Celebrating Social Innovation with Microsoft Philanthropies

Last week Vision Empower had the privilege of participating in an event and demonstrate our work to Microsoft’s distinguished Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs leaders for Asia. Among the distinguished guests were also Antony Cook, Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Microsoft Corporation and Alan Waldbaum, Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft Corporation.

We participated in enriching conversations about the future of technology and its responsible development and deployment. At Vision Empower, we recognize the impact of harnessing technology for the societal good, and these discussions reaffirmed our commitment to this objective. The guests applauded Vidhya’s inspiring journey overcoming the challenges of visual impairment in education and starting Vision Empower (VE) and witnessed the impact of VE’s work across 13 states in India through glimpses captured in a brief documentary. The VE team then demonstrated the application of the Ludic Design for Accessibility framework, which was seeded and sprouted at Microsoft Research under the mentorship of Dr Manohar Swaminathan, by engaging with the dignitaries on fun games such as accessible playing cards, Sudoku and Snake and Ladders which are used by VE to build the foundations of number sense among children with visual impairment. Later during the volunteering event, the guests were pleasantly amazed at the agility with which the Microsoft AI4A grant winning product Hexis-Antara from Vembi Technologies allowed them to create content of their choice on the Antara application and was read by Venkatesh in Braille on the tactile Braille display instantaneously. 

The event was hosted at the campus of The Association of People with Disability (APD, India) where we also had the opportunity to witness the incredible work of other organisations such as Win Vinaya Foundation and Karya. We are grateful to Microsoft Philanthropies, for their commitment to the common goal of an equitable and inclusive society.