Centre for Internet and Society

Technology for Accessibility in Higher Education

nirmita — 2012-01-31T06:29:03Z

Education for students with disabilities has long been a serious cause of concern in India, as also in other countries around the world. A person with a disability studying in mainstream educational institutions in India experiences many difficulties in navigating through the obstacle course of the Indian educational system, writes Nirmita Narasimhan in this IIMB Journal brought out on the occasion of the conference 'never-the-less - Enabling Access for Persons with Disabilities to Higher Education and Workplace - Role of ICT and Assistive Technologies.

Problems exist in many areas – course content, staff, facilities, resources as well as the educational and examination process. The relative physical inaccessibility of educational institutions, unavailability of accessible content in different languages, lack of trained and sensitive teachers, and the lack of awareness about developments in enabling technologies have hitherto rendered the educational environment itself rather difficult to access. In addition to the long waiting periods in getting the course materials digitized into accessible formats, as well as the assignment of scribes unfamiliar with subject topics for students to write the examinations put students with print disabilities at additional disadvantage – as if there weren’t enough problems already! Thus the educational experience often becomes a nightmare for a student who is disabled. However, compared with the situation from a decade earlier, the education scenario for persons with disabilities has, thanks to the sustained advocacy and interventions of disability organizations, gradually improved and promises to get better in the years to come.

Today, technology has made it possible for persons with disabilities to read and work independently. Some institutions for higher learning around the country, like St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, Delhi University and Loyola College in Chennai have already set up ICT centres which facilitate reading and working students who are print impaired. They offer support through digitization, training, and facilities. Organisations like National Association for the Blind and other Daisy organizations convert study materials for blind students and make them available in formats and media of the students’ choice. Students themselves, through peer to peer networks and mailing lists are able to collaboratively produce and share accessible study materials on a variety of subjects ranging from graduation to competitive exams. Another really big boon is the advent of the mobile phone as a suitable platform for listening to books. Today, two international mobile screen reader software - Nuance Talks and Mobile Speak - are available in the Indian market at competitive prices and this has led to an increase in the incidence of mobile adoption amongst persons with print disabilities, at least in the metropolitan cities.

There are many areas of improvement, which institutions of higher education can adopt for enhancing the education experience for students. For instance, the provision of digitized reading materials, access to computers with assistive devices, choice of examination methods, maintaining accessible web sites, promoting open access and open educational resources will go a long way in furthering education amongst students who have disabilities. Institutions could explore new models of imparting education which are proving successful in other parts of the world. Furthermore, existing sources of information and knowledge, such as information in the public domain and knowledge imparted through distance education should be made accessible to a wider audience.

Click here for the conference details held in IIM, Bangalore on 20 and 21 January 2012.
Download the original published in the Journal: Enabling Access for Persons with Disabilities to Higher Education and Workplace [PDF, 1422 KB]

Nirmita Narasimhan is a Programme Manager with the Centre for Internet and Society and works on policy research and advocacy related to IP reform and technology access for persons with disabilities. She received a National Award from the President of India in 2010 recognizing her contribution to the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-in-higher-education

Department of Information Technology Meeting on a National Policy on E-Accessibility

nirmita — 2011-09-22T12:32:54Z

On 30 January 2009, the Department of Information Technology hosted a meeting in New Delhi bringing together important stakeholders to discuss the issue of electronic accessibility for the disabled and persons with special needs in India.

Creating a barrier free internet is vital to creating a pluralistic and democratic virtual environment, where all groups irrespective of disability or levels of literacy are able to access culture and knowledge goods and services which are available on the internet today. Since its inception last year, CIS has been campaigning for legislative, administrative and legal interventions in the area of web accessibility for the print disabled and working with different groups towards the common goal of having a National Policy on Electronic Accessibility in India.

On 30 January, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) called a meeting of all stakeholders to discuss the issue of web accessibility for disabled persons and persons with special needs. The meeting was attended by 34 key persons from the Government and private organisations around India. Sunil Abraham (Director--Advocacy, CIS) and Nirmita Narasimhan (Programme Manager, CIS) were amongst the attendees (a complete list of attendees is given below).

The meeting was chaired by N. Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, DIT, who in his opening remarks briefed the gathering about the initiatives of the Government in this area. He talked about the Government’s goal of providing Universal Accessibility and Internet for all. He informed the gathering that the DIT had already initiated schemes for ICT empowerment of visually impaired/hearing impaired children; under these schemes, 21 ICT Vocational Centers had already been set up and 100 additional ICT vocational centers would be set up in phase II. Additionally, he explained that the issue of Universal Accessibility had been internationally addressed at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2008 held in December 2008 in Hyderabad. He stressed the need for initiating inclusive developmental activities in the e-governance programme of DIT and language initiatives of TDIL (Technology Development for Indian Languages), in order to increase coverage and diversity, culminating in education for all alongside Internet for all.

Dr. Govind, Senior Director and Head of Department, E-Infrastructure and Internet Governance Division in the Ministry, highlighted the issue of web accessibility for visually impaired and other differently able persons and the need for initiating a concrete action plan for the same.

Javed Abidi, Director, National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People talked at length about the need for web accessibility and proposed that the government should set a time line within which all existing government web sites should be made standards compliant. All new web sites should be created keeping compliance with WCAG 2.0 in mind right from the start and proposed that for existing web sites, we should adopt a staged approach and aim at ensuring complete compliance at least by 2010-2012.

Ms. Neeta Verma, Sr. Technical Director, NIC gave a presentation on the issues related with making web accessibility universal. She said that NIC has formulated guidelines for government websites, in association with DIT and DARPG. Compliance to these guidelines shall make Indian government websites Usable, User Centric and Universally Accessible. She proposed that even the Manual of Procedures (MoP) used in the Govt. should mandate Universal Web Access for Government business and day to day activities. Websites should not only be designed once for accessibility but also need to be sustainable in the long run.

All attendees gave their inputs on the issue of web accessibility. Shri Jaijit from Sun Microsystems stressed the fact that the need for standards was not essential for disabled persons alone, but was necessary for other groups as well, such as illiterate persons. Ms.Shilpi Kapoor from Barrier Break Technologies mentioned that most government web sites had to firstbe be made html compliant in order to be standards compliant and stressed the need for training, resource generation and sensitization. Shri Minocha, Director, NAB felt that a law similar to the one in USA should be implemented which mandates that any web site developed had to be Universally Accessible. He asked the Government. to look at daisy guidelines, digital library and procurement policy for differently abled persons. He strongly urged the Government to take into account not merely standards of website accessibility, but also brouser standards, document standards etc, since an accessible web site was not of much use if the content posted on it was in an inaccessible format. He also appreciated the efforts of NIC and C-DAC towards working for open source and cited the example of the Venezualian Government. He proposed that DIT should initiate a technology development or customization project in this area. Shri Vijaiy Krishnamani from Infosys stressed on the need for creating a common simple usable interface rather than multiple types.

