Theme: Accessibility

Shine in the ray of hope
Be accessible, be someone’s hero
Disability is for the weaker ones
Because accessibility is the brighter sun

The literature explains accessibility as the process of developing services, devices, products or environment for people with disabilities. People are deemed to have a disability if they have “difficulties with daily living activities, or [if] a physical or mental condition or health problem reduces the kind or amount of activities they can do”. It can include being deaf or hard of hearing, blind or low vision, having speech impairments, mobility impairments such as difficulties walking long distances or standing for long periods, agility (reaching or bending) difficulties, psychiatric disabilities, and intellectual and learning disabilities. Section 508 identifies the following disability groups covered:
• Visual disabilities (e.g., blindness, low vision and lack of color perception)
• Hearing disabilities (e.g., hard of hearing, deafness)
• People with physical disabilities (e.g., limited strength, reach or manipulation, tremor, lack of sensation)
• People with speech disabilities
• People with language, learning or cognitive disabilities (e.g., reading disabilities, thinking, remembering, sequencing disabilities)
• Other disabilities (e.g., epilepsy, short stature)
• Individuals with any combination of these disabling conditions (e.g., deaf-blindness).
Accessibility is to provide services and accommodations that insure individual with disabilities have equal access. These services and accommodations are designed to meet the individual needs and are provided at no charge. Features such as low counters, accessible washroom facilities, slip resistant floors, visual fire alarms, high contrast signage and Braille, large print and tactile lettering are some of the routes to making accessible.
Accessibility implies also looking at the usability of your products and services. “Universal design principles” refers to a design approach to products and environments to make them usable and effective for everyone (universal).
Accessibility is all about making things equitable and flexible in use, simple and intuitive, and requires low physical effort. There are various companies and individuals working in this regard. One such is Accessibility Partners. It is a small, woman-owned business. They work with government agencies and organizations of all sizes to improve their accessibility posture by providing distinctive and powerful solutions for their specific needs. They are famously working as Disability Advocates.
Accessibility is all about working for individuals in such a way that it shouldn’t hurt to be ‘special’.
Mahatma Gandhi once said,” a man is but the product of his thoughts: what he thinks, he becomes”.
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Auditorium
Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute Of Management
Plot No. 11/7,Sector-11,Dwarka
New Delhi, Delhi, 110075
India

Abhay Pannu

A highly driven and passionate person, Abhay has been religiously working on rural electrification and giving energy access to the people who have been historically deprived of power. Abhay studied Marine Engineering at MIT, Pune. Inspite of successfully and meritoriously completing engineering, Abhay decided to keep a highly paid job and an opportunity to travel the world aside, and decided to follow his dream of contributing to the development and upliftment of the underprivileged. He got associated as an intern with an energy startup “Gram Power” that is helping solve the energy problem in India. Abhay kept travelling to the remotest areas of Rajasthan and interacting with the villagers managing to live life without the facility of electricity, trying to understand their grievances, their requirements, their inhibitions and their expectations. He is now leading the micro-grids division of the company.

Abhiraj Malhotra

A technology enthusiast, obsessed with computer programming, Abhiraj is the founder of an 11-month-old startup called School Pad which is building SaaS ERPs for K-12 educational institutions. He completed his engineering in 2008 and started working with Infosys. After a short stint with Infosys, he started trying his hand at a few small things with technology. He worked at a startup which was building an ERP for the higher education institutes. At the same time, he also interacted with a few schools and got to know the problems they were facing on the administrative front. This was the time when the idea of School Pad struck him. In late 2012, he did a pilot of the product in two schools and finally incorporated the company in June 2013 with an aim to help K-12 schools simplify their management, communication & collaboration by bringing parents, students and teachers onto a single platform.

Dr. Babita Ghai

A Commonwealth Fellow and an Additional Professor at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Chandigarh), Dr. Babita Ghai took special efforts to start a one of a kind clinic for pain treatment. Soon after joining the institute, she realized that the Northern part of India did not have even a single pain clinic. After six years of vigorous efforts she became instrumental in starting a formal pain at her institute in March 2009. This institute became the first in this region to open such a clinic. This clinic caters to nearly 1000 new challenging and refractory pain patients. She is also actively involved in pain education and has been awarded by International Association of study of Pain (IASP, USA), the highest body in pain worldwide, a grant of US $10,000 to educate nurses about pain management. She has performed few procedures, which are the first in this region like per cutaneous disc procedures.

