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

multiple disabilitiesProfessor Arun Mehta

Bidirectional Access Promotion Society arun.mehta@bapsi.org

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

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

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

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

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