Shri Vijay Kapur from Microsoft proposed for implementation of WCAG1.0 & 2.0 standards to bring out interactivity in web content like Arya and the Clint side document accessibility through the daisy consortium.

Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, NIXI offered complete support for all initiatives in the area of web accessibility and voiced the opinion that all software produced out of public funds should be made available in the public domain so as to encourage research and innovation. In addition to policy advocacy, he was also supporting a capacity building and awareness workshop on web accessibility for web developers from all over the country which was being organized by CIS in Ghaziabad from Feb 16th-18th. Smt.Jayalakshmi Chittor of CSDMS proposed that an audit process should be evolved to check government web sites for WCAG 2.0 compliance and cited the example of Malta for policy in this area. Some other issues which were stressed time and again by other attendees were the legal mandating of adherence to standards within a fixed time period, adequate representation of Indian language in Unicode format, adherence to WCAG 2.0 and not merely 1.0, supporting voice enabled web sites etc. Sunil Abraham Director Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) lauded the DIT/MCIT for the timely and critical accessibility initiative and strongly endorsed the suggestion to create a national policy document mandating accessibility for all publicly funded electronic infrastructure. CIS offered to provide a comparative analysis of national electronic accessibility policies from developed and developing countries and also prepare a draft policy for DIT/MCIT. Further, he urged DIT/MCIT to advocate for the adoption of the proposed WIPO Treaty for improved access for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled put forward by the World Blind Union and knowledge Ecology International.

After the round of discussions the following recommendations were made to the DIT/MCIT:

i) The Government should formulate a national policy to mandate necessary guidelines so that the web sites are standards compliant for universal web accessibility.

ii) Steps should be taken for sensitization and awareness generation towards this issue through trainings, publicity, workshops, conferences.

iii) R&D projects should be initiated for development of screen readers in Indian languages and other tools for universal web access.

Attendees

Shri N. Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary, DIT, New Delhi - Chairman
Dr. Govind, Sr. Director, DIT, New Delhi
Shri Mohan Ram, ED, ERNET India, New Delhi
Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, Additional CEO, NIXI, New Delhi
Shri Javed Abidi, Director, National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP, New Delhi
Shri Dipender Minocha, Director, NAB, R.K. Puram, New Delhi
Ms. Neeta Verma, Sr. Technical Director, NIC, New Delhi
Shri A. Bandopadhyay, GM, Webel Mediatronics Ltd., Kolkata
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Director – Policy, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore
Ms. Shilpi Kapoor, Founder and Managing Director, Net Systems Informatics (I) Pvt. Ltd. and Barrier Break Technologies, Mumbai
Shri Vijay Kapur, Microsoft India, New Delhi
Mr. Rahul Gonsalves, Web Accessibility Consultant, Bangalore
Jyotindra V.Mehta, Advisory Systems Consultant, IBM Global Services India
Mr. Zamir Dhale, Sense International India Office, Ahmedabad Gujarat
Shri Jaijit Bhattacharya, M/s Sun Microsystems, New Delhi
Ms. Jayalakshmi Chittor, CSDMS, Noida, U.P
Shri Manoj Jain, TDIL, DIT, New Delhi
Ms. Gitanjali Sah, UN Solution Exchange, New Delhi
Shri Pradeep Gupta, Managing Director, Cyber Media India Ltd., Gurgaon, Haryana
Shri Vijay Krishnamani, Infosys, New Delhi
Shri Ajai Kumar, C-DAC, Pune
Shri Indranil Das Roy, M/s Webel, Kolkata
Shri Deepak Maheshwari, Microsoft India , New Delhi
Shri Vikas Goswami, Microsoft India, New Delhi
Ms. Helen Mahtani, Programmer, NCPEDP, New Delhi
Shri Muthamma B. Devaya, Senior Program officer, NCPEDP, New Delhi
Ms. Nirmitha Naresimhan, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore
Ms. Tejal Tiwari, ERNET India, New Delhi
Shri D.P. Misra, NIC, New Delhi
Shri Sachin Rizal, Sense International (India) Ltd., Ahmedabad Gujarat
Ms. Ritu Srivastava, CSDMS, Noida
Shri Santosh Kumar Gupta, CSDMS, Noida, UP
Shri Rajan Varada, UN Solution Exchange, New Delhi
Shri S.K. Aggarwal, Scientist ‘F’, DIT, New Delhi - Convenor

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/meeting-by-the-dit-on-a-national-policy-on-e-accessibility-at-delhi-on-jan-30th-2009

Mobile technologies and enlightened service packages help persons with disabilities connect to new opportunities

nirmita — 2012-09-13T13:38:32Z

Innovative approaches from mobile hardware and applications developers as well as operators are helping connect the estimated 15% of the global population that lives with some form of disability to the power of information and communication technology.

The press release was published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on September 12, 2012

A new report released jointly by ITU and civil society partner The Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ict) on the occasion of the United Nations Conference on States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, (New York, 12-14 September), reveals a surge of interest in an as-yet untapped market, with new accessibility applications now being launched almost daily, offering unprecedented ways to empower persons with disabilities to communicate, access information and control their environment.

Senior citizens, people living with disabilities and the illiterate are often marginalized from the ‘mobile miracle’ however, because devices are not equipped with the right kind of accessibility features, or because the price of accessible mobile phones and services is out of reach. That’s now changing, with a host of exciting options coming onto the market.

New screen readers can make mobile phones easily usable for the blind, those with low vision and the illiterate. Visual or vibrating alerts, relay services and hearing aid compatibility devices are making mobile phones accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing, while features such as voice recognition and auto text are proving a boon to those with physical disabilities.

Examples of pioneering solutions highlighted in the report include special text-only billing plans for the deaf and hard-of hearing so that subscribers pay only for messaging and data; a new SMS-to-Avatar translation system being developed by the University of Tunis which converts typed text into real-time, online interpretation in sign language with the help of a dictionary of words and signs; and new GPS-based devices and services that help blind and partially sighted people navigate streets using an interface that announces the nearest points of interest and the user’s current location, with links to Braille readers over Bluetooth.

