'Tech to bring disabled into mainstream'

NEW DELHI, INDIA: As the two-day long Techshare India 2012 concludes today in New Delhi, Shilpi Kapoor, founder of BarrierBreak Technologies feels that there is a need to bring people with disabilities into the mainstream.

More than 500 individuals from the government, NGOs, corporate sector and educational institutes participated in this gala event that showcased a varied range of software and hardware products and solutions.

Kapoor informed CIOL that their aim is to provide awareness about technologies available that can bring paradigm shift to the lives of people with disabilities. One in every four people is visually impaired in the world today.

“There is a need to bring them in mainstream. NGOs and government should come forward to contribute in education. There is a need to bring educated disabled individuals to fore so as they can access opportunities,” she said.

Kapoor believes that the equipment is expensive; therefore there is a need to leverage assistive technologies in schools. “The country’s 54,000 libraries should be a resource centre for disabled,” she added.

Since, everything is moving towards digitalization, and the gap is already wide. We should leverage technology to bridge this divide, she feels. Kapoor also said that disabled people must not be excluded to board technology-driven bandwagon.

As we already have products and solutions for them, Kapoor believes that there is a need to offer services for blinds, such as in the banking sector. “We also need to look at the basic problems to be addressed for elderly people,” she added.