disabilities

It is interesting to know that a particular technology can serve more than one purpose. Take for instance the concept of closed-circuit televisions. Originally designed for surveillance and industrial processes, closed-circuit televisions or CCTVs have been proven to be useful for people with visual impairments.

Here, we will focus on how CCTVs can help visually impaired persons in carrying out daily reading tasks.

In part 1, we saw how Marvin, a guy with low vision, starts his day, goes to school and does the typical tasks of a student. We saw how he uses technologies to help him do the stuff he would otherwise find very difficult due to his low vision.

Let’s now follow him as he continues his day at the university.

Through the last three weeks, we followed Lisa, who is a blind woman, and examined how she uses technology to help her. Today, we will start talking about people with low vision.

When talking about sight-related disabilities, most people would quickly think of blind individuals. There is, however, another similar disability, and it involves limited or low vision. A low vision individual does not have perfect eyesight, but at the same time, he cannot be considered as totally blind.

We’ll find out more about this disability by following a person having this visual impairment. Here, we will take a look at the disability-related issues he encounters and how he uses mainstream and assistive technologies to solve these issues.

In part 1, we followed Lisa, a blind woman and examined what kind of challenges she faces using everyday technologies, such as a coffee maker, an alarm clock or a microwave. In this part, we will follow Lisa to work and see how she uses her computer, her mobile phone, or how she orders from a restaurant.

According to recent legislation, companies that sell textbooks in California must make digital versions of the books available by 2020. Senator Elaine Alquist, the author of the law claims that it will significantly reduce costs for students.

I'm mostly scratching my head: what's the point here? And don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort, but there's really nothing more to it.

We no longer think it is acceptable to discriminate against people on grounds of gender or race and, as a community, we expect provision to be made for
people with disabilities in public transport and building design. However, when it comes to making sure web content is accessible to all users of the web,
including people with disabilities, some designers, developers and clients just ‘don’t get it’, to borrow a phrase popular with the geekerati.

We like to rejoice in the notion that all ‘men are created equal with inalienable rights’, or ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to
their needs’, to take a more Marxist approach, however this hasn’t always been the case.

Let's look at an ordinary day with the eyes of a blind person. There is so much to take for granted which is not given to others, for example, because they can't see. What happens with people who are totally blind? All of a sudden, many things are done very differently. Sometimes, accessible technologies will solve the problem. This includes any technology which can be used equally well by those who can see and those who can't. In other cases, special technologies need to be used to achieve the same that others do just by using their sight. This is technology which is specifically developed for blind people.

Let's follow a blind person through a whole work day. For the sake of the example, we will call her Lisa.

We will examine how technology helps Lisa throughout her whole day. We will not discuss anything else, but instances, where information technology can help her. We won't look at any other issues she might be facing. There are many more challenges we could talk about, but in order to overcome those, information technology itself will not solve the problem. In this post, I will only demonstrate how much information technology can make a difference.

Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies) is
going to launch a dedicated job portal that will facilitate recruitment for persons with disability by creating a repository of applicants, available skill-sets and potential recruiters.

This is one of the first initiatives that Nasscom has taken after the formation of Nasscom’s disability advisory group (DAG). In a bid to facilitate the
empowerment of individuals with disabilities, Nasscom Foundation is trying to leverage the Information and Technology applications. Their aim is to use
technology to serve the under served communities and reduce the gaps in the IT marketplace which hinder their chances.

Access By Leadership in Equity — a new student organization seeking to raise awareness about students with disabilities — has launched efforts to facilitate
greater campus dialogue about accessibility in its first weeks in existence, according to co-directors Emily Broas ’11 and Rebecca Gotlieb ’12.

ABLE’s goals include providing a peer-to-peer support network for students with disabilities, raising awareness about both visible and invisible disabilities,
and improving College accommodations for these students by serving as a voice for the community.

Persons with disabilities are now gaining recognition among companies. Blind individuals have proven that they can perform well in jobs requiring speaking and hearing skills. People with hearing impairments have displayed much efficiency in working on printed and electronic documents.

However, persons with disabilities still face much difficulty in finding a suitable job. A lot of companies are still reluctant to hire disabled people, although they may be well qualified for a specific job.

Nevertheless, it is a fact that there are a handful of reasons why hiring persons with disabilities is a good idea.