Dr. J.S Titiyal

An Indian ophthalmologist, credited with the first live cornea transplant surgery by an Indian doctor, Dr. Jeewan Singh Titiyal was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the field of medicine. Titiyal graduated from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and did his higher studies in ophthalmology from Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at AIIMS. He completed his senior residency in cornea and refractive unit from the same institute. Dr. Titiyal, on completion of his senior residency, joined the faculty of Dr. RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences itself, January 1991, to kick start his career and has been working there ever since. Rising up the ranks, he is now a Professor there, head of unit in the cornea and refractive surgery division. He is reported to have performed the first live cornea transplantation surgery among Indian surgeons.

Dr. JS Titiyal

An Indian ophthalmologist, credited with the first live cornea transplant surgery by an Indian doctor, Dr. Jeewan Singh Titiyal was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his services to the field of medicine. Titiyal graduated from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and did his higher studies in ophthalmology from Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at AIIMS. He completed his senior residency in cornea and refractive unit from the same institute. Dr. Titiyal, on completion of his senior residency, joined the faculty of Dr. RP Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences itself, January 1991, to kick start his career and has been working there ever since. Rising up the ranks, he is now a Professor there, head of unit in the cornea and refractive surgery division. He is reported to have performed the first live cornea transplantation surgery among Indian surgeons.

Mohit Raj

A management student turned social worker, Mohit always wanted to start a chain of schools for impoverished kids which would provide quality education free of cost. After completing his MBA, he took a detour from the usual and mostly prevalent financial and marketing mind-set of students and submitted his thesis on ‘Procurement and Utilization of funds for NGOs and risks involved in it’. The research project was a part of his quest to turn his entrepreneurial expertise into a social initiative. To learn the practicality of the Development sector in India he also pursued Master of Social work from IGNOU and Post Graduate Diploma in NGO Management from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

MUKUND BS

An electronics engineer and an IIM graduate, Mukund is a A 33-year old young entrepreneur and the founder of ReNew IT. Initially, he worked with a few corporates but felt the need to do something which had a greater social impact. Hence the idea of ReNew IT came into existence. The Mission of his organization is to “Make Computers affordable for everyone” and they are doing this by increasing the number of high-quality, low-cost PCs and related parts and accessories available to Small Businesses, Students, NGOs and other users.

Naina Kapoor

A pioneer in establishing the prevention of sexual harassment at all workplaces, Naina Kapur framed and acted as lead instructing counsel before the Supreme Court of India in 1997 which resulted in legally binding directions on workplace sexual harassment. With the passing of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 she is actively pursuing compliance, prevention, mediation and redress at workplaces. Prior to forming a virtual law practice, Naina has various professional experiences in the private and public sector where she has handled all kinds of legal matters. The expertise gathered down the years has enabled her to provide visionary solutions to everyday legal needs for her clients with a goal to resolve conflicts/issues before they go to court. Recently Naina has become an accredited Mediator of the Indian Institute of Arbitration & Mediation (IIAM).

Nila Kaushik

An MBA working with Ford Technology Services, Neela Kaushik enjoyed a stint of glamour as a TV hostess for Star Vijay during her college days. Now she is an entrepreneur designing websites & social media campaigns for small & medium sized businesses. Having dabbled in various careers and lived up to each of them, she realized how it changed drastically with ‘Mommy Hood’. Often termed as the ‘Motivational Mom’ - Neela Kaushik wanted to do something for the moms in her area and started the group ‘Gurgaon Moms’. It was started for moms, to take some time-off, get together and have some girl fun. The group meets for board games, health, beauty & money talks, cookery demos, talk shows etc.

Rohan Paul

Trained in Indian Classical Music, Rohan Paul is a young innovator behind Smart Cane. After spending his undergraduate days at the department of Computer Science and Engineering, at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi he joined the Robotics Department of Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship. He is passionate about creating affordable assistive devices for people with disabilities. Before the creation of Smart Cane, it was felt that the traditional cane for the visually impaired was not very useful because it had a limited range (0.5m) and couldn’t detect obstacles above knee-level. He developed a cane-mountable embedded system that increases the detection range to 3m and detects knee-above obstacles. The system incorporates an optimized algorithm for ranging and detection of speeding obstacles like cars, scooters. The project is in collaboration with the National Association for the Blind, New Delhi and is presently at the pilot trial stage.

Yuvraj Sharma

A spirited and creative person at heart, Yuvraj has a flair for innovation. An Electronics and Communications Engineer, he was chosen by CII to attend the Young Indians (Yi) program on communication in IIM Ahmedabad, 2007 - 2008. He is an education enthusiast and believes in the fundamental theory of “What-IFying”. An accomplished facilitator and a persuasive speaker, Yuvraj is a self-confessed student of life and the environment and has a penchant for taking Google Walks, which add to his knowledge repository. An extremely passionate and informed user of technology, Yuvraj is a principal practitioner of Digital Marketing, Product Innovation, Design Theory and Data Science & Analytics