Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) in association with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) arranged a workshop which objective was to orient different stake holders with Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) on 18th November at BRAC Inn.
At inauguration speech by Mr. Mahmud Hasan, Chief Operating Officer of Bangladesh Telecentre Network; there are difference between the education and knowledge, now the time has come to raise the voice for the rights of the people and their excess to information. Bangladesh is a densely populated country but around 50% are illiterate and 10% of these populations are disables, these have very low excess of information. Ignoring this large number of people we can not expect that Bangladesh will become a Digital Bangladesh. Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) is a national level network having 63 members around the country, can play a facilitation role in this process.
In the key note Mr Vashkar Vattacharjee, Program Officer of Young Power in Social Action- YPSA, Focal Person DAISY Consortium, Bangladesh Chapter addressed different issues of information Accessibility on Bangladeshi context. In his session he spoke to that ICT is a buzz ward of this current era, and it is one of the genuine ways to empower large number of person with disability. A large number of students, and print disable person now got the chance to know their rights and also participate at the well being of the nation. DAISY is an internationally recognized platform working for the access of the people with disability. It is a very much user friendly and accessible and cost efficient. There are different forms for example it could be in Brail, talking book, E-text, Large print in any format based on the need of the target people. Daisy can play very role to preserve indigenous people’s knowledge and preserving their culture and customs. Any one can use this text using any ordinary devices like mp3 players or any kind of audible devices.
Then he demonstrated different software’s and how a print disable or visually impaired person can get access to internet using software’s.
At the end of the session some recommendations came out through discussion there are:
1. Arrange training and workshop with different stakeholders.
2. Develop more content base on peoples need.
3. Proper dissemination of user friendly contents.
4. Exchange program
5. Advocacy at different level with government.
This workshop was supported by telecentre.org.
