New England’s ever-popular Din Check band is joining forces with Vision-Aid on Sunday, April 23rd from 4 to 7 p.m. for a fabulous “fun-raiser” in the historic and beautiful Cary Hall in Lexington Center to celebrate Bollywood music and dance. The event supports the programs of Vision-Aid and Perkins School for the Blind to enable children with visual impairment and multiple disabilities (MDVI) served in programs jointly run by Vision-Aid and Perkins India through the Perkins Project Identification and Intervention (IDI) project.

As we near the end of 2022 and look ahead to 2023, there are many bright spots in the past year, but one of the brightest is 42 of our students who are blind or visually impaired landing their dream job in the Tech sector and other sectors. 42 students of our Digital Accessibility Testing (DAT), Python programming), SQL/Database and Corporate Skills training program landed jobs in top companies like Infosys, Goldman Sachs, Cognizant and many others (see list below), as Accessibility testers, software engineers and a variety of other corporate roles. Congratulations to the students and their trainers for this AMAZING accomplishment!

With the turn of seasons, we also have the turn of the quarterly program cycle at Vision-Aid.  During the past quarter [July - September 2022], Vision-Aid Resource Centers and Programs had the opportunity to serve 4366 visually impaired persons across India via various programs.

Belated Dussehra greetings and advance greetings for Diwali – the festival of lights. Amid the festive season, did you know that today, October 15th , is “White Cane Awareness Day”, to increase awareness of the use of white canes by the visually impaired to navigate safely. In our Vision-Aid Agra center, this day was celebrated with the distribution of “Smart Canes” to the visually impaired.

We have a spectacular show waiting for you: “The Jewel of Justice - the saga of Kannagi” on Sunday July 31st, 2022 @ 4 PM US EDT.  Please read this carefully if you are coming to the in-person event in Watertown, MA. (If you are attending the Zoom event, scroll down to the next section for Zoom attendees”

We are pleased to share with you a message from Governor Baker and Lt. Governor Polito for Vision-Aid's upcoming annual event.

Cordial and articulate, with a zest for adventure, Shubham is an Arts major turned tech buff who has thrived on the skill-broadening exposure brought to him by Vision-Aid’s Digital Accessibility Testing and Training Program. Presently employed at HCL as a Digital Accessibility Tester, Shubham fondly reminisces about the series of events that led him to clinch such a covetable position, and how Vision-Aid made a debut at a crucial juncture in his life.

LEXINGTON, MA–Vision-Aid, a non-profit organization serving the visually impaired, announced several notable additions to its leadership team for 2022-23.

This year’s 100% volunteer leadership team includes its 15-member Board of Directors (BOD), 15-member Board of Advisors (BOA), and 4-member Council of Ambassadors, which provides leadership in the area of community engagement, inclusion and advocacy, with a special focus on youth.

The combined power team includes an eminently qualified and diverse range of members drawn from a wide range of fields including Ophthalmology, Optometry, Occupational Therapy, Finance, Technology, Health, Management, Academia and Law.

Vision-Aid’s annual dance productions have become a New England tradition of their own – a remarkable event that the entire community looks forward to with anticipation. This year’s show comes to audiences in a hybrid mode - allowing viewers to choose watching the show in person at a live screening or virtually from the comfort of their homes on July 31st, 2021 at 4 PM US EST, while still preserving the creative, dazzling flavor which have set these shows apart in a category of their own.

While COVID-19 continues to pose challenges, the innovative team leading this year’s effort is finding creative ways to make the show as memorable and vibrant as ever.

The event also aspires to raise much-needed funds for the visually impaired in India – a community which has been especially hard hit by the fallout from the pandemic, at all levels.

For more details of the show, to buy tickets, or to become a sponsor, please visit www.VisionAid.org/event

Amid the searing heat wave in Delhi, which has been in the recent news, a cooler piece of news is that Smart Vision Glasses (SVG) 2.0, the new AI-powered device for the visually impaired made its debut this week in Delhi and is causing some waves. Vision-Aid and its partner SHG Technologies launched Smart Vision Gen 2.0 in Delhi at the Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (SCEH) in Delhi, on May 17th, at an event which was well attended despite the ongoing heat wave.

