Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) May 9th – let’s mark it

April 24th, 2013 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


Global Accessibility Awareness DayThanks to Jennison and Joe Devon, since 2012 world has marked May 9th as Global Accessibility Awareness Day and there were plenty of events took place last year across the world. This year too, there is a lot of momentum going on to mark GAAD.

In India too, there are a few events taking place.
PayPal Accessibility Team will be hosting a panel discussion on “Accessibility” at their office in Chennai. Please visit Event details and registration. Last date to register is 7th May 2013. Also, follow PayPal Accessibility Team on Twitter for updates.

Thanks to Sunil Abraham and his team at Centre for Internet and Society, who will be hosting a three hour public event. Event will consist of two presentations about accessibility in general and accessibility testing. That follows demonstrations of different assistive technologies and how people with disabilities use the web. More than that, it will be an awesome opportunity to network with other colleagues in the industry. Visit GAAD 2013 Bangalore page for event details and registration. Please spread the word!

At a personal level, I’ll be answering questions related to web accessibility and questions can be sent to helpdesk(at)sgaccessibility(dot)com. Please see my plans for GAAD on GAAD 2013 page on my initiative website

BarrierBreak and NASSCOM Foundation presents an awareness webinar to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Please visit Webinar Information and registration

so what’s your plan? You can celebrate GAAD either in a small or a big way. Every effort towards creating awareness would count. You can do as small as asking your colleagues to use their computers without mouse for an hour!

More details about other events will be posted here as I know of. Stay tuned and in the meanwhile, let us know how you would be celebrating.

Happy GAAD!

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in Events

Tags:

Experience with redBus.in

April 1st, 2013 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


I have been using redBus.in (external link) for sometime now and never had an opportunity to experience to interact with their customer service before. Recently I had a trip to Hyderabad and tickets were booked through redBus.in. Here is my experience.

I traveled from Chennai to Hyderabad and return. Onward journey was smooth except that the head phones given in the bus did not work well. But that’s OK to compromise. Return trip was not pleasant.

Return trip was booked on SVR Travels (External website). The bus was delayed by about 40 minutes and when we called up the coach attendant, he was rude in answering. Just before the mid-night, it seems driver dashed vehicle with some other vehicle and glass window of one of the windows got damaged. Fault is from our driver himself. And suddenly AC in the bus stopped functioning and when we reported, driver was not willing to looked into and respnded with a rude tone. Whole night, AC did not work in the bus. as soon as it was 6:30 in the morning, I tried reaching out to SVR Travels via the phone numbers on their website’s contact page. None of the numbers wnet through. Tried reaching out redBus.in Customer service and found they operate only between 7:30 am to 11 pm. Called them again at 7:30 am, someone asked me to send in an email to their support email address. Hmm, they cannot create a complaint ticket. When I sent an email, I got an automatic response that I would get a reply within 24 hours. After a few hours, I have received a response stating

We apologize for the inconvenience caused and we will ensure to serve you better next time

as this response appears to me that the reply was sent without any investigation. I called up their customer service and I was told they will escalate the issue and I should get a call within next 24 hours. Same thing happened for next 72 hours. There wasn’t much of the action from redBus.in in spite of me calling them. But thanks to the power of social media, when I pinged @redbus_in on Twitter, I got a very quick response. Initially on twitter too I got the same response that they will make sure to serve better next time but unwilling to talk about what has happn=ened. When I stressed, they worked with the operator and I was initially told that the operator declined to my complaint. I have suggested them to bring up contacts of all the other passengers and do the investigation. Magically after 5 minutes, I got another call stating that operator agreed the fault and was ready to refund the sum of amount INR 300 which I am yet to receive. But when I questioned redBus team for the compansation towards inconvenience caused by their own team with the whole issue, they told me that they will discuss with their management and revert to me at the earliest possible which is not happened yet. It’s almost a week now!

