Dear List, You would be glad to know that following VIPs have won the IBN7suoeridols award this year:
Krishnakant Mane Region: Mumbai *Disability:* Visually impaired by birth Krishnakant Mane was one of the rare students who went to a school for sighted children. Over the years he has excelled in high end programming like JAVA and specialises in Human Computer Interface. He has floated his own software company – ‘Compact Software Solutions’ and employs about 10 sighted software engineers. His company develops complex software for high profile companies. His achievements rise above the rest as a young man who has overcome the emotional challenges of being totally blind and achieved mastery in his programming skills. In future, he wants to spread the use of computer technology among blind and other handicapped students in schools and colleges across India. He has undertaken several projects to train school and college teachers on teaching to blind students. Charudatta Vitthal Jadhav Region: Mumbai *Disability* – Visually impaired due to an eye disease at the age of 13 *Sport *– Chess Charudutt promotes Chess among the visually impaired. He has been the first Asian to be Vice-President of ‘International Brail Chess Association’. He works through ‘All India Federation of Blind for Chess’. Four of his students have participated in ‘World Chess Championship’. His chess software for visually impaired is helping people across 18 countries. *Achievements:* - First Blind Chess Player to win Medal in the International Chess Tournament held at Ireland in October 1998. - First Asian to get nominated on IBCA executive board (World Chess Federation for the Blind). - First Blind Chess Player to get the International rating in ‘Commonwealth Chess Tournament’ held at Mumbai in January 2004. - Designated as the first blind International Chess Arbiter by the ‘International Braille Chess Association’ (IBCA), which is the apex body for Chess for the Blind in the World. - Nominated as a First Vice President of the International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) that controls activities of chess for the blind in the world. The only non-European person to get this honour. Also nominated Chairman of Organizing committee of 14th Chess Olympiad for the blind 2012. - The team member of First Himalayan Expedition for the Blind, successfully scaled Peak SHITIDHAR, height 17220 ft in 1992. - Developed the chess software with speech (brain child) ‘Talk 64’, First of its kind in the word specially designed for the blind. - Published first DAISY chess book “My tribute to Bobby Fischer” - Organised First ever ‘World Chess Championship’ in India Rahul Deshmukh Region: Pune *Disability:* Visually impaired for the last 10 years due to gradual loss of eyesight. Rahul comes from a family of agricultural workers. He was born blind. He came to Pune to do his schooling at a blind school. While he was in class XII, he started Snehankit (“Association for the Non-seeing Friends”) aspires to help the visually impaired, in particular youth from rural Maharashtra, to achieve independence, self-confidence and dignity. Snehankit now also offers training on basic MS Office skills and also programming languages like C and C++ using speech enabled software – JAWS to visually impaired SMA Jinnah Region: Madurai *Disability *– Visually impaired Born in poverty, he had huge odds stacked against him. Undeterred, he overcame them to reach out to over 300 other visually impaired people helping them through education, training and employment opportunities. Currently he is designated as the Secretary General, Indian Association for the Blind Hr. Sec. School & Rehabilitation Centre at Sundararajanpatti, Madurai. Source: http://ibn7superidols.com/index.html -- Warm regards, Subhash Chandra Vashishth Mobile: +91 (11) 9811125521 Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to. Consider environment! To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