‘Digital accessibility’ is a relatively untapped market segment that offers potentially lucrative commercial opportunities for mobile service providers, manufacturers and smart phone application developers while ensuring the digital inclusion of persons with disabilities. A handful of leading mobile operators from around the world are already successfully addressing the needs of seniors and persons with disabilities, demonstrating the business case for promoting mobile accessibility.

Unfortunately, not all mobile operators and manufacturers are following suit, and affordability remains a major issue, especially for smart phone solutions and for subscribers in developing markets. “ITU encourages all Member States to implement regulatory and policy measures to promote access and ensure the accessibility needs of all people are met,” said Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, ITU Secretary-General. “This is especially timely given the widespread adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which requires ICT accessibility of all its signatories, most of which are also ITU Member States.”

There are already six billion mobile cellular telephone subscriptions globally. By 2013, ITU estimates that there will be more mobile cellular telephone subscriptions than human beings on the planet. But while some people are hyper-connected, others are yet to be reached.

“This report will help guide all stakeholders as they implement business practices and policies to promote accessible mobile phones and services at home. We want to see affordable, accessible mobile phones and services used to ‘m-power’ persons with disabilities and other users around the globe,” said Brahima Sanou, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, which led the preparation of the report.

The report also includes a checklist for policy makers which includes steps such as developing a roadmap with operators, supported by organizations of persons with disabilities, to identify and address mobile phone accessibility gaps; facilitating or holding capacity building programmes with mobile operators on disability awareness and ways to reach out and serve persons with disabilities; and identifying areas for which Universal Service/Access Funds may intervene to equalize access for users with disabilities.

The report, Making Mobile Phones and Services Accessible for Persons with Disabilities, is available for free download from the ITU website at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/sis/PwDs/Documents/Mobile Report.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/www-itu-press-release-mobile-technologies-and-enlightened-service-packages-help-persons-with-disabilities-connect-to-new-opportunities

Barriers to Access in a Connected World

nirmita — 2011-11-08T05:30:24Z

Accessibility is an imperative to achieve a truly inclusive and participatory society writes and every individual, corporation, organization and government has a crucial role to play in nurturing it, writes Nirmita Narasimhan in this article which was published by Hans Foundation in their Annual Review 2011.

Imagine a world in which there are phones but you cannot communicate; there are televisions but you cannot watch or hear any of the programmes; there are millions of books, but you cannot read even one of them. Imagine that you were to go into a supermarket but couldn’t buy anything because you couldn’t find what you wanted, or find out the price; that you went to an ATM machine, but couldn’t withdraw money; that you went to a website of an airline, but couldn’t buy your tickets because you couldn’t view the options on the menu bar; a world where you alone are denied access to all information and entertainment like watching movies, going to museums and other places of public interest. It shouldn’t be very difficult to imagine this, because this is exactly the world we live in today. This is the reality faced by over a million persons living with disabilities around the world.

Today the number of persons with disabilities is increasing, compounded by the decrease in mortality rates and the increase in the number of diseases. Over 90 per cent of persons with disabilities live in developing countries and have little or in many cases, no access to basic human rights of education, food and shelter, employment, independent living and access to information.

It is to address this situation that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (‘Convention’) came into force in May 2008, marking a watershed in the disability rights movement. One of the unique features of the Convention is that for the first time equal importance was accorded to the right to access information and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) bringing it on par with transportation and physical environment. It placed a clear obligation on the states parties to ensure that all websites and ICT services as well as information both in the public domain and with respect to cultural materials such as books, movies, etc should be made available to persons with disabilities in accessible formats, at the same time and no extra cost. The convention requires that countries should amend their laws to incorporate flexibilities which will enable persons with disabilities to enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Technology – A Fundamental Enabler for Accessibility

The Information Society has opened up several avenues for persons with disabilities to participate and live independently. Through the use of assistive technologies, persons with disabilities can access computers, study, work, book tickets and travel, pay taxes, shop, transact business, use social media and work. For instance, blind persons can access computers using a screen reader[1] on computers or mobile phones, enabling them to send messages, make calls, listen to books, navigate the route and use the internet like other people; deaf persons can carry on a conversation through relay or text messaging and listen to audio using hearing aids; autistic persons can use symbols or pictures on their mobile phones to communicate their needs to persons around them. Hence, the range of platforms and media available today, offer tremendous opportunities for participation and inclusion.

Challenges to Inclusion

The general lack of awareness amongst policy makers and the public, resulting in widespread social stigma and insensitive attitudinal barriers associated with disability, often negates the advantages provided by technology. Attitudinal change is fundamental to making the world a more inclusive place.

In addition to social attitudes and awareness, several other challenges which hamper the ability of persons with disabilities to harness the power of assistive technology, are discussed briefly below.

One major challenge is inaccessible technology. Technology may be inaccessible due to a multiplicity of reasons, such as the unavailability of suitable software in a given region [2] or prohibitive pricing. In the absence of equally appropriate open source solutions, persons with disabilities cannot afford assistive technology. For instance, a screen reader which costs upwards of $1000 for a single user license is unaffordable for a person with disability in most countries.

Another barrier is the inaccessibility of web sites. The failure to adhere to universally accepted Web Content Access Guidelines (WCAG) formulated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) renders web sites unfit for use by persons using assistive technology. The guidelines lay down very simple instructions such as ensuring that images are accompanied by alternative text attributes which enable screen readers to read out the description of the image to the listener and providing alternate formats where anything on a web site is inaccessible. Many countries today such as USA, UK and Canada have made it mandatory for all public web sites to conform to these guidelines. However, there are still several countries which do not have any such policies in place.

