Foundation.

Cosby likens the device to a bat using echolocation.

Intended to be used by those who are visually impaired, the device is contained in a small bag, like a purse the user would wear, and uses sensors to alert the user to objects that are near.

The user would wear headphones, and the device would tell them there was something coming up on their left, etc.

Using ultrasonic sensors, I can calculate the distances of obstacles and things around a person, and then from there I have it running through this little thing called a microcontroller, basically a small computer I can attach all the sensors to and have my code inside," he said. From there, it takes all of the distances of the things around a person and puts those distances through this algorithm I created, which decides what audio output to tell the person, And then it tells them a warning if need be."

This isn't the first time Cosby's device has been nationally recognized. He was also a finalist for the Loran Foundation, and received a $5,000 scholarship.

Cosby said he found his love of technology while working a mentorship program through Brock University, where he was paired with the head of the electronics shop.

Originally, Cosby said he was always interested in sciences and maths, but never saw himself as a tech guy.

At first it was sort of a little like, uh, like, oh, OK, this is totally outside of my comfort zone'," he joked. But as I did it, it was very, very fun. It didn't really feel like I was going into work, I loved being there."

When choosing a project to work on, Cosby said he decided to pursue an assistive device for the visually impaired because he recognized a gap in what was available.

There are no affordable technological options for people (that are visually impaired) and there's lots of incredible technologies that can do really great things, but they cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, making them not accessible to everyone," he said, adding that service dogs aren't always an option either. So that's why I sort of went this affordable route so that I can get it to as many people as possible."

With his win at the Ingenious+ awards, Cosby also received $10,000 toward continuing his project, which he said he's very interested in doing.

I have like a bit of a plan on how to approach that," he said, saying that he's going to start working with designers to make the finished product look more polished.

The whole situation has been surreal, said Cosby, as the Thorold Secondary School student found himself among incredible people from across the country" at the awards show.

But most of all, Cosby is thankful for his support team.

All of this was made possible by all of the incredible people supporting me because I was given a lot of really great opportunities, that I seized, to make this happen, but without those opportunities and people around me supporting me, I don't think that this would have been possible," he said.