What does it take for a child with visual impairment to truly experience science? For sighted students, science is taught through diagrams, charts, and demonstrations. But for a child who cannot rely on sight, learning must be different. It must be accessible, inclusive, and experiential—using sound, touch, and movement to...
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Inclusive STEM education in Kerala: Ajwed’s story Inclusive STEM education is changing how students like Ajwed experience learning. Born in Muthiramparambu in Malappuram, Ajwed faced vision challenges from infancy. Despite multiple medical consultations, his vision did not improve, but his parents remained committed to his education. The background: Systemic gaps...
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Inclusive STEM education in practice: Gopika’s story Inclusive STEM education is transforming how students like Gopika learn and experience the classroom. A Class 10 student at Tiruvannamalai, Gopika comes from Kolavoor and has complete vision loss. Despite financial constraints—her father is a coconut vendor and her mother a tailor—her parents...
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Discover how shifting beliefs can unlock STEM learning for visually impaired children. Watch the Inclusion Dialogue clip.
Vision Empower recently launched The Inclusion Dialogue, a series that brings together voices across accessibility and inclusion to share perspectives and learn from organisations, practitioners and diverse stakeholders. The first session, “From Classrooms to Campuses to Communities,” explored inclusion as a journey—from school education to higher education, and into communities....
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Vision Empower commemorates World Water Day 2026, embracing this year’s theme — Water and Gender — a powerful reminder of the deep connections between water access, gender equality, and dignity. Observed annually, World Water Day brings attention to critical global water issues. This year’s theme highlights how water access is...
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Vision Empower participated in Empower 2025, the 8th Annual Assistive Technology Conference held from October 3–5 at IIT Delhi. The event brought together users, innovators, and advocates in assistive technology, creating a vibrant platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange. During the conference, our Co-Founder Prof. Amit Prakash contributed to key discussions—serving as a...
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Vision Empower successfully conducted an exclusive webinar for the visually impaired community in Kerala titled “AI in Action: From Challenges to Possibilities” on September 27, 2025. The session was facilitated by Jaisal Parappanangadi (Co-founder, AI for VI | Digital Literacy Trainer | AI Specialist) and was held in Malayalam via Zoom. The webinar focused on demonstrating how Artificial Intelligence...
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On 21st August 2025, Vision Empower, in collaboration with Vembi Technologies and the A4I team, organized an insightful webinar for the members of Apang Mahila Vikas Sanstha, Nagpur. The session was specially curated to support facilitators from two inclusive schools in the city—Blind Relief Association Andh Vidyalaya and Gyan Jyoti Vidyalaya—with the goal of enhancing their understanding of...
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Vision Empower (VE), in collaboration with NAB India, Sightsavers India, and the SSEPD Department, Government of Odisha, organized a two-day Accessible Science Workshop on 7th and 8th August 2025, which focused on advancing inclusivity in STEM education. The workshop brought together educators, experts, and innovators committed to creating classrooms where science is accessible to all learners....
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India hosts a significant portion of the global visually impaired population, constituting one-third of the 2.2 billion affected individuals (Hindustan Times, 2017). In India, there are about 400+ special schools dedicated to the visually impaired students employing 2000 teachers, of whom 60% are persons with visual impairment. (Vikaspedia, 2020) Even...
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Abstract Brief: Blind and visually impaired students across India face challenges learning complex scientific diagrams. While teacher assistance is essential, the high student-teacher ratio makes it difficult to provide an engaging learning experience at scale. In this pilot study, we introduce IRIS, a novel TV remote-sized product designed for visually...
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Stakeholder perspective and recommendations for action November 2024, India Report prepared by: Neha Trivedi, Spandan, Inclusion and Accessibility Consultancy; Lakshmi Narasimhan, TSI Consulting, LLP Published by: Vision Empower This report seeks to summarise the landscape of unmet needs and challenges and present recommendations for way forward for the sector of...
