In a bid to empower the physically challenged with computer education
and heighten their employment prospects, Microsoft India Wednesday
showcased several IT tools that promise to help the handicapped take to
computers.
Be it the magnifying function on the mouse which enlarges a
particular area on the computer screen for partially visually impaired
people or the narrator which reads out data written on the screen the
tools were a hit.
"These tools will help us make calculations or
presentations or check e-mails making it easier for people like us to
understand all the features of a computer," Mukesh Sharma, a partially
blind mobile applications tester, told IANS.
In addition, the
company has focused its effort to stimulate local language computing and
taking Information Technology (IT) to the masses as 95 percent of
Indians use their local language rather than English in their work.
"Today,
we need technology that can be accessed by one and all, regardless of
any age, ability or language. Here is where Microsoft steps in," said
Gauri Arora, manager corporate citizenship, Microsoft India.
So far, Microsoft India has completed around 15 sessions with several NGOs to train people with disabilities.
Apart
from that, it has collaborated with the state governments of
Maharashtra and Gujarat to make their official websites user-friendly
for the disabled, the officials said.