Intuit Accessibility Summit 2017

Bala and Vijay kicking off Intuit Accessibility Summit

Intuit India has today hosted Accessibility Summit 2017 at Bangalore. It was a fantastic event! Event got kicked off by Balachandra Shetty and Vijay. Bala has spoken about Summit theme i.e. Accessibility benefits all. He has mentioned about how accessibility benefits not just people with disabilities but also everyone. For instance, original concept of ramps are for wheel chair users but today they are used by everyone including those have knee pains, those having heavy material to transfer from one place to another. Another example Bala has provided is how voice announcement in an elevator helps everyone who were having conversation and not just blind people.

Vijay then talked about how accessibility is an important aspect for Intuit. How they integrate integrate accessibility as one of their practices. He has agreed with Bala that accessibility benefits everyone.

Further there was a talk by Ted Drake; though it was unplanned and glad that he has a back-up talk to bridge gap as another presenter could not reach venue due to traffic. Ted talked about semantics and a few techniques of accessibility design and development.

Then there was a talk by Abhiram and Bhoomika from Mozilla Tech Speakers talking about an invention of Brain Computer Interface. How human brain and computer can be connected so that to help people with very limited mobility. They are looking for partners who can help with developing required hardware.

That was time for delicious lunch and conversations with fellow participants.

Post lunch, Ashwin of Prakat Solutions talked about how accessibility helps everyone regardless of ability or disability. That includes social benefits, legal benefits etc.,

Rajani speakingThen there was a talk by Rajani, who happens to be 1st women with vision impairment and pursued Chartered Accountancy. She talked about how adding a few small things of accessibility makes a big impact. She reminded of audience that accessibility exists for many years. For example, F and J on typewriters have raised dots; number 5 on telephone has raised dot; those were introduced to help people with blindness.

Finally there was a talk by team of Eye-D talking about their products for visually impaired. Eye-D has very promising tools that one should try.

Thank you, Ted and all the team at Intuit for hosting this event. It’s almost 4th time in the row that Intuit has hosted such a fantastic event. More companies should inspire and promote accessibility.

 

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