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Authors: Paul Dsouza, TouchéTech Lab; Meera Muthukrishnan, Vision Empower; Rebecca Carvalho, Vision Empower; Kartik Joshi, Centre for Accessibility in the Global South, IIIT Bangalore Abstract Learning geometry concepts has been a persistent challenge for students with visual impairments. Thelack of appropriate accessible tools for geometry construction and drawings have resulted...
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Meghna Chowdhury and Supriya Dey write on the theme of Well-being at Vision Empower in the January 2025 issue of Samuhik Pahal, WIPRO’s journal of collective action. At Vision Empower (VE), fostering both individual and collective well-being is at the heart of our organizational approach.
Vision Empower celebrated National Science Day 2024, from 21st to 28th March 2024 at 34 special schools across 10 states in India. The week-long celebration was a great success. This book captures the essence of Science Day showcasing the incredible achievements of our little Einsteins who created tactile and accessible science models, brought...
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Head over to page Pg 40 to read Vision Empower’s work on ‘Happily Bridging the Computational Thinking Divide’
https://visionempowertrust.org/new/wp-content/uploads/publications/Science-Day-Vision-Empower.pdf
This book written by Catherine Holloway and Giulia Barbareschi of the University College London features two case studies from Vision Empower in the third and fourth chapters respectively.
These case studies have been written by Supriya Dey, Amit Prakash and Manohar Swaminathan.
The article talks about the various ways Vision Empower is making numeracy accessible for children with visual impairment. (Pg 11)
Abstract: This paper argues that, while universities have a crucial role to play in social innovation by democratizing knowledge, fulfilling that role in the Global South requires them to partner with civil society actors such as NGOs. With their history of working with the socially disadvantaged, NGOs have a unique role in clarifying the nature of demand since social innovation must often address ill-formulated “wicked problems”.
Design of Programs for Students and Teachers with Visual Impairment in the Global South: A collaborative response to the COVID19 pandemic in Karnataka, India. This entry from Vision Empower was accepted for the CHI 2021 conference workshop on Disability design in low resource settings.
Supriya from Vision Empower took part in the "Accessible Computer Science Fall Workshop" Nov 17, 2020 - Nov 19 2020 on "Using research to make Computer Science education accessible to all learners" organized by Microsoft, University of Washington, and University of Colorado, Boulder. The whitepaper, Reimagining Accessibility and Inclusion in K12 Computer Science Education Through Curriculum and Professional Development was an outcome of this workshop.
Article by Supriya for Samuhik Pahal, a Wipro Foundation newsletter : Addressing the new abnormal - COVID response for visually impaired teachers in schools for the blind
Co-authored by Vidhya Y for a workshop at The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2020 View Publication
Project Torino is a physical programming environment designed for teaching computational thinking to children in schools in the UK, regardless of the level of vision. We introduced project Torino to children in three schools for the blind in Bangalore, India as a toy for playing with songs, rhymes, and stories. We present the results of 103 semi-structured play sessions spread over three months with 12 children (2 girls, 10 boys) with diverse backgrounds.
Gesu India (MSR India), Geetha Ramakrishna (Vision Empower), Jyoti Bisht (Vision Empower), Manohar Swaminathan (MSR India)
ICT Trends: Chap 3. Assistive technologies
Amit Prakash, Angel Jeena, Apoorva Bhalla, Rajesh Hanbal, Sanjay V.P., Supriya Dey and Vidhya Y.
By Venkatesh Potluri, Priyan Vaithilingam, Suresh Iyengar, Y. Vidya, Manohar Swaminathan, Gopal Srinivasa
By Kameswaran, Vaishnav, Robin Brewer, Tiffany C.E. Veinot, Jatin Gupta, Joyojeet Pal, Sile O'Modhrain, Aakanksha Parameshwar, Vidhya Y, an, et al
By Supriya Dey, Vidhya Y, Mounika Neerukonda, Suprgya Bhushan and Amit Prakash