IIT-Bombay Opens Facility for Visually-Impaired Students

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay has facilitated visually-impaired students with a new facility at the Central Library located in Powai campus. The new facility is equipped with all the modern aids and appliances which also include Jaws Screen Reading software. The following are the various modern facilities that the centre is equipped with: -

• Sangeeta Software which converts audio files to MP3 files.
• Prkins Standard Brailler
• Eye-Pal Rol portable scanners and readers
• Zoom X or Pearl- document
• Open book scan and reading software
• Braille embosser
• Plextalk Pocket recorder and player

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Devang Khakar, Director of IIT-B, revealed that the establishment of the centre for visually-impaired students is a positive move towards social inclusion. The centre consists of individual facilities for the visually-impaired students, and these facilities will help the students in their studies and developing knowledge.

He further added that the motive of IIT-B is to bridge the gap between emerging technology and emergent users by a bottom-up approach. The industrial design students of IIT-B played a significant role in developing a 'physical web' to help the residents of Dharavi slums in their business. The development has been made in collaboration with Swansea University, Britain.

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The project has been made as a part of IoT or Internet of Things Technology Research Award by Google. Through this project, 100 beacons which are provided by Google are being deployed in the largest slum in Asia, i.e., Dharavi which is located in a megapolis city like Mumbai. The project is being carried out in phases. In the first phase, a total number of 30 shops in Dharavi are connected to the physical web with the help of beacons provided by Google.