Well, all I want to urge all service providers is either provide professional service or be accountable for the services you offer. Money is hard earned for everyone. Surprisingly during this process I have heard from redBus.in customer service that he is not someone who is working on the case and at the same time, he cannot transfer the call to concerned person. Each time you call them, get a static answer that “we are sorry for the inconvenience caused, we will escalate the issue and you will hear back within next 24 hours”. Dear redBus.in, train up your teams please. As you do not expect any trouble from customers, you guys do not have any right to trouble customers. If you can’t serve in a professional way, may be it’s time to shut down the business.

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in Experience

Tags:

ServiceSquare – incredible service

March 16th, 2013 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


We usually attend to our household activities on our own and for some reason, we had a do a deep level of cleaning at our house and approached Service Square (External Website). When we told them our requirements, we were told they will send their personnel by 1 pm. Usually, such service companies do not follow time lines (we still remember Agarwal Packers and movers:-() but to our surprise, at 12:45 pm we got a call asking for land marks. For some reason call got disconnected; we called back but call was rejected and we got a SMS saying “Sir I deaf… you SML reply only yes or now for your flat no 3″. I replied “Yes” and within ten minutes, we see a couple of young and energetic gentlemen knocked our door and shook hands with me. They straight away started the work and within two hours, they completed the work and we must say, we would never been able to clean our house in the way that those two men have done. Kudos to them. Before they ask us for payment, they handed us a sheet that has a set of questions about our satisfaction and comments. We we were quite happy with them.

We sincerely appreciate Service Square for providing with employment opportunities to people with disabilities. I have heard that they have employed about 10 people with hearing impairment and more in pipe line.

Good luck guys!

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

YearInReview2012 – with mixed feelings…

December 19th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


2012 is almost to the end and we will enter into the year 2013! (Yes, surely, I don’t think, anything will take away the world on 21st December!!). With that, let me do a recap of my year 2012.

Year started really well. I was glad to arrange surprise cake cutting with my family. I don’t believe in cutting cake etc but I always love to do things when most people enjoy something. Middle of January, we the entire family went to my in-laws place to celebrate Makara Sankrathi and since it was our first big festival after the wedding, we were more keen to celebrate and a Sathyanarana Vratham was performed.

Later, I was back at work with planning the year 2013 and lined up several initiatives both in India and overseas. In February, Hema and I went to attend Techshare India 2012 (sorry Shilpi, couldn’t help you guys with funding). It was a great conference took place for the 3rd time in India. I have presented two papers one on The Power of ARIA and another on Yahoo! Messenger and Accessibility. It was a pleasure to meet several accessibility enthusiasts and I only felt that exhibition could have been better though I enjoyed meeting people like Vishnu Educational Society, more products could have been showcased. I felt this may be since I have been in the industry for a while…

Another great event I have participated in February was the workshop organized by W3C India at LNM Institute of Information Technology. What a great set of enthusiastic staff and students. Thoroughly enjoyed interacting many of them.

March was a cool month, lots of planning and appraisals. Thanks to my manager at Yahoo!, I got a good rating!

April was tough; started the month with a shocking news that I no longer have my job at Yahoo! that is when I wrote my post on Three Years at Yahoo!. But I don’t blame Yahoo! for that, but it was just ridiculous decision taken by Scott Thompson, Yahoo!’s Former CEO. I am sad that decision has created problems to several other professionals in the industry. As a positive thinker, I would still personally take this with a positive spirit. I started exploring new opportunities, while looking for full time jobs, I was putting thoughts together for free lancing and that gave birth to SG Accessibility Solutions. Thanks to several friends who offered a great sense of encouragement. I’ll surely promote this brand in days to come. During this time, I wrote a couple of Accessibility reviews including one review on the website of Income Tax Department

While I was exploring possibilities, as suggested by our Guruji, we had a quick trip to Srirangam. Though the climate was super heat, the place and the temple is excellent. It was a pretty old and powerful Sri Ranganatha Temple

In midst of this, we got to know Hema’s grand father, who played a key role during our marriage met with an accident while riding his bicycle and was admitted in the hospital. However, more saddened news is that later in June, he passed away. Last we spoke to him was when we called him to seek his blessings on the eve of my birthday. We all deeply miss him and may his soul be rest in peace.