The lack of accessible content also poses a significant challenge. There is a severe shortage of content in formats such as electronic text, Braille, audio, etc which can be accessed by assistive technology. This may occur either due to technological (content created in inaccessible format) [3] or legal reasons (copyright laws prevent content from being rendered in accessible formats). The latter issue is the subject matter of treaty deliberations at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Today barely 5 per cent of all published materials in developed countries and 0.5 per cent in developing countries are available to persons with disabilities who are not able to read printed materials in accessible formats such as electronic text, Braille, audio, etc. Organizations serving the blind have to constantly obtain permission from copyright holders for each book that they want to convert, which is not always forthcoming. In some countries, this is simplified by the inclusion of a fair use provision (exception) in their copyright laws, which essentially does away with the requirement of having to obtain permission in cases of conversion and distribution for the disabled. However, while such a provision exists in approximately 53 countries, it is not available in over 127 countries where even the countries with exceptions cannot exchange books. Developing countries are the most severely hit since they neither have the legal provisions permitting conversion in their country nor the resources and funding to undertake conversion, and are unable to borrow books from libraries for the blind in other countries. This has resulted in a huge book famine for persons with blindness and other print disabilities around the world, preventing them from exercising their human rights of education, access to information, social and cultural participation and independent living.

Training is a very crucial aspect of ensuring effective and rapid adoption of technology by persons with disabilities, since they need to orient and familiarize themselves with the technology in order to be able to use it effectively. It is imperative that adequate resources are channelled towards capacity building and training activities and that governments, DPOs [4]and industry work together to identify appropriate implementation strategies.

The Road Ahead

To surmount all the challenges to accessibility and achieve universal inclusion, we need to achieve a solution through a mix of policy formulations and practical interventions in which all stakeholders participate i.e., by following both a top down and bottoms up approach. Incorporating accessibility and universal design principles uniformly across all services and products will ensure accessibility not only to the disabled, but also to the other categories of users who are unable to access such as elderly and illiterate persons, linguistic minorities and those with limited bandwidth. It will also reduce the long term cost and effort associated with retrofitting things to make them more accessible at a future date.

DPOs [4] around the world are also trying to work with industry to leverage the business case in making products which are universally inclusive and develop solutions which are more widely available in the market, rather than created exclusively for a niche community. Considering that persons requiring accessible products constitute nearly half of the world’s population (including seniors, illiterate persons and other categories), there are clearly huge market opportunities for business houses to follow. For persons with disabilities, an increase in the number of manufacturers creating accessible goods would help drive down prices and increase variety. A good case in point is that of NTT Docomo in Japan which increased its market to over 70 per cent after it surveyed the demographics of elderly and disabled persons and brought out a new line called Raku Raku phones. Within three years, this line sold over 15 million handsets since even persons without disabilities found accessibility features like high colour contrast, large icons and digits etc more comfortable to use.

Accessibility is an imperative to achieve a truly inclusive and participatory society and every individual, corporation, organization and government has a crucial role to play in nurturing it. Any effort, whether it is making one’s website accessible and ensuring that all information published is accessible to persons using assistive technologies or participating in awareness raising, capacity building, creating employment opportunities for the disabled, supporting advocacy activities or on ground projects of DPOs such as conversion of books, is significant and brings us nearer to achieving our vision ― an inclusive world.

Download a scanned version of the article published in the Hans Foundation's Annual Review 2011 here [PDF, 4.09 MB]

[1].A software which will read out what appears on the screen.

[2].For example, in India text to speech software is not available for all the 25 official Indian languages but is only available for English and a few other languages, which results in the exclusion of a large proportion of the population.

[3].For instance,instead of creating a proper pdf document, if one converts a scanned image of a document (instead of text) to pdf, it will not be readable by a screen reader.

[4]Disabled Persons Organizations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/barriers-to-access-connected-world

Government of Madhya Pradesh initiates ICT Accessibility in Public Communication

nirmita — 2013-01-31T10:17:13Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, joined hands with Daisy Forum of India member Arushi in Bhopal to submit a request for a notification mandating that all communication by the Government of Madhya Pradesh should be accessible to persons with disabilities.

Specifically, it was requested that the government ensure that all websites are WCAG 2.0 compliant, that Unicode font is used for all regional language content and that content should be in accessible formats such as Daisy and E-pub. The submission can be found by clicking here.

In January 2013, the Government of Madhya Pradesh issued a notification in Hindi (scanned PDF version of the notification here) requesting all departments to comply with WCAG 2.0 and use Unicode font. The five page notification goes into detail regarding the need for these standards. We welcome this move by the Government of Madhya Pradesh and appreciate the efforts of Arushi in taking up this issue. We are happy to be associated with this initiative.

Click to read the original notification received from the Government of Madhya Pradesh (Image files in Zip folder, size 5.3 MB).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/govt-of-mp-initiates-ict-accessibility-in-public

Developing Screen Reader and Text-to-Speech Synthesizer

nirmita — 2016-10-12T16:04:23Z

The Hans Foundation is funding us to do a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages over a period of two-and-a-half years. The following are the quarterly programmatic reports indicating the progress made in the project.

Quarterly Reports

Monthly Updates

2014

2015

2016

Profiles

The profiles of the team members working on the NVDA and eSpeak project can be accessed here. An overview of CIS work of Accessibility Work can be seen here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer

UNESCO Global Report: Opening New Avenues for Empowerment

nirmita — 2013-09-04T07:21:56Z

We prepared a report on higher education for persons with disabilities in the Asia-Pacific region for UNESCO some time back. The report has been compiled into a global report. Nirmita Narasimhan was the project coordinator from the Centre for Internet and Society.

Preface

(by Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO)

Over one billion people – approximately 15 percent of the world’s population – live with some form of disability. Facing a wide range of barriers, including access to information, education, health care and a lack of job opportunities, persons living with disabilities struggle every day to be integrated into society.

This is unacceptable, and UNESCO is taking a stand. To tackle these challenges, UNESCO has led a number of initiatives, including the 2013 Global Report, to empower persons with disabilities thanks to information and communication technologies. Our position is clear – information and communication technologies, along with associative technologies, can widen access to information and knowledge, so they must accessible to all.

Building on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Global Report addresses strong recommendations to all stakeholders – from decision-makers to educators, civil society and industry – on how concretely to advance the rights of people living with disabilities. These recommendations draw on extensive research and consultations. Studies launched in five regions have allowed UNESCO to understand more clearly the conditions and challenges faced by persons with disabilities around the world.

To empower persons with disabilities is to empower societies as a whole – but this calls for the right policies and legislation to make information and knowledge more accessible through information and communication technologies. It calls also for applying accessibility standards to the development of content, product and services. The successful application of such technologies can make classrooms more inclusive, physical environments more accessible, teaching and learning content and techniques more in tune with learners’ needs. We need the commitment of all Government and stakeholders to make this a reality for all persons living with disabilities. To build the inclusive knowledge societies we need for the century ahead, we cannot leave anyone aside. We must do everything to replace exclusion and discrimination with inclusion and empowerment – for this, we must harness the full power of information and communication technologies. This is our shared commitment, and this Global Report will help us move forward.

