An online community platform designed for the 'print-impaired', probably the first such in the country, seeks to make the Internet accessible to people with different needs.
The platform, inclusiveplanet.com, came about after Chennai-based Rahul Cherian, while taking part in the 2008 discussions of the world blind union (WBU) centring around the WIPO treaty for the blind, realised that there was a "massive resource" problem that technology could fix.
Cherian said he represented India in Washington when WBU drew up a treaty with the aim of enabling people with disabilities.
The platform is basically drawn up for the print-impaired with the aim of facilitating content-sharing, information sharing and relationship building, Cherian said. "The term print-impaired implies that for some reason, physical (such as visual impairment or bodily paralysis) or cognitive (such as dyslexia), the person is unable to access content that is in a print format i.e. words, images and symbols on paper or on screen.
"For such persons content has to be accessed in a wholly different way. In the past, options were limited to Braille and human voice. Today, the digital world enables other solutions including text-to-speech software, which effectively ensures that content in most text formats can be 'read out' to print impaired persons." Cherian and his team worked with organisations working with persons with print impairment to understand what the best solutions would be.
"The more we were exposed to the nature of the problems faced by the community, the more apparent it became what the solutions needed to look like. It is an evolving iterative effort that has been changing shape to meet the problem intelligently."
It uses technology that helps converts text to speech. The screen readers assist visitors to navigate the website, including text-to-speech software, which effectively ensures that content in most text formats can be read out to print impaired persons.
"Inclusive Planet is a social enterprise and our object is to become sustainable through revenue generation and not through fund raising. We have been supported by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore who have given us office space and countless hours of advice and help," he said.
There are more than 250 million print-impaired persons in the world of whom over 150 million live in developing nations and the site has been designed to address the needs of this community.
