WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/Wikipedia great possibilities for the visually impaired.

Timestamp

04:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Title of the submission

Wikipedia great possibilities for the visually impaired.

Author of the submission

SATH.LINUX

Abstract (maximum 500 words)

One of the major losses of visual impairment is the inability to read and write. Eyes are considered as the gateway to knowledge. Invention of braille was a great milestone in the history of the visually impaired. however, it is with the advent of modern technology that visually impaired the community is put in a position to compete with the world. now he can read write, and make his own contribution to the world. he can even read printed materials using scanners. the most attractive thing of all these development is that it is made very cheep due to effort taken by the open source community. for my person, i lost my sight at the age of ten and the only situation when i cried for my loss was on the occasion visiting a library in my locality.

now i am a man of hope. projects like guttenberg.org and wikipedia movement has started addressing my problem directly.

Now the speech synthesizer espeak can read aloud 56 languages in the world. it is a happy thing that it includes my own Malayalam. it can read Hindi Tamil Kannada and many languages like. at this moment i can directly open my computer and search wikipedia not only in English but Malayalam also. every letter written by a wikipedia volunteer is a great service to this community.

Relevance of this presentation.

Whatever may be the technological advancement, however cheep it is made by the open source community, the population as well as the government are ignorant of these developments. so the accessibility issue is to be addressed by the wikimedia foundation not only as a technological issue but also as awareness programmes. given the opportunity, i may be able to demonstrate the access to these vernacular wikipedia efforts.