New Daisy' technology to aid visually challenged school kids in exam preparations

CHENNAI: To aid the visually impaired students in higher secondary classes have a smooth read during their exam preparations, the new Daisy (Digitally Accessible Integrated Systems) format which is more like an advanced form of an audiobook that allows the user to pause, bookmark and search keywords has been launched in nine special and 22 inclusive schools in Tamil Nadu.

The initiative converts all Tamil Nadu Government prescribed textbooks for students of classes X, XI and XII, with the audio lessons to special schools under RMSA Tamil Nadu (Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan). This can be accessed through an application called ‘Go Read’ which is preloaded in the mobiles with permanent icons. In total 46 textbooks have been made available in the text-to-speech format for students.

The project is sponsored by the Cognizant foundation that has been working with Worth Trust, Bookshare.org and Karna Vidya Foundation for the project. “The project will be carried out in four phases – firstly awareness would be created about the usage and benefits of the app and then app loaded mobiles would be distributed across the state to benefit the visually impaired. The next phase will be a follow-up where we will take the feedback of students, teachers and recommend changes and lastly games and competitions would be conducted to understand the effectiveness of the app,” said K. Raghuraman, secretary, Karna Vidya Foundation.

Nasimuddin, IAS, principal secretary, welfare of differently-abled persons department who donated the first set of mobiles, said the devices would benefit numerous students across the city and efforts are on, to integrate data from all the libraries and bring it under one platform.