VISION Engineering solutions for the visually challenged Team

1. Abstract vision n. 1. the ability to see; inspired and idealistic ideas about the future. 2. a dream, an extraordinarily beautiful person-The Oxford English Dictionary Technological enhancements of our era have improved the quality of human life to an unprecedented extent. In this fast growing and ever shrinking global information scenario, we as technologists, researchers and computer scientists must devise ways of using these developments to benefit the society. We as technologists felt the need to visualize a Weltanschauung. There is an urgent and ever increasing need for sharing information and knowledge that is of prime importance aiming at societal transformation and empowering. Immense work has lead to successful deployment of innumerable software and information systems that have changed the lifestyle of millions of people. Ubiquitous computing is the trend of the day. It is the duty of us to empower every human with necessary knowledge and keep him abreast with the happenings. The considerable advancement in technology, made a few academicians to start working towards improving Human Computer Interaction (HCI). After a lot of brainstorming sessions and considerable literature survey, we formulated the essence of our project as " VISION-Engineering solutions for the Visually Challenged ". This is a conception of our ideology to give back something to humanity, especially to the visually challenged. Our visits to several Blind schools and Red Cross have motivated us furthers. To the best of our knowledge our system is the first of its kind in trying to provide an integrated systems solution in India. We have tried to cater both to the knowledge enrichment aspects and also to alleviate some of the difficulties faced by the visually challenged. The academicians in this community have for a long time felt the need of Computing for a social cause and societal transformation. With this intent various universities/companies set up the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research labs that are ever burgeoning and meliorating towards achieving the goal of making computers help every human. Such research centers have, of late started exploring the possibility of how computers can be used effectively in interactive mode to cater to the needs of the physically disabled, especially the visually challenged. Researchers in this field, in collaboration with a number of blind/Braille organizations have developed a number of tools like refreshable Braille displays, text-to-speech synthesizers that have enhanced social and professional integration of the visually challenged. HCI community has …