Kristina Tsvetanova has won an award for creating the world's first tablet for blind and visually impaired people, the European Commission says.

Tsvetanova has won a European Union Women Innovators prize - EUR 20 000 handed to young women entrepreneurs.

She is CEO and co-founder of Austrian start-up BLITAB, which has created the first ever tactile tablet for blind and visually impared people, dubbed "the iPad for the blind".

The device invented by her company displays small physical bubbles instead of using a screen so that users can view whola pages of braille text without any mechanical elements.

BLITAB also enables the direct conversion of any text file into braille.

The contest is aimed at raising awareness about the need for innovation and women entrepreneurs.

"Thanks to the international recognition that she has received in Europe, USA, Mexico, Singapore, China and Japan in the last two years, and her persistance in empowering unprivileged children via technology, she was named as one of the "Social Movers" of today by Agora+D in 2015," the Commission says while introducing her to readers.

Blitab has received EU funding from the 7th Framework Programme for Research's CREATI-FI calls.

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