New skills light up world for the blind

adoc_admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:53:54 +0800

Dang Hoai Phuc, the Director of the Sao Mai Computer Centre for the Blind (Sao Mai Centre), is well-known not only for overcoming his own difficulties but also helping other people in a similar situation.

Born in 1982 in Tan Thanh District, Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province, Phuc was a vivacious and active boy.

However, an accident happened while Phuc was digging for tree roots with his friends. A landmine exploded in his face, depriving him of his eyes forever. Phuc had to adapt to life without sight when he was only nine years old.

Instead of being depressed about his loss, Phuc never felt sorry for himself. He just found it difficult to do certain things.

His optimism was the foundation of his desire to achieve. Phuc did not give up his dream of studying despite his handicap. He discovered that there was a centre for the blind in HCM City and pestered his parents to let him study there.

He says although they were worried about him, they were moved by his thirst for knowledge. In 1992, Phuc's parents applied for him to join the Bung Sang (Lighting up) Club, a centre for teaching and caring for sight-impaired children in HCM City.

Phuc was delighted to discover a whole new world filled with laughter and joy. Phuc started to learn Braille and music at the centre with great determination and patience. As a result of his tireless efforts, Phuc was accepted into a regular school, and attained good results in his studies.

After graduating from high school in 1998, he started to apply to universities.

"Unluckily, almost every university that I applied to did not accept me because I was blind," says Phuc.

He persisted until finally, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities accepted him.

Although he was interested in science, he chose to major in English, which was a turning-point in his life. Due to his good English, he was chosen to be one of 10 students to take a computer training course for the blind, run by the Bung Sang Club and the Italian charity, Mantovan.

He could never have imagined how wonderful it would be when the magic of technology opened a new page in his life.

Initially, he found it difficult to use the computer, but gradually, Phuc caught virtual sight of the digital world.

"A year after I had developed my typing, software programming and internet skills, I realised that computing is an endless source of precious information for everybody," he says.

Phuc spent many sleepless nights trying to work out how to share his knowledge with people in the same boat as him in order to bridge the gap between blind and sighted people.

With skills gained from a teacher training course, Phuc was determined to teach computing to students at the Bung Sang Centre, which once supported him in his hour of need.

When the course ended, Phuc and two other members became the very first teachers at the newly established Sao Mai Centre.

Impaired

According to Phuc, there were two ways for sight-impaired people to use a computer. The first and more popular way was to use a software that helps read the information on the computer screen in English. The second was to use a special appliance called Braille Display that allows users to touch and feel symbols and letters appearing on their computer screens. However, this kit can cost thousands of dollars, so not many people can afford it.

Thanks to his fluent English, Phuc rarely had any difficulties using his computer.

"If you are good at English, it is easy to learn how to use a computer. However, many blind people do not get the chance to learn a foreign language. That's why I thought of developing software to translate the information on the screen into spoken Vietnamese," Phuc says.

The software "Voice – Vietnamese speech engine" was invented in 2005 along with the "Digital talking books" which provide blind students with all the information printed in school textbooks from the 3rd to the 12th grade.

These special books are designed to use standardised software which allows users to move back and forth between chapters or sections easily.

Phuc's inventions have helped the blind to access the digital world and have won many international prizes. Beating stiff competition from other international software designers, his project "Distance Computer Training for the Blind" was awarded a US$45,000 prize in 2003. The project was first implemented in four southern provinces and has now spread to more than 20 areas across the country, helping a lot of unhappy people with its user-friendly system.

All the activities and services provided by the Sao Mai Centre are free. Therefore, raising funds from social events and charitable donations to support the teaching and learning here is really important.

This is not just to ask for donations from the public because "disabled people are charity cases" as Phuc says.

"I never have the concept of charity on my mind. All 12 official members of our centre and many other collaborators are working hard to help disabled people to approach new fields of knowledge, then they can use what they have learnt to contribute to society," says Phuc.

As well as the work he does on the projects run by the Sao Mai Centre, Phuc is also a coordinator of the Education and Technique Support ON-NET in the East Asian area, training teaching staff to teach computing to the sight-impaired people.

Phuc expects that his products will not only help people with sight disability in Viet Nam, but also in other countries across the world. Developing computing education and supporting projects for further education are among his plans for the near future. — VNS

Hanoian initiates user-friendly website for visually impaired

adoc_admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:27:54 +0800

The http://tamhonvietnam.net website lets visually impaired users interact with it through shortcuts, giving oral instructions when needed to facilitate their surfing.

Users can find news collected from other daily newswires, books, and other materials on the website, and also post their own articles and comments.

"In the future, the website will not only support the blind access information but also act as an open forum for them to connect together and bond as a community," said Dinh Thanh Tung, vice chairman of Vietnam Blind People's Association, which took over the website from Nguyen Thi Thu Trang and her group last month.

Trang, a lecturer at the Information and Communication Technology Institute under the Hanoi University of Technology, said the website was first initiated last May when she instructed a group of her students to implement a project to enter Microsoft's "Imagine" competition.

While the project won the third prize at the contest challenging students to come up with technological solutions helping solve today problems, it wasn't concretized until Trang wrote a specific plan later.

She then was contacted by Khuc Hai Van, a visual impaired man once honored for his contributions to IT, and Nguyen Thi Thu Ha from voluntary group Niem Tin. Together they started the project in August.

Trang said she also asked for help from volunteers on the Internet, and was able to recruit 61 as official members out of hundreds of applicants. Most of the members were students at high schools and universities in Hanoi.

They took turn in visiting centers of the blind to conduct surveys on the latter's demands for reading, hunting for studios and preparing campaigns to promote the plan as well as calling for contributions from the community, Trang said.

Members were even willing to pay their own money for the project, she said, adding that the website was completed four months later.

Trang first became involved in matters involving visually impaired people in 2001 when she was a member of a volunteer group working to record audio books for the Cau Giay District Blind People's Association. Later she had a chance to impart computer skills to visually impaired teachers.

"Only when I was close to and working with the blind could I realize how much they were disadvantaged," she said.

"My biggest desire is do something to share part of the difficulties facing those who desire for light day and night."