A project for those who fall between the cracks: persons with multiple disabilities

1. A project for those who fall between the cracks: persons with multiple disabilities Professor Arun Mehta Bidirectional Access Promotion Society arun.mehta@bapsi.org

2. About Bapsi • In a developing environment, commercial products that enable communications for those with multiple disabilities are unaffordable: hence we develop free and open source technology with the help of students on summer training. Example: • PocketSMS allows any deaf-blind person with an Android smart phone to text. This initiative came out of DCAD, IGF Vilnius

3. ISIF Award to bring electronic communications to the deaf-blind • This will allow us to conduct workshops, training, etc. and where appropriate, provide free phones, to encourage electronic communications among the deaf-blind. It will also let us write some free software for them, and train students. • Our aim is to use this to seed a process of problem-solving for those with multiple disabilities, including cognitive challenges

4. Bapsi Academy • To ensure that such innovation is not sporadic but part of a sustainable process, Bapsi will set up an academy, which will seek partners of three kinds: • organizations that primarily works with persons with multiple disabilities • technical colleges • schools

5. Our Strategy • With the disability organizations, we will identify individuals and problems that may benefit from technology • At the technical colleges, we will train teams of students for their final year projects in developing such technology • The school students will train the disabled, and provide feedback to the developers

6. Benefits of this approach • Low-cost, sustainable, easily replicable • Seeks to help the information poorest • Increased phone usage, ideas for better phones and better trained recruits will benefit corporates • Governments will find it easier to deliver services to an almost inaccessible segment of the population • NGOs will appreciate technology better