Forward

(by HE Mr. Miguel Angel Estrella, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador)

Communication and information are essential for the development of people and societies. It is thanks to the networks of connections which are established freely between individuals that a society is able to advance, as well as the personal development of individuals which makes it possible to increase the collective benefit of all those who form a society. In light of this, special attention should be paid and necessary products and services should be created for persons with disabilities. The more totalitarian and repressive societies are, the more restricted access to information and knowledge is, as well as the application of rights to self-expression and opinion. In addition, special services and attention for the common good of society are limited. However, when a society is free and respectful of human rights, individuals have more solidarity, are open to work together and share information. As a consequence of this free exchange of information and knowledge, it should be possible to build a more inclusive society which can fully participate in the social, cultural and economic life, intellectually and culturally rich, and where people with different
abilities, can take full advantage of Information and Communication Technologies.

Access to information and knowledge allows humans to contribute to social development where he or she can make better choices, and to share the richness with those around them. The conditions, special capacities and abilities of each individual to learn should never be an obstacle or an impediment to their individual development. On the contrary, it is the duty of all authorities to establish an enabling environment and provide special services to those who require them, keeping people with disabilities in mind. Such an inclusive society ensures that each person is valued as an equal human being.

I, therefore, warmly welcome UNESCO’s publication titled “Opening New Avenues for Empowerment: ICTs to Access Information and Knowledge for Persons with Disabilities” which not only makes a major contribution to our understanding of disability, but also highlights technological advancement and shares good practices that have already changed the lives of people with disabilities. The publication also makes concrete recommendations for action at the local, national and international levels, targeting policy and decision makers, educators, IT&T industry, civil society and certainly persons with disabilities, which, I hope, will receive your deserved attention!

Acknowledgements

This Global Report, Opening New Avenues for Empowerment: ICTs to Access Information and Knowledge for Persons with Disabilities, has been commissioned by the UNESCO Communication and Information Sector. It is a result of collaborative action among many researchers, public and private organizations, governmental bodies and civil society, and appreciation is extended to each of them.

The Report is based on the findings of five UNESCO regional studies carried out with the help of the following institutions and coordinating authors:

Africa: Mr Raymond Lang, Dr., the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre, University College, London (UK);

Arab Region and North Africa: Mr Mohamed Jemni, Professor of ICT and Educational Technologies, Head of Research Laboratory UTIC, University of Tunis (Tunisia);

Asia Pacific: Ms Nirmita Narasimhan, Project Coordinator, Centre for Internet and Society (India);

Eastern Europe and Central Asia: International Consulting Agency- Mezhvuzkonsalt (Russian Federation);

South America, Central America and Mexico and the Caribbean: Ms Pilar Samaniego (South America);
Ms Sanna-Mari Laitamo and Ms Estela Valerio (Central America and Mexico); and Ms Cristina Francisco (The Caribbean).

The principal author of this global report is Mr Michael Blakemore, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Durham (UK), who is a UK’s Bologna Expert (Higher Education Reform and Innovation) with the European Commission.

The overall preparation of the world report, regional studies and coordination of the project were ensured by Ms Irmgarda Kasinskaite-Buddeberg and Mr Davide Storti from UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector.

UNESCO thanks the GAATES Foundation for its contributions and advice to the preparation of this report, particularly Ms Cynthia Waddell and Ms Betty Dion. Thanks also to Mr Jonathan Avila from SSB Bart Group

UNESCO wishes to acknowledge the many individual contributors, experts, and advocates, who assisted in the gathering of survey data and in the preparation of the regional studies.

All those contributing their expertise and time to the peer review also deserve recognition. They include: Axel Leblois (G3ict), Luis Gallegos (Ambassador of Ecuador to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland), David Andrés Rojas M. and Vanessa Ramirez (The Trust of America, TRUST ), Shadi Abou-Zahra (W3C/WAI), Bernhard Heinser (DAISY Consortium), Jan A. Monsbakken and Uma Tuli (Rehabilitation International, RI), Karsten Gerloff (Free Software Foundation Europe), Brian Nitz (Oracle), Kiran Kaja (Adobe), Katim S. Touray (Free Software Foundation for Africa), Sophie Gautier and Charles-H. Schulz (LibreOffice), Luiz M. Alves dos Santos (European Commission, EC), Arnoud van Wijk (Real-Time Task Force), Reinhard Weissinger (International Organization for Standardization, ISO), Kenneth Eklindh (UNESCO), Simon Ball (JISC TechDis).

The global summary report was edited by Ms Alison McKelvey.

Click to read the full report here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/opening-new-avenues-for-empowerment

Accessibility of Government Websites in India — Test Results

nirmita — 2012-08-02T12:56:45Z

The Centre for Internet & Society conducted a survey of the accessibility of the government websites in India. A total of 7800 websites listed on the Government of India directory were researched upon.

Two data sets were considered to evaluate the websites. The first data set comprises the errors identified by the automated tool AChecker. These errors are (known errors, likely errors, probable errors, HTML validation errors and CSS validation errors). The second data set was arrived at through manual evaluation. This includes (alternate text for non-text objects, colour change option, navigation markup and form accessibility).

To view the test details, click here (Excel File, 1618 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-audit-of-govt-websites

Bangla eSpeak training with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-07-20T15:02:25Z

The NVDA team conducted an eSpeak training in Bangla on December 19 and 20, 2014 at Blind Empowerment Foundation (BEA) in Kolkata.

The host BEA, had invited 15 teachers and Computer trainers from all across Kolkata and 1 participant was from NAB Jamshedpur. The event was ably supported by two volunteers who helped in the Bengali typing.

The event began with the round of introductions of the participants. The participants also expressed various reasons for participating in the workshop during the introduction. This was than followed by introduction to NVDA and the importance of an Open Source software compared to piracy.

Out of the 15 participants, only two of the participants were using NVDA in their daily use. Hence the session began with the installation of NVDA and its basic configurations and settings. This was followed by the installation of eSpeak and a demonstration was given as to how to use eSpeak for different language options.

Participants were also shown the different advantages of NVDA, in comparison to other screen readers. This demonstration was received very well by most of the participants, as they had never expected NVDA to perform as well.

