52 thousand official web sites will be enriched with Assistive Technology: Palak

52,000 official web sites of the government of Bangladesh will be enriched with the Assistive Tools Technology to help access the people with sight impairment which will have features like Screen readers, Screen magnification Software and Alternative Input Devices for converting texts to speech and vice versa. This information was conveyed by the State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak. He informed so, in his speech as the Chief Guest at the inaugural function of 'Job Fair for the Persons with Disabilities 2022' held at the auditorium of NGO Affairs Bureau on Sunday (March 20, 2022). As he said, the ICT department is collaborating in inventing various devices to help the visually impaired by using talking white sticks and cameras in spectacles to overcome the obstacles through technology. He said, “We have 52,000 websites of the government. Every website will ‘talk’ now. In other words, if a visually impaired person cannot read the website, he will listen to it through text-to-speech software. If someone wants to find something, they can find it by using speech to text. For this we are making this tool in Bengal language from the ICT department.” Following the direction of the Prime Minister's announcement, the ICT department has been implementing special training projects since 2017 to involve every disabled person in building a knowledge-based innovative Bangladesh by 2041, the state minister said. In this project 4,200 people have already been trained from the regional offices of Bangladesh Computer Council. An app has been created to determine if a child has autistic symptoms. We have launched the Emporia website to take this process further with expert advice. Taking training from there, 700 specially able people got jobs. Mentioning the unimaginable success of the youth in technology, he said, "We are going to send another such project to the Ministry of Planning in a short time through Bangladesh Computer Council." Through this project worth  Tk. 150 crore, 10,600 people with disabilities will be turned into manpower through proper training. Of these, 6,000 will be provided with incubation and mentorship. He urged the e-Cab president present at the event to take up a project jointly with the Jayita Foundation to build not only jobs but also freelancing and entrepreneurship. Zunaid Ahmed Palak hoped that other ministries like the ICT department would also come forward with such initiatives. CSID Executive Director Zahurul Alam and Director General of the Bureau of NGO Affairs Tariqul Islam spoke on the occasion while Dr. Abdul Mannan, Executive Director of Computer Council Bangladesh presided over the event. Prof. Khandaker Abdullah Al Mamun, Director, Aims Lab- the first brain computer interface lab in Bangladesh; Dr. Sathi, Executive Director of Suchana Foundation; Shomi Kaiser, President of e-Cab; Tanjibul Bashar, Founder of ‘My Outsourcing’ were present at the event at the event among others.