By mid of June, I got a few full time employment offers (glad I didn’t fail in any interviews) and chosen to take up my job with PayPal and that require us to re-locate to Chennai. Though we were busy in relocating, we did not want to miss the opportunity to celebrate our first wedding anniversary and we did a quick trip to Mysore.

Again, busy life is started at work with a lot of new dreams, thoughts and ideas. I am glad that I yet got another opportunity to build accessibility practice at one more multinational company. Glad that awareness level is increasing towards accessibility.

July was again a crazy month… We were busy with dealing with movers and packers and move our stuff from Bangalore to Chennai and as we settled in, we did a quick one day trip to Kumbakonam, a ton that is around 4 hours drive from Chennai. Wow, it is such a fantastic place. We learnt that there are about 100 temples within that town itself and we couldn’t cover even ten of them!

In September, we had Hema’s birthday and that was celebrated in Bangalore as the Annual General Body Meeting of the National Association for the Blind, Karnataka Branch has also happened on the same day. Unfortunately, I realized that my time wouldn’t be fruitful to spend for NAB Karnataka Branch as I have noticed the quality of services are going down and decided to move on from the position of their governing council.

In October, with a heavy heart left Hema in India and I traveled to the San Jose, USA on work. Had a fantastic time with our very new and own Accessibility team at PayPal led by mighty Victor Tsaran. Only sad part is my brother Chi. Vinay was not healthy and admitted to hospital and later he traveled to India for treatment. Now, he is doing well and back at his job.

December started with events to mark International Day on Persons with Disabilities and I was on a panel organized by NASSCOM Foundation and HCL Technologies. Then we went to attend our relative’s wedding Chi. Keerthi Teja and Chi. Sow. Sandhya. Congratulations both of you and have a wonderful married life!

This year actually concludes with an Accessibility awareness event we have organized at our eBay office in Bangalore. Wow, it was a superb event with Deepa N from EMC2 and Vidya of EnAble India sharing their expeeriences of how they use the internet and how accessibility would play a critical role in their lives. Thank you guys!

Update: I thought the year concluded with that great event at eBay, but it’s end with saddened demise of Hema’s grand mother. She passed away on the day of 27th December. May her soul be rest in peace.

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Memories of life: How I began to use computers…

December 17th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


Suddenly, I got to see my old website that I created somewhere around 2000 or so! Wow, so much is changed from then and now!! Wanted to share a story, how I began to use computers. Credit to my old website…

My photo from my old websiteThe day when I saw the Computer for the first time at my uncle’s office in the year 1995, I was so inspired and internd to learn to use this vast technology. However, I am told that since I have problem with my vision, it is impossible for me to operate the computer and hence, I am not suitable to IT Industry. In the year 1999 I came to Mumbai in order to undergo the Telephone Operator’s Training at National Association for the Blind, India and subsequently, one day I was searching for the Cybercafe in order to gather some information on education in IT for blind, low vision and visually impaired people. As a matter of fact, some mistakes also show a wonderful way towards success. I was misguided and therefore, instead of cybercafe, I have reached to Shramik Vidya Peeth which is an unique institute imparting training in various fields including Computers. I have Welcomed by its Director and approved to undergo the course in their programme. I have undergone three months training in MS-Office under the auspicious guidance of Miss. Pallavi Bodhare. This is how I have entered into IT Industry

I sincerely thank Ms. Pallavi, who helped me to get introduced the world of computers and that helped me to build the career I have today. Way to go!

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Effective use of LinkedIn and Twitter

December 10th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula 2 comments »


Thanks to a colleague’s question on Twitter asking tips that would help him to make best use of LinkedIn, that has prompted me to come up with this quick post on Effective Use of LinkedIn and Twitter.