National Launch of Smart Vision 2.0 On January 11th, 2022 a major all-India seminar was held on the theme of “Technology-based devices for persons who are visually impaired”. The event was jointly organized by the Aravind Eye Hospital and Vision-Aid and was attended by over 60 participants representing eye hospitals and NGOs from different parts of India. The keynote sessions was presented by Aravind Eye Hospital, L.V. Prasad Eye Inst., Vision-Aid and Smart Health Global Technologies – Vision-Aid’s partner who is bringing the first AI-powered , affordable, India-made Smart glasses to the Indian market. The event covered the role of assistive technology for the visually impaired, with a focus on the new AI-powered smart glasses, and a formal launch of Smart Vision Gen 2.0. Vision-Aid is pleased to share the keynote talks and the full session recordings below.

Smart Vision is a revolutionary, affordable, innovative, made-in-India, AI-powered "Smart Glass", the first of its kind brought to India by Vision-Aid in partnership with SHG Technologies of Bengaluru, in collaboration with Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai and with the financial support of the Palakurthi Foundation of USA.

Short Video Overview of Smart Vision Demo (~30 seconds video):

Smart Vision Testimonials by blind users in pilot (~2.5 minutes)  

Click here to download brochure.

For more information, or to obtain this device, please email: info@visionaid.org 

Touching is believing! For children who are visually impaired, and who have never seen a tree or a star or a science diagram, the world of tactile diagrams and tactile STEM books opens up a whole new universe, using the sense of touch. Vision-Aid is proud to partner with Raised Lines Foundation (RLF) a start-up coming out of IIT-Delhi to provide high quality tactile Braille books to children in blind schools across India replacing traditional Braille books which were lacking diagrams. We are grateful to Meetu & Ram Gupta Foundation of Boston, and several other donors for their generous support for this program.

Vision-Aid invites you to an upcoming graduation ceremony to celebrate the graduation of the visually impaired students who have successfully completed Vision-Aid’s challenging Spoken English Intermediate program. Students have worked closely with Vision-Aid's program team to complete this intensive training program successfully, resulting in significant improvement in their English speaking skills and confidence in communicating clearly.

Vision-Aid and Trees For Life India are joining hands to provide life-changing Smart-phone technology to visually impaired from under-privileged backgrounds. In 2021 , we started with a pilot which covers ten locations, and the results have been phenomenal. About the program Smart phone companies have poured a lot of money to pack smart technology into today's devices and there are many innovative apps (including AI based apps) which can totally transform the life of a blind or visually impaired user. Our dedicated volunteers and team members in US and India have been hard at work, coordinating the logistics of this multi-location rollout.

In 2020, Vision-Aid launched the “Vissa Sahadeva Rao and Kamala Vissa Vision-Aid Center for Digital Accessibility Testing & Training” thanks to support from the family of the generous benefactors. The center has already trained 3 batches of visually impaired students in advanced DAT skills with a an intensive , rigorous 6-month program from the Dequeue University in the US, which offers the leading global certification program for DAT training. All students have successfully been certified by Dequeue and several have gone on to secure jobs in the industry as well as work in-house in the Vision-Aid DAT incubator.

Vision-Aid is delighted to see the impact of the partnership between Vision-Aid India and Perkins India to identify children with Multiple Disabilities and Vision Impairment (MDVI) in Agra, Uttar Pradesh India. Under project IDI , Identification and Intervention, door-to-door screening of 338 children with disabilities was carried out. This work was overseen by the project team of trained special educators and CBR workers from Khandoli block. Many more villages will be targeted in the coming weeks and months.

As we look back at 2021 there are many bright spots to celebrate amid the dark clouds of COVID. One of the brightest spots was - Vision-Aid's Digital Accessibility Testing and Training Center (DATTC). This is one of Vision-Aid's most successful initiatives - Truly a Win-Win-Win-Win for all invovled!

A meet and greet event with the Vision-Aid program at the Agra center was held on 18th Decemeber EST. This ceneter is run by Vision-Aid with the support from Vivek and Vandana Sharma foundation. The Agra center works with the local blinds schools and other organizations in Agra, India to offer a range of services to the visually impaired.

Helen Keller once said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision”. Doubly blessed are those who have both sight and vision and help to break the barriers to learning for the blind. Ms. Ranga Geetha of Millbury MA is one such visionary. Celebrating her 72nd birthday on 19th November, 2021, in a very special and meaningful way – by making a commitment to help improve the welfare of visually impaired students in a blind school in Madurai, India, by giving them the gift of technology and learning through her support of Vision-Aid’s Project Spring Board. Through her gift, Ms. Ranga Geetha is “adopting” one of the blind schools in Vision-Aid’s “Project Spring Board” network - St. Joseph's Blind School in Madurai, Tamil Nādu.