Gizmos make life less challenging for physically impaired

TECH CHALLENGED NO MORE: Blind students now record their lectures on MP3 players.

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New Delhi: Technology is really making a difference at Delhi University where visually impaired students are using MP3 players not as a distraction, but to focus on their lectures. Technology has been good for us, but it has had dramatic effects on the lives of visually impaired students. It is surprising to know just how tech-savvy these students are.

A student of Hindu College, Ajay Arora says, "I have been blind since birth, but I did not want to hold myself back from education, and then I heard there were other options."

Thanks to his gizmos, life is easier for this MA student. He now records his lectures on his multi-GB mp3 player, transfers them to his computer and once stored, listens to them over and over.

And Ajay is not alone; almost all the blind students in Delhi University now use MP3 or MP4 players to record lectures.

"We used a walkman initially, but cassettes have low capacity. They used to finish in the middle of the lectures. My MP3 has eight GB space and came only for Rs 2,000," says he.

And technology in Ajay's life doesn't stop with the MP3. Ajay's mobile phone has a software called Talks and that's what it does - calls out the names of the stored contacts and rattles off the messages.

Another software on his computer, JAW, reads out the documents. Thanks to technology, the only person Ajay depends on, is himself. He may be physically challenged, but not technology challenged and that is Ajay's sure ticket to success.