Twenty-year-old Ekta Rangani walked down the ramp in a designer saree, swaying to the beat of a pop tune and giving no indication of her visual disability.
Ekta and 30 other participants from across Gujarat participated in the country's first beauty and fashion show for visually impaired held recently in Surendranagar town, 112 kilometres from Ahmedabad.
The programme is called ‘ACTIVE’ or Advanced Content Through Interactive Virtual Environments. It is aimed at educating blind and visually impaired middle school students about the solar system by using their other senses.
It is an interactive learning environment where Earth and space data combine with senses of touch and sound for a multi-sensory experience. Students use a ‘pen’ to maneuver over a 3-Dimensional image on a computer screen. Each ridge and crevasse is felt by the device through force, vibration or motions to the user.
All children should experience the thrill of receiving a response from Santa Claus and that’s the intention of the programme. T-Base Communications (Canada) is assisting Canada Post's annual Santa letter-writing programme by providing response letters in Braille to blind and partially sighted children from around the world.
It is the fourth consecutive year the company has helped with the programme, offering the service to Canada Post at no charge. The company replies to children's wish lists in Braille on a daily basis.
California (U.S.) based Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced recently that it plans to send monthly energy bills in Braille to its visually impaired customers.
At PG&E, we recognize our business is all about the customers we serve, so we are constantly striving to find new ways to improve services to our diverse customer populations including blind and visually impaired people, said Helen Burt, PG & E ' s chief customer officer.
An amazing group of visually impaired youngsters catch your attention at the Pan-I.I.T. meet, at Bandra Kurla Complex in suburban Mumbai. They are handling tele-networking for Pan-I.I.T. meet and are in charge of answering your queries and helping out the delegates at the venue.
"We have been working with Pan-I.I.T. for about a month now. It has been a fantastic experience. Our job entails calling up people and informing them about the event. I.I.T.ians are very polite and interesting people to work with," says Arundhati Viswanathan.
The new stainless steel coin can be easily mistaken for a one-rupee coin, as it is round in shape and does not have sharper edges like the old two rupee coin. The new coin has the number '2' boldly embossed on one side and a symbol for 'Unity in Diversity' on the other.
When handed the new two-rupee coin, Shanti Gawde, a blind woman who sells pass covers at Andheri Station (Mumbai) said in disbelief, "No it can't be, I think you have given me a one rupee coin."
In a first-of-its-kind programme, ‘Blind With Camera’, nine visually impaired persons learnt the art of photography. They captured sounds, voices, smells and touches through the camera.
The exhibition of those photo shots titled ‘Beyond Sight’ was inaugurated by chairman of R.P.G. Enterprises, Harsh Goenka at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind, Mumbai. The show was held at the National Centre for Performing Arts for public viewing from 17-25 February 2007.
More than 500 blind business people are expected to take part in this year's National Association of Blind Merchants (U.S.A.) conference on March 7 2007 in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
The annual event, known as the Business Leadership and Superior Training conference, or B.L.A.S.T., brings together business and community leaders for speeches, workshops, hands-on training sessions, and networking opportunities.
Audio books are set to be revolutionised by a tiny card that can store up to five lengthy novels on a phone.The card can be inserted in a mobile phone. So is free from carrying upto six C.D.s for an audio version of a book. The technology, originally developed to store music, will be released this year by Nokia (Finland based mobile phone supplier).
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