Breaking barriers, a group of Pune-based visually impaired youth are writing computer programmes for a US-based information technology (IT) company to enable it to better sell its cloud computing products. The five visually-impaired youth, who belong to Techvision, the IT unit of the city-based NGO, Niwant Andh Mukta Vikasalaya, are working on integrating the US firm Boardwalktech’s existing Excel platform with emerging spreadsheet applications.

This is the latest of the many recent achievements that the Techvision team has notched up in the last 18 months. Set up modestly with just three desktop computers in May 2010, Techvision today is a team of five young persons, many of whom are completing their masters in computer management.

In May 2010, Techvision was tasked to write an Excel-based collaborative product. The Techvision team completed the work using VBA (visual basic for application), Java and MS SQL (database software). Boardwalktech’s Pune-based vice-president Sarang Kulkarni told DNA on Saturday that he was impressed by the work ethic and commitment of the visually impaired team.

“The team was grateful that they had been offered the assignment and hence worked doubly hard. They are very intelligent and on par with sighted people. It was a revelation for us,” said Kulkarni.
Boardwalktech’s US-based CEO Andrew Duncan was so surprised that a visually impaired team had done an assignment for his company that he promptly offered a second more challenging job to Techvision. This time, the team had to optimise the VBA code and create Excel templates.

Sharing his team’s experiences of the second job, Siddhant Chothe of Techvision, a masters in computer management, said, “The second job was challenging. We had to re-analyse the raw code and re-categorise it into an application programming interface (API) library. This was a great opportunity for us to build our analytical strengths and skills.”

It is obvious that the Techvision members are happy with their progress. “Working on the assignments has been an important learning for us. Many of us who are still studying computer science are fortunate that we are handling live projects as students,” Siddhant said.

Niwant’s trustee Anand Badve, Techvision’s mentor told DNA, “The achievements of the Techvision team will inspire and motivate younger visually impaired youth to follow in their footsteps.”