This summer, Vision-Aid will add an exciting new program to the Academy – A training program for the visually impaired in Accessibility Testing.

Here is an update from the Vision-Aid National Resource Center at Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai. The Aravind team and their commitment to providing the highest quality care with compassion and commitment, is beyond amazing.

The Vision-Aid team is proud to share the success story of Nibin Mathew, whose dedication and determination is an inspiration.

A chain of life-changing events has fuelled Nibin's efforts to spread his technical training to the visually challenged from his region in Wayanad, Kerala. Born into an agricultural community in Wayanad, Nibin had lost his vision to glaucoma in 2012. He underwent several eye-surgeries at the Aravindh Eye Hospital Coimbatore, gaining limited vision. Due to lack of adequate support for STEM education(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) after the tenth grade, Nibin pursued study in the field business and finance till twelfth grade. He obatined bachelors degree in arts and humanities thereafter.

May 30th 2019 was a very special day for the Vision-Aid famiy. Ramkrishna Raju, the founder and Executive Director of Vision-Aid received the Derek Bok Public Service Prize for 2019. The Derek Bok Public Service Prizes are very prestigious awards given at  Harvard University's Commencement each year to graduating studetns from the Harvard Extension School. It carries a medal, a citation and a cash prize of $3000. The award recognizes creative initiatives in community service or long-standing records of civic achievement.

In January 2019, Vision-Aid and Sankara Nethralaya (SN) launched a resource center at SN’s Shenoy Nagar campus in Chennai. After initial setup and preparations, the resource center started seeing patients in March. In just the month of March, the center has served 43 people with significant visual impairment including some with multiple disabilities.

The beneficiaries of this program are people of all ages. Infant, young children and adults receive counselling, educational guidance, training in orientation and mobility. They are taught independent life skills like usage of assistive software and mobile technologies. Early intervention and vision developmental therapy is also part of the services.

Vision-Aid is extremely proud to announce that our co-founder and Vice President, Revathy Ramakrishna, has been chosen as the Woman of the Year 2019. The award was judged by a panel of nine independent judges. Revathy was presented with the award on Friday 17^th May 2019 at the Annual Woman of the Year Awards gala held at Burlington Marriott Hotel in Burlington, MA. 

Vision-Aid is excited to announce a new initiative for under-privileged visually impaired students in India  – a scholarship fund to cover all the costs for such students

to undergo extensive residential skills training for 6 months in the field of  Computer Applications, Mobile Technologies,  Coaching to help them succeed in Banking and Government sector exams and Spoken English/Soft Skills. The scholarship fund called the “Dr. Badar and Mariam Maskati Vision-Aid Scholarship”

April 17th, 2019 was great day for Vision-Aid volunteers and partners in the greater Boston area. Vision-Aid along with partner Orbit Research participated in the Accessible Technology Day at the MIT museum.  This event was part of the Cambridge Science Festival. The theme was "Accessible Technology: New Ways to Interface with the World".

On January 12, 2019 Vision-Aid and Aravind Eye Hospital, in Madurai, formally launched the Vision-Aid National Resource Center (NRC) for the visually impaired at Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, the world’s largest eye care system. Over 2500 patients are served daily at Aravind Eye hospital's main branch.

The Inclusive STEM Hackathon is a 24-hour hackathon where visually impaired coders and software developers, industry professionals, and engineering students come together to work on exciting and challenging projects.

This years Inclusive STEM Hackathon began on 17th January and ended on 19th January, on the campus of IIIT Bangalore. Organizers of the event included IIIT Bangalore, I-Stem, Vision-Aid, Vision Empower Trust and The Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged.

The event was widey covered byl Indian media. 

Vision-Aid has been working with the Lui Braille Blind School in Agra, India on a range of projects. One of these projects is a spoken English program. The classes are taught in a blended model, with the primary instruction happening virtually with one hour long classes every day, and one local assistant teacher who helps to reinforce concepts. The progress we have seen from our students has been remarkable and inspiring!