Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Feb 17, 2007
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Feb 17, 2007 ePaper |
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Info-Tech
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IT Training Industry & Economy - Social Welfare States - Kerala IT centres planned for visually impaired Sankar Radhakrishnan
Mission project The centre will allow visually impaired people to work with computers and access the Internet, e-mail, e-books, dictionaries and other resources. Computers in the model IT centre will use Emacspeak, a free, speech-based software programme.
As the first step in this process, the IT Mission is planning to establish a model IT centre for the visually impaired in Thiruvananthapuram. Mr K.R. Jyothilal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology and Director, Kerala State IT Mission, told Business Line that the model IT centre is expected to be operational by March this year. The centre will allow visually impaired people to work with computers and access the Internet, e-mail, e-books, dictionaries and other resources.
Speech Software
The model IT centre in Thiruvananthapuram will be set up in association with the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment, he said. The initiative is part of the State Government's commitment to take the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICT) to all sections of society, he explained. Computers in the model IT centre will use Emacspeak, a free, speech-based software programme — developed by Mr T.V. Raman, a visually impaired scientist at Google Research in the US — that allows visually impaired people to interact with the computer. According to IT Mission officials, an audio desktop is the main interface between the user and the computer. It features a screen reader that reads out whatever is typed by a user or is printed on the screen. The audio desktop can be used to create text files, browse the net, read e-mail, play music and so on.
Research Facility
Besides being free, this software works well even on computers that are not very powerful, Mr Jyothilal said. This means that it will be possible to recycle old computer hardware by using it in the model centre, thereby pushing the project's costs down, he pointed out. Once the concept of an IT centre for the visually impaired is tested in Thiruvananthapuram, it can be rolled-out across the State.
The model IT centre will also support training programme for the visually impaired to allow them to use the Emacspeak software. The IT Mission also has plans to use the model centre as a research facility for programmes to take the benefits of ICT to physically challenged people.
More Stories on : IT Training | Social Welfare | Kerala
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