The post lunch session was dedicated to reading in Bengali. Each participant was given a word file containing current news items in Bengali. The participants started understanding the eSpeak TTS, but showed some reservations regarding its voice. It was explained in detail the reason for the same and why it was important to introduce NVDA with eSpeak to their students at the initial stage of their training in computers.

The host were very generous in their arrangements for lunch and other refreshments. All the participants enjoyed the hospitality, which included a generous serving of the Bengali fish.

Day 2 started with solving querries from day 1 and than typing was introduced using the Bengali Varnmala typing method. Participants were very receptive to this method and were able to type small sentences withing a few minutes. The volunteers who were helping with the typing also emphasized on special words which included special characters.

The post lunch session was dedicated to problem solving and introduction to various Aids and Appliances. The participants were also informed about the ADIP scheme and the appliances available under it.

The workshop was concluded with a round of photos and thanks from the trainers and the hosts.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/bangla-e-speak-training-with-nvda-december-2014

Telugu eSpeak Training with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-07-20T14:59:38Z

NVDA team conducted a two-day workshop at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) for lecturers and students for reading and writing in Telugu using eSpeak with NVDA on December 1 and 2, 2014.

A total of 27 participants attended the programme, which was organized by Anavaram, AP – HCU and member of Empowerment Cell of HCU.
The event was inaugurated by the Pro. VC of HCU Haribabu and Dr. Rajgopal Chairman, Empowerment Cell, HCU.

The event focused on the following points:

Introduction to NVDA as a Screen Reader.
Advantages of Espeak.
Use of Espeak to access various content in regional languages.
Installation of NVDA.
Configuration of NVDA.
Installation of Espeak.
Reading in Telugu.
Writing in Telugu using Phonetic and Inscript keyboards.
Writing in Hindi using Phonetic and Inscript keyboards.
Demonstration of various aids and appliances.

The Telugu reading and writing sessions were conducted by Hanardhan Naidu, Telugu Espeak Tester. His contribution was acknowledged by one and all present.

Further sessions for eSpeak Telugu will be planned for Vijaywada in January 2015, by Janardhan Naidu.

The sessions were welcome by the participants, stating that eSpeak Telugu and Hindi will help them in their studies as many students were pursuing their graduation and post graduation in Telugu and Hindi. Till date they did not have any other source of reading or writing in the stated languages and hence had to depend upon readers for their studies. They also appreciated the fact that by reading and writing in Telugu and Hindi, it will enhance their chances for government and PSU employment.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/telugu-e-speak-training-with-nvda-december-2014

Report on Training in the use of eSpeak Oriya with NVDA

nirmita — 2015-03-18T17:05:46Z

NVDA team from the Centre for Internet and Society conducted this workshop at Orrisa Association for the Blind, Bhubaneswar from February 8 to 10, 2015. Thirty six individuals attended the training.

The workshop received an overwhelming response from participants. The participants acknowledged the importance of Oriya support for their career growth. This was evident from the excitement and curiosity of the participants to read and type in Oriya language.

The eSpeak training was preceded by a Career Counselling Workshop, which highlighted the importance of reading and writing in the local vernacular language for a career growth.

The main challenge faced during the training was that there was virtually no material available in Oriya on the internet in Unicode font, for the participants to practice reading. Hence, the participants had to first learn typing and then create their own sentences to read.

The training was conducted by Ganshyam Mohante, who also was the tester for Oriya language.

The inauguration was attended by the whole managing committee of Orrisa Association for the Blind.

Orrisa Association for the Blind is also very keen on organizing a 15 day follow up programme, where more delegates could be trained in reading and writing in Oriya, along with the knowledge of using computers.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-use-of-e-speak-oriya-with-nvda

Report on 15 days Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Hindi

nirmita — 2015-04-10T02:33:56Z

The highlight of the session was that the students on completion of the 15 days training, were able to write passages in Hindi. All the participants were able to do basic computing, such as opening files, saving them in different locations, surfing the Internet, etc.

The university officials appreciated the work of the students as they showed a resolve to learn Hindi typing. This would enable them to write their own examination papers using eSpeak Hindi. This is a historic step, as till now the students had to depend upon their scribes to write their exams.

Some documents of the final day's work of the students are listed below:

Story

एक जंगल में एक खरगोश और एक कछूआ रहता था। वे दोनो अच्छे दोस्त थे। पह खरगोस बहुत घमंडी था। वह हमेसा कछूए को यह कहता रहता था कि तुम तो बहुत धीरे चलते हो और मै तो बहुत तेज चलता हूं। और कछूए को निचा दिखाने के लिए खरगोश ने कहा कि चलो हम रेस लगाते हैं।और एक दिन सुबह वे दोनो रेस के लिए एक पेड़ के निचे मिलते हैं।और रेस सुरु करते हैं।जैसा की हम सभी जानते हैं कि खरगोस बहुत तेज दौड़ता है तो वह तेजी से दौड़ के आगे निकल जाता है और कछूआ पिछे रह जाता है।जब खरगोश पिछे देखता है तो ऊसे बहूत दूर तक कछूआ दिखाई नही देता है।तो खरगोश सोचता है कि कुछ देर तक आराम कर लेता हूं।तो खरगोस एक पेड़ के निचे आराम के लिए बैठ जाता है।और उसे नींद आ जाती है और वो सो जाता है। और कछूआ धीरे धीरे चल कर खरगोस से आगे निकल जाता है और धीरे घीरे कर के अपने लक्ष्य तक पहूंच जाता है।और खरगोस सोता रह जाता है।और जब उसकी नींद खुलती है तो खरगोस देखता है कि कछूआ रेस के आखरी लक्ष्य तक पहूंच चुका है।और इस तरह कछूआ धीरे चल कर भी रेस जीत जाता है और खरगोस तेज चल कर भी हार जाता है।

सीख-नीरंतर प्रयास करने वाले को सफलता जरूर मिलती है।

अतुलित भलधामम्, हेम शैला भजेहम, दनुज वन किसानम ज्ञान नमामि द्रिगड़्यम वह शक्ति हमे दो दयानिधे, कर्तव्य मार्ग पर डट जावेँ पर सेवा, पर उपकार मेँ हम, जग जिवन सफल बन जावेँ हम दीन दुखी निवलोँ विकलो के सेवक बन सँताप हरेँ जो हैँ अटके भूले बटके, उनको तारेँ खुद तर जावेँ थल दँभ द्वश पाखड झूठ अन्याय से निश दिन दूर रहे जीवन हो शुद्ध, सरल अपना, निश प्रेम शुधारल बरसावेँ निज आन मान मर्यादा का प्रभु, ध्यान रहे अभिमान रहे

