Background

There are more than approx. 700 million Disabled around the world. The 58th round of National Sample Survey Organization’s (NSSO) survey has estimated 18.49 million disabled persons in India in 2002, out of these 10.89 million were males and 7.59 million were females. About 57.50% disabled have locomotors disability, while 10.88% were blind, 4.39% have low vision, 16.55% have hearing impairment, 11.65% have speech disability, 5.37% were mentally challenged and 5.95% are mentally ill. Global figures are along similar lines.

Among the Web users, about 9% of US & Europe population is suffering from one or the other disability.

NASSCOM Foundation – Our Road Map

NF is committed to empowering and transforming the lives of under-served communities through the application of information and communication technologies (ICT). With this aim in mind NF aims to focus on three areas in relation to people with disabilities.

• Web Accessibility: Accessibility implies enabling people with disabilities to access and use the Internet so that the widest number of users can interact with them. On the part of website creators it means adhering to certain global accepted guidelines, which help people with certain kinds of disabilities, such as visual impairments, extract more information from the sites.
• Employment for Differently abled: Under the Employability initiative, NF has initiated steps to provide IT skills and English language training which would enhance employability options across sectors and industries. In addition, NF is also attempting to liaise with companies to help people with disabilities get placed and for companies to have disabled friendly work policies.
• Affordability of ICT applications and tools: NF aims to collaborate with other organizations to lead projects which would lead to the creation of affordable ICT based tools and application for people with disabilities.
  
  Why Web Accessibility?
  

• Incompatibility between screen reading software and web pages, eg. the assistive technology not detecting some links or it proving impossible to highlight text using text-to-speech software
• Incorrect or non-existent labeling of links, form elements and frames
• Cluttered and complex page structures
• ALT tags on images non-existent or unhelpful
• Confusing and disorienting navigation mechanisms
• Inappropriate use of colours and poor contrast between content and background (color blindness)
• Incompatibility between accessibility software (eg. for magnification) and web pages
• Graphics and text size too small

Users who are blind or visually impaired need:

• Keyboard alternatives to the mouse
• Text descriptions of graphics and video
• To know which object is in focus and when the focus changes
• To know the default action and how to take that action
• Online documentation
• Screen magnification
• High color contrast
  

Users who are deaf or hard of hearing need:

• Visual indication of any sound
• Text captioning in multimedia presentations or videos
• Text description of any significant audio
  

Users who are mobility impaired need:

• Voice or assistive device input
• Alternatives to multiple key inputs – “Sticky Keys”
• Online documentation
  

NF’s aim for web accessibility

• Lay Clear Guidelines based on the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Create Web Accessibility Compliant Standards
• Define Scope of the Accessibility Standards for the Websites
• Specify the Conformance Levels/ set criteria for the organizations to meet to be able to make their web initiatives “Accessibility Standards, Compliant”
• Set Milestones and Timelines for implementation of “Accessibility Compliance” in Government, PSUs, leading IT companies & Nasscom members and other organizations of social interest
• Conduct Awareness programs and events
• Play an Advisory role in the development of a new project, ensuring accessibility and usability whilst retaining functionality and corporate image
• Provide access to Usability Testing using special technology like screen readers, on screen keyboard, voice recognition
• Provide On-going accessibility and usability testing to ensure that content remains accessible
  

NF’s aim for Employability

• To create a database of job applicants.
• To invite industry to screen the job applications.
• To map the gaps between the abilities & proposed job requirements.
• To conduct training programs & build required infrastructure capacities.
• To catalyze & provide enabling platform to mainstream disabled for employment.
• We have already started a constructive dialogue with institutions and organizations that are working with disabled people. We have also received a good feedback from industry where we brainstormed this idea with them. The industry is receptive of the idea of building capacities of the disabled to enable them to get employment – both competitive and sheltered with the help of the industry.
  

Employability for the Disabled through CEDAT course

NASSCOM Foundation in partnership with MBA Foundation - an NGO active in Disabled Empowerment Field, organized an event to initiate ‘Employability for the Disabled’ on January 18, 2007. The event looked into the Employability aspects, needs & prospects for People with Disabilities (PWD) in the current corporate market.

After studying the points put across during the event, NASSCOM Foundation, along with MBA Foundation, launched G.O.D.S’ C.E.D.A.T (Centre for Executive Development & Training) to provide Executive Development Training courses for PWDs.

The Mission was to empower persons with disabilities for continuous excellence and mainstreaming them into the community.

The CEDAT course was inaugurated on April 14, 2007 with a batch of 14 students with the Objective of Overall improvement & development of candidates, resulting in fruitful employment.

The focus areas of this course were:

• Portions for English Language Proficiency
• Basic Computer Skills
• Personal Effectiveness
• Executive Effectiveness (Managerial Calibre)
• Administrative Skills

The Methodology used for this course was Class Room Teaching, Audio/Video, Group Discussions, Case-studies, Projects & Practical Hands-on Training.

The Program is Supported By ESSAR Group, Rotary Club Of Mumbai-Pier, Ammada Trust, Educate The Children And Many More Well Wishers Of The Movement For Rehabilitation Of PWDs from The Corporate , Business, Social And Spiritual World In Mumbai.

The students were quiet happy with how the course has shaped up. Niranjan Date 32 yrs old and orthopedically handicapped, says that apart for the course been informative, the computer training was very useful and now he is able to access internet without fear. He is able to use these skills at his work place more prominently.

Following are the details of students working after the completion of the course.

SR.NO  NAME OF CANDIDATES  DISABILITY  WORKING  1  GEETA SHETTY  LOW COMMU NICATION  X - Marketing  2  CHANDRAHAS KAMBLI  LEFT PART OF BODY  (HEMIPE)  TCS  3  SHARDUL DESAI  SLOW LEARNER  ADFC  4  MANISHA BHURKE  CP (WHEEL CHAIR)  Transocean  5  VIJAY VILAS ANDURLEKAR  HDCP RIGHT HAND SIDE    6  AMIT BHEL  CEREBRAL PALSY  HDFC  7  NITIN MORE  ORTHOPEDICALLY HANDICAPPED    8  AKHIL SRIRAM  SLOW LEARNER  NF  9  MANISH  MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY  MBA  10  KAILASH PARMAR  ORTHOPEDICALLY HANDICAPPED  TCS  11  NIRANJAN DATE  ORTHOPEDICALLY HANDICAPPED  Food & Hospitality Concept  12  SEEMA KULKARNI  ORTHOPEDICALLY HANDICAPPED  ADFC  13  RAVI SUBRAMANIAN  SLIGHTLY MEMORY DISORDER  MBA  14  JOOSON MUZAMIL  RIGHT ARM POLIO AFECTED  Hotel Industry

The second batch of CEDAT course started from December 1st, 2007 at the NF Mumbai campus has currently 15 students. They are presently undergoing English & computer training. Most of these batch students are undergoing internship training.

NF’s plan for Affordability of Tools & Applications

• Conducting research to understand who among the current IT members of NASSCOM are actively engaged in creation of software tools for the Disabled.
• Working with them and other IT companies to sensitize them on the needs of the Disabled. The aim is to move towards cost reduction & affordability.
• Facilitating partnerships to achieve the affordability aims.
• Facilitating the distribution of these software tools & applications.