We know, both LinkedIn and Twitter are two major portals on social media and helps us connect with the whole world. Its not just my colleague but would be several others, who may not exactly know, how these platforms can be used to the best possible extend. Here are some of the benefits that I could think of:

  • Keep track of your profile. Trust me, I don’t yet have a resume. My LinkedIn profile is my resume.
  • Connect with right set of people. I don’t accept the invitations unless the requester is related to my area of professional interest
  • Participate in specific forums and discussions
  • Get publicity to your events and find conferences that you would like to attend or present
  • Get visibility to your presentations through apps like Slideshar
  • If you are a job seeker, you can review the company’s profile
  • You get to know the interviewer before you go for an interview. Yes, most companies send you the names of interview panel and I always understand the panel before I go; so that, we would know the interests and work history of the interviewer
  • By looking at the twitter timeline of the interviewer, we can get to know the interests of the interviewer

Now, let me discuss a bit about how we can keep ourselves relevant on these platforms:

  • Always keep the profile up-to-date; as we make change, a notification will be sent to the timelines of the users who connected with us. Also, by using right keywords and sufficient data, we will be easily searchable
  • Participate in discussions; at least keep reading them through your inbox (LinkedIn sends a digest as per your choice).
  • Follow fellow experts on Twitter
  • Make sure you post relevant tweets

By the way, both LinkedIn and Twitter helped me in my career life. Hiring manager at Yahoo! Indiafound me on LinkedIn and offered me a position at Yahoo! and when, due to unfortunate circumstances, I lost my job at Yahoo!, a fellow accessibility expert on Twitter helped m e find my current job at PayPal

To conclude, to me, yet LinkedIn and Twitter are capable of playing an innovative role in our lives. Go guys!

Print Friendly

2 comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

Recap of International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2012

December 3rd, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


Greetings on the auspicious occasion of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Hope you have read my earlier post asking plans to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities and today, I’ll be writing what I have done and some of the events I have noticed.

I am quite happy that lot has been celebrated today that reflect the them for this year Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all. To recap:

Hoenstly, I couldn’t plan much at my work as we are planning an event for January to create awareness about disability and accessibility; however, I have sent out a communication explaining about the day and encouraged them to do following activities:

Activity 1:
Let’s use eBay and PayPal without using mouse for half-an-hour.

  1. Go to http://ebay.in or http://ebay.com
  2. Choose a category of your choice and select product
  3. Attempt to use payment options (You don’t really have to buy, you can stop activity at the payment option page)

Activity 2:
You can attempt to use any of your favorite sites like Cleartrip.com redbus.in Incomstaxindia.gov.in without mouse and share your experience.

Tip: Tab key will take you from one element to another element

Activity 3:
Are you a iPhone / iPad / iPod user? Go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility and turn on VoiceOver; Now go to your email / Messages – try and compose.
Tip: Single tap will announce the item you touch and double tap will activate!

Wow, received some amazing experiences especially using the iPhone and iPad with VoiceOver:-)

Post noon, I have participated in the panel discussion organized by Diversity and Inclusion team of HCL Technologies and NASSCOM Foundation – Thank you all for inviting me and it was truly a great initiative (Thanks Srimathi, Chitra, Tad and Raji for all the effort). During the discussion, we have learned about the initiatives run by Wadhwani Foundation, V-Shesh – a company that is striving towards inclusive employment (Nice to meet you Raja!), the amazing work being done by Kalasalingam University – perhaps the first university to offer integrated B-Tech program; Thank you Dr. Kaniappan for joining on the call despite of the busy schedule both at work and personal front; indeed it was a pleasure listening to you and then our good friend Rama Chari of DEOC spoke about the policies and focused on Article 27 – Work and Employment of UNCRPD (Thank you Rama) and then I had a great pleasure of speaking about best practices to offer inclusive environment on the job. Thank you guys for such a wonderful opportunity and thank you all the participants those attended. Please stay tuned for its recording.