जिस देश धरा पर जन्म लिया, बलिदान उसी पर हो जावे सकल गुढ़ा निदानम, वानराढ़ाम धीषम रघुपति प्रिय भक्तम वातजातम नमामी

The Training in Brief (As Provided by the Trainer)

Day 1: Keyboard orientation and introduction to computers
Day 2: Typing
Day 3: Hindi Typing
Day 4: Introduction to Desktop
Day 5: Introduction to Dialogue Boxes and Menus
Day 6: Saving Documents and Creating Folders
Day 7: Content Editing
Day 8: Opening and Closing Programs
Day 9: Concepts of Internet
Day 10: Google Search, Gmail Account, Book Share and Websites
Day 11: Tying Paras in Hindi
Day 12: More Tying Exercises
Day 13 - 15: Revision Exercises

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-nvda-and-e-speak-in-hindi

We Tested 18 Government Apps, and Most are not Fully Accessible to the Disabled

nirmita — 2016-09-03T03:32:06Z

When you wake up in the morning, the odds are one of the first things you look at is your phone. You might check WhatsApp, review the news, look at the day’s schedule, and book a taxi to work.

The article was published in Factor Daily on August 31, 2016.

The government, too, is increasingly engaging with citizens through apps such as MyGov and the Swachh Bharat. At the national and local level, these promise to improve the government’s engagement with citizens and increase their access to information.

From electoral information to agricultural news to welfare schemes, these apps promise to streamline the functions of government and allow millions of people who would otherwise have difficulty accessing these services to use them freely.

But for millions of Indians with disabilities, the convenience offered by these apps is almost negligible.

The government has made electronic accessibility one of its priorities. The 2009 Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW) laid out a set of standards to which all official government websites were to conform, inheriting the global WCAG standard.

The National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility, which came into force in 2013, also mandates equality of access for persons with disabilities in all government electronic infrastructure.

But do these work for people with disabilities?

The Centre for Internet and Society, with the help of an independent researcher, has reviewed 18 most popular government Android apps, and found that almost all of them have inaccessibility and usability issues for people with visual impairment.

The tests were conducted by an Accessibility Evangelist who himself is visually impaired using TalkBack, a screen reading software for Android that gives voice output of the content on the screen. We found that all but a handful of the apps are at least partially inaccessible for visually impaired persons.

We also observed that the government has a directory of websites on its GOIdirectory website. The government offers a similar directory for its apps here.

However, there are no standards or guidelines for app development as in the case of GIGW, and the webpage-based apps often do not conform to GIGW standards.

These are the apps we looked at:

MyGov by Government of India:

What it does: A social media channel of the Indian government to let users access information on government activities and spread educational content to Indian citizens.

How accessible it is: It is a purely web-based app, but the web page it loads isn’t completely accessible. The graphics in particular are poorly labeled.

The animations they use are also inaccessible, and the banner that scrolls the new announcement is completely unusable for visually impaired persons.

2. EPathshala – NCERT

What it does: A platform for accessing eBooks through mobile platforms in multiple formats, and enabling users to download, store, browse and read books.

How accessible it is: The first screen that allows language selection is not labeled properly — only the Hindi and English buttons are correctly announced. Many of the options that are available on the screen are not labeled with text, only graphics.

Even if a visually impaired person managed to download the books, it is not possible to read them, as the screen reader does not support accessing the downloaded content. The books themselves are just PDF or JPEG images, which are completely unusable by any screen reading software. In addition, the reading mode available for the books is itself inaccessible for visually impaired persons.

3. Accessible India Campaign

What it does: A platform to report accessibility issues in public buildings and spaces and an information platform for the Accessible India Campaign.

How accessible it is: Fairly accessible, Good Work!.

4. Narendra Modi

What it does: The Prime Minister’s official app delivers information and messages from the Prime Minister’s Office.

How accessible it is: Completely inaccessible. The very first screen cannot be navigated by someone who is visually impaired. If one manages to get past that somehow the controls on the rest of the app are labeled in all caps, which makes using the screen reader difficult.

If one selects the feed option and follows a topic, the controls on the content screen are all simply labelled “Narendra Modi.”
However the text is presented using standard web controls, which means that once navigated to a page can be accessed using a screen reader.

5. LIC Mobile

What it does: Delivers information about various insurance policy schemes and allows users to submit an application online.

How accessible it is: The app is accessible until the point of login and account creation. The information in the customer policy credentials is not presented in an accessible format. The agent portal needs further testing as well. In addition, the use of graphical captchas is inaccessible for those with visual impairments. A captcha in a different format would have been more logical.

6. MyGov Move

What it does: Allows users to register and volunteer for various government initiatives in government-run elementary schools that lack resources.

How accessible it is: Except for the text heading, none of the controls are labeled. Some controls are accessible to persons with low vision as the text in the button graphics is quite large. However, they are still graphical and not text-based, and so cannot be used by the screen reader. The national symbol is also not labeled.

7. IFFCO Kisan Agriculture App

What it does: Allows farmers to access customized agricultural information and services including weather forecasts, agricultural advisory information, best practices and tips, and a platform for buying and selling goods.

How accessible it is: It is accessible not just in English but also in Hindi. There are some minor errors, such as Delhi not being listed as a state or certain buttons not being correctly labelled, as well as the list of languages lacking support in the native script of that language. However, overall it is one of the more accessible apps reviewed.

8. mPassport Seva

What it does: Allows citizens to access information, schedule appointments, and view updates related to all passport-related services.

How accessible it is: Decently accessible, except for the appointment scheduling function, which uses a captcha. The buttons in the app are also not labelled in an accessible format. Several text fields also use all capitals, which causes the screen reader to spell the word instead of pronouncing it.

9. IRCTC Connect

What it does: Lets users check train schedules, manage ticket booking and plan journeys.

How accessible it is: The very first screen that asks the user to select between various sub-services is completely inaccessible, with no text labeling available. However, once past that screen, most of the other services, such as ticket booking and PNR status checking, are fairly accessible. Many options still use all caps, which makes screen readers spell words rather than pronounce them.

Another issue is that selecting a particular option causes the displayed content to change, but the focus moves to the top of the screen, requiring another round of navigation when using a screen reader.

