How Tech Can Enable the Differently-abled?

We talk of gender based discrimination, race or age based discrimination, but

have we ever thought of discrimination that is unknowingly meted out to the

differently-abled? Ranging from websites to ATMs, to majority of the public

infrastructure, are inherently discriminatory due to lack of provision of

accessibility for the differently-abled in their design. Added to this, there is

either unavailability of, or ignorance about the appropriate assistive

technologies that could empower them and enable them to be active contributors

to the society, participants in the mainstream activities and translate into

efficient human resource pool. All these end up making things highly

disadvantageous for this 60-70 million of 1.17 billion of India population.

An initiative in this direction was Techshare India 2010, held at New Delhi,

India's only pan-disability conference and exhibition to promote assistive

technologies for the differently abled. Brought to India by RNIB, UK,

BarrierBreak Technologies and National Centre for Promotion of Employment for

Disabled People (NCPEDP),  this event highlighted the importance of implementing

accessibility standards and also showcased the latest in assistive technologies.

Shilpi Kapoor, MD, BarrierBreak technologies says, “Today technology is playing

a vital role in the lives of people and has become a necessity but unfortunately

it is not equally accessible to all — especially to people with disabilities.

Assistive technology needs to be made available at the formative years which

will empower people with disabilities to join the mainstream”.

Technology acting as an enabler for differently-abled, by simplifying their lives.

Website Accessibility for all



How accessible is the available web content like, text, Flash, images,

audio, video, word, PDF, etc, to the differently abled? This important aspect of

designing websites keeping in mind the needs of differently-abled, was discussed

at the event. For example does  your Web page allow resizing of text,  textual

description of audio/video clips & multimedia presentations?  If your site uses

CAPTCHA, does it provide an alternative verification mechanism for users who

cannot see or hear? Can your site be used without a mouse, eg, via keyboard

only? The W3C has put forward 'Web Content Accessibility Guidelines' which is

aimed at making the web-content equally accessible to the differently abled. In

Feb 2009, Guidelines for Indian Government websites was launched which mandated

Level A compliance of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Till date, only the

websites of National Portal of India and Ministry of Social Justice and

empowerment were made accessible to the differently-abled. Also National Policy

on Electronic Accessibility is also around the corner, that is aimed at ensuring

that Information and Communications Technology and Electronics  products and

services are equally accessible for the differently abled too, by promotion of

a  universal design and accessibility standards & guidelines. Now it is for the

public and private sector to take the cue and start making their websites

equally accessible for all. To achieve this, help can be availed  from

organizations like BarrierBreak Technologies that provide services in the area

of accessibility testing, of websites, software applications,  PDF documents,

etc.

Avaz: Featuring a USB-based non-contact switch easily controllable by children with poor motor skills.	Buddy: Claimed to be world's cheapest, portable DAISY player enabling navigation on the basis of chapter, para, etc.

Assistive technologies



A slew of assistive technologies that could drastically simplify the lives

of differently-abled gifting them with independence in doing basic day-to-day

things of their lives, were also showcased at the event.

Tactile Explorer : Tactile World's Tactile Explorer is a PC mouse that

has Braille cells (oscillating pins) integrated into its design, placed where

the user's fingers naturally rest.  These height changes in the tactile pad can

be tailored to regular letter, Braille symbols, graphics or other

representations. It enables easy usage of computer-based apps like Internet and

programs like MS Office, CRM programs etc, facilitating integration of this

sector into the workforce.

Tactile Explorer: Words and graphics on the PC are translated into height changes of the pins in the tactile pads of mouse.

Mobile Speak 4: Code Factory's Mobile Speak screen readers enables

visually challenged to effectively utilize the mobile phones by rendering the

information on the screen as speech output using Text-to-Speech (TTS) technology

or as Braille if the mobile phone is connected to a Braille device with a

refreshable Braille display. The advanced version of Mobile Speak 4  was

displayed, which enables user to interact with a touch-screen phone in three

different ways -use the classic keyboard commands or use easy touch screen

commands or simply move your finger around the screen and the screen reader

tells you what is below your finger tips.

Buddy: An assistive Media Player featuring DAISY Reader with a simple

User Interface optimized with a few levels, having voice assisted menus for

navigation, voice tagged folders and playlists and voice based info button.

DAISY, stands for Digital Accessible Information System, which is a digital

talking book format that contains both sound and text and it makes books

accessible for print-disabled people.

AVAZ :An Augmentative & Alternative Communications Device: This

portable aid was showcased by Inventions Labs for use by people afflicted with

cerebral palsy to augment their communication skills. This device has a rich

GUI, a processor capable of running Linux OS, a purpose-built software and a

USB-based non-contact switch.

IBM India Accessibility Centre showcased following technologies.

Hindi Speech recognition: A real time automatic speech to text

transcription which enables hands-free interaction with computers in Hindi. This

speech recognition software application called - Shrutlekhan-Rajbhasha developed

by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and IBM India Research

Laboratory, uses Hindi sound as input and converts it into Devanagari text. Not

only helpful to differently-abled but also to the illiterate or those unfamiliar

with computers. The technology could be also useful in voice-enabling ATM kiosks

and in car navigation systems.

Spoken Web: A voice-based web, parallel to the WWW allowing for

creation, dissemination and access to information through voice driven

interactions. Users can dial into Spoken Web through mobile phones or landline

phones, create their own voice-sites in local languages and browse voice sites

created by others. This enables the illiterate, or those with visual impairment,

to easily access and share information, etc.