web sites for physically challanged

Bringing physically challenged to the mainstream

 

BarrierBreak focuses on developing web sites for physically challanged.

              Ms Shilpi Kapoor has already landed up at the Intercontinental on Marine Drive for our 3 pm meeting. I am directed to the Corleone restaurant where she greets me with a smile and quickly wraps up her mobile phone conversation
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“It is another hectic day,” the Managing Director of BarrierBreak Technologies tells me as we begin the interview over coffee. Ms Kapoor's company focuses on developing Web sites for the physically challenged. The inspiration came over 15 years ago when she was working for an India-based American company.

Little did she know that her boss she was dealing with for two years on the phone was actually disabled. He did not make a fuss about it but this was enough to convince Ms Kapoor that a lot more needed to be done for this community which faces the rough end of the stick in India.

The seed for BarrierBreak Technologies had been sown but there was a lot of hard work ahead before it could be made a reality. The first step was to start a computer training centre in 1997. “Everything was new to me; I had never made a business plan in my life or sought funding. There were four other visually challenged people who also wanted to do something associated with technology,” Ms Kapoor says.

            This is when she offered to pitch in and train people. “I set up the centre and got funding for the project from the Bill Gates Foundation. This was the first ever initiative for the visually challenged,” she adds.

However, the problem in this model was that while people were being trained, nobody offered them a job. Ms Kapoor then decided to quit in 2001 and kick off a completely new business model where the visually impaired would get more in the process. “The first decision was to go in for profits. I had also learnt technical writing while teaching the visually impaired,” she says.

Net Systems Informatics, the parent company of BarrierBreak, came into being in 2004 with the objective of providing content for schools and colleges. The real breaks, though, were slow in coming by but gradually the order book began to grow and eventually to profitability today.

             Avishkaar Micro Venture Fund decided to invest a year later in the business. BarrierBreak was then created as an arm of Net Systems in 2007 with a large part of its 50-odd employees comprising physically challenged people.

“What keeps me going is meeting people with a smile on their faces every morning and doing productive work. It has not been easy going for them with their disabilities but the passion is intact. The fact that their families are being supported with this initiative is enough cause for cheer,” she says.

BarrierBreak's objective is to make the physically challenged part of the mainstream workforce but this is easier said than done in a country like India. The employees have worked on projects with the Railways to help them. In addition, Web sites have been created for the Government and private companies.

“I am not looking for grants but do think it is important for corporates to support this endeavour. And this is not in terms of grants but to get work for my staff. When they say they do not have a target audience which is disabled, it is so bizarre to hear this,” Ms Kapoor exclaims.

            As she put its, it is not as if a visually impaired person does not use a mobile phone or bank. Physically challenged people want more than the routine job in the PCO. Some of her employees have problems at ATMs because there is no display telling them what to do. What is additional food for thought is the fact that the elevator at home is actually structured for the visually impaired. This is also true for airport travelators. On TV channels, there is subtitling in English movies to help the hearing impaired.

“We are happily using features for the physically challenged without even realising it,” she adds.

By the end of the day, reasons Ms Kapoor, technology makes all the difference to helping the physically challenged be it buttons in the elevator for easy access or going the extra mile with ATM machines.

“Why don't schools help dyslexic students with reading and writing software?” she asks.

BarrierBreak Technologies has created 20 disabled-friendly Web sites of which seven are for the Government.

Maharashtra, incidentally, is the first State to have an e-governance policy which mandates that Government Web sites be accessible for the physically challenged.

Key word:web sites for disabled.

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