10. MyGov

What it does: A citizen participation platform that allows users to discuss their views on various issues and make suggestions directly to ministries and other government organisations.

How accessible it is: Some controls are labeled with text and can be used with screen readers, but several other buttons are labeled graphically or are difficult to navigate in accessible ways due to poor focus/tab order.

There are many videos available through the app but no transcripts of these talks are available.
The focus while navigating the app is highly inconsistent and makes its use very inconvenient. The main navigation menu is also inaccessible.

11. Swachh Bharat

What it does: Provides information and lists events relating to cleanliness drives across the country.

How accessible it is: The starting screen of this app is cluttered with controls and information, making it difficult to navigate with a screen reader. A few controls are labelled with text, but the majority are inaccessible.

12. Aadhaar Mobile

What it does: Enables users to download and share their details as they are stored in the UIDAI database.

How accessible it is: The first screen lacks alternate text for any of the controls and graphics. The user could not register their Aadhaar card in order to continue testing the app.

13. India Post Mobile Banking

What it does: Offers financial information and transaction services for India Post banking customers.

How accessible it is: The initial screen controls are accessible. However, the user was unable to successfully login to conduct further tests.

14. Swachh Delhi — Official App

What it does: Allows residents of Delhi to report waste and garbage dumps around the city.

How accessible it is: All major features of the app are accessible. However, the reporting function requires a user to use their phone’s camera app, which may be prohibitive for visually impaired persons. It would have been preferable to allow users to simply report a location without requiring a picture as well.

15. Swachhata: MoUD

What it does: Allows users to register complaints with the local municipal body about trash or waste in their neighbourhoods.

How accessible it is: A permissions error led to the user being unable to access the app.

16. All India Radio Live

What it does: Offers streaming of public service, entertainment and informational content in Hindi, Urdu and other major regional languages.

How accessible it is: The app is completely inaccessible. A user can select a channel, but further controls on the screen lack labels or consistent focus.

17. DD News

What it does: Provides live streaming, video feeds and news updates from DD-News in English and regional Indian languages.

How accessible it is: Minimal use of graphics and clear labelling mean that the app is generally easy to navigate. However, the videos available through the app do not have supplementary text descriptions.

18. AIIMS@Delhi

What it does: Allows patients of AIIMS to view and manage their medical history, book appointments, and contact medical professionals.

How accessible it is: The app is simple and uses standard controls, which are generally large and well labelled, making navigation and reading for visually impaired persons comfortable. User lacked the UHID necessary for further testing.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/factor-daily-august-31-2016-nirmita-narasimhan-we-tested-18-government-apps-most-are-not-fully-accessible-to-disabled

Report on the Progress in Manipuri Language Testing

nirmita — 2015-05-10T09:38:57Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is doing a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages. This blog post captures the key updates of the work done by CIS team for Manipuri language.

Manipuri was added to e-Speak under this project. The language was refined to complete the basic support with the help of the language tester from Imphal, Manipur. Our team had visited Imphal, Manipur to work with the language tester on December 22, 2014. The following changes were made in Manipuri language:

Entire number dictionary was introduced and modified.
Specific pronunciation for 100 to 900 was added.
All alphabets were modified as per acceptable pronunciation.
Pronunciation of consonants was corrected.
Rules for consonants at the beginning without diacritical mark were added and corrected.
One word as example (fOl – fruit) was added as exception for /fO/ at the beginning.
Modification of nasal, sound generated bu /uNgo was done.
Modification of pronunciation of words with birsorga was done.
Modification of pronunciation for words ending / using /khandat-ta done. Was made.
Pronunciation of joint alphabet like "khio", "ra" done. Was added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-manipuri-language-testing

Report on 15 days Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Oriya

nirmita — 2015-05-10T13:41:20Z

This programme was the first of its kind in the state of Orissa. The participants were mostly completely new to using computers and were also completely from the vernacular background. This training demonstrates that many more such regional level trainings should be organized in order to reach the untouched population of persons with blindness, and expose them to the advantages of today’s technology.

Newspaper Report

Post News Network

Bhubaneswar, April 16: Several visually impaired citizens living in the state Thursday got a reason to celebrate. The Vocational Rehabilitation Centre for Handicapped (VRCH), an outfit of the Central government, launched a training programme on the day for a bunch of men and women suffering from visual imparity. They would be imparted training on e-learning software, which can assist them in getting acquainted with the different aspects of computer operations.

The 15-day e-learning programme witnessed coming together of several physically challenged citizens of diverse age groups, from different parts of the state. The training is being provided by the government unit free of cost. The software, which will help the blind read texts on a computer, is known as Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA). It helps in bridging the chasm between die visually impaired people and the technology It facilitates communication between them through a» audio device. The software reads out text on the screen to the differently able, who are unable to read screen texts due to vision difficulties.
“Although the software came into existence in 2006 but it gained popularity slowly. The main advantage of this software is its diversity. It has now inculcated several other Indian languages, including Oriya into it. So now people from different ethnic groups can access texts in their mother tongue.

Moreover, the software is free for its users and can be downloaded easily from the Internet. Users of this software can now read computer files, use social networking sites and can even read all available resources on cyberspace,” said Mrutunjay Kumar, Member of All India Association for Blind who will impart teaching on the software to the blind students. Kumar himself suffers from visual imparity. Similar e-learning software, however, already existed to help the blind people use computers, but its high annual subscription amount and limited language options narrowed the usage of such software.

NVDA being subscription free and diverse is expected to cater to the larger interests of the visually impaired citizens of the state and the country Pokhariput-based VRCH on whose campus the training programme is being held was overwhelmed by the response it garnered from the public. Officials of the institution also assured all possible support for the participants. “The main aim of the training-programme is to give them a platform to strengthen their skills. The whole programme is totally free. No participation fees will be levied on the trainees. Moreover, special arrangements have been made for free accommodation and food for the trainees so that they can focus only on training,” said Ram Kishore Sharma, assistant director, VRCH.

Earlier in the day, many outgoing trainees, who completed some skill development training at the institution, were felicitated by the institution. Ashok Behera, deputy director, State Directorate of Welfare of Persons with Disabilities, was present during the occasion as chief guest and felicitated several students who had successfully completed their training at the institution.

Venue: Institute of Social Work and Research, Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
Dates: 16th – 29th April 2015
No. of Participants: 30
Trainer: Mritunjay Kumar.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-basic-computing-with-use-of-nvda-and-e-speak-in-oriya