Other events I have noticed:

I’m sure, there must be several events going on across the globe and sincere appreciation to everyone and I am glad to be part of the accessibility industry that impacts a lot to the society.

Good luck,

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in Events

Tags:

International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IPDP) 2012, what are your plans?

November 20th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


I wish, I should have seen the United Nations Page on International Day of Persons with disabilities 2012 a bit earlier… Theme for this year is something very close to my heart. The theme of IPDP 2012 is “Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all”. This is something truly meaningful and an urgent need. So what are your plans? Shall we all pledge to create an inclusive and accessible society for all? Great, at least, let’s have that dream and start working to that direction.

I know, it will not happen over night, but if we don’t try, we will not see that happening on any day. So, firstly, let’s put together the barriers that we face on regular basis and prioritize them. Then, let’s identify and bring in all the stakeholders. Explain them about each problem and it would be great to offer possible recommendations. Remember to tell them, why such a solution is important. I firmly believe, most often, problems can be addressed by talking and working together with stake holders and need not take any legal help. We see barriers, due to lack of awareness and not that anyone would ever have intention to create barriers. So, have you started listing down the barriers you see? Great, in the interest of time, we may not be able to address any problems before 3rd December, 2012 but at least let’s have a list ready and at least get a pledge and plan in place for addressing the issues. OK, did you ask me, where do we do? Good question, let’s start with wherever we work or study!! What do you say?

Another idea would be on 3rd December, 2012, create awareness among your own co-workers, show them, how you use technology or perform day-to-day job; if the applications you use, either job related or for intranet have accessibility issues, bring them to the notice of the people concerned and work with them on a plan to address the issue. Take your co-workers across your office and show them, if there are any infrastructure barriers. Remember to appreciate, if you notice any good work.

Feel free to share here whatever you have planned or done. Good luck, let’s make the auspicious event a grand success!

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in Events

Tags:

Injaram Sivalayam: A Success story and thanks to all supported

October 28th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


It’s true that a dream comes into reality, when supported by every individual; no matter how small the support may be. It’s so true in case of re-construction of Siva Temple at my home town Injaram.

During mid 2010, a few members of the village thought that the auspicious Lord Siva Temple needs renovation and to get the sufficient grant from the Government, villagers needs to mobilize the funds of about 15 Lacs and that’s when they decided to use the world wide web as one of the sources to reach out to families who belong to Injaram but living elsewhere; and launched http://sivaranjanam.org. Thanks to my uncle Shri. Kakaraparthi Venkata Rao, who happens to be coordinating this effort. We had the first meeting around December 2010 with villagers and to our surprise, the commitment to support the cause is huge and within about three to four months, Committee was able to mobilize all the required funds and approached Government for additional support, which was sanctioned in a quick time.

Now, the temple construction is full in swing and should be ready for inauguration early next year! I’m so glad this temple is taking a new shape and I still remember my memories with this temple during my childhood. Thanks everyone who have been active support and Lord Siva bless us all!

Over view of New Temple at Injaram

Over view of New Temple at Injaram

Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in Community support

Tags:

Folks, students are not fools!! Don’t play with them…

September 6th, 2012 by Srinivasu Chakravarthula No comments »


I was surprised, when I got a call saying they are calling from a reputed management collage and my wife got selected for an admission, where as she didn’t even apply for it. When I questioned the caller, he says “she filed an online an inquiry”… So what, how does that qualify for making a selection? He continued by saying the collage offer a free laptop, loan without any guarantee, placement at Facebook / Google and so on… I fail to understand why he feels an aspirant student would require all of the above!!! Oh! when I asked him to email me the details, he says he cannot, so how the f**k can I trust him?

Students, be careful and make a cautious decision about your studies, career etc. Unfortunately, there are so many folks, who want to fool you; show them you are brave!!

Good luck!

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Print Friendly

No comments »

Posted in General