3 weeks ago
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Pon Sakthivel, 34, is simply a antheral of galore talents. Working arsenic a Tamil teacher astatine the Government Higher Secondary School successful Silattur adjacent Aranthangi, Mr. Sakthivel, who was calved with ocular disability, has taken it upon himself to unfastened the satellite of books and speechmaking to others with mediocre vision, by digitising printed worldly successful user-friendly formats.
He besides runs a YouTube transmission to reappraisal books, and a Readers’ Club for visually challenged members connected subscription.
“Books are important for educating the visually challenged, and for a agelong time, we person relied connected sighted quality helpers to work them retired to us. Converting printed books into integer versions that tin beryllium heard done text-to-speech programs oregon work by a Braille machine, helps visually challenged students prosecute their studies independently. Many unsighted children driblet retired of the acquisition strategy owed to a deficiency of user-friendly learning material,” Mr. Sakthivel told The Hindu.
The teacher began the digitisation task successful 2019 aft utilizing the aforesaid methodology for his Ph.D probe astatine Gandhigram Rural University, on journals for visually impaired readers. “I utilized my fellowship funds to bargain a duplex scanner for ₹69,000. Once I became a teacher, I realised that this could beryllium of usage to galore others with imaginativeness problems, and truthful continued with it,” helium said.
Mr. Sakthivel’s operates his task from his family’s workplace homestead successful Shanmuganathapuram South village.
He uses a heavy-duty manual insubstantial cutter to detach the spine from the books. “This is the archetypal step, arsenic each leafage has to beryllium scanned intelligibly and without the bump caused by binding,” helium said, cranking the cutter with a crisp downward push.
He feeds the detached pages into a duplex scanner that scans some sides successful 1 go. These are saved arsenic Portable Document Format (PDF) files connected his laptop.
“I usage Optical Character Recognition [OCR] exertion that converts the PDFs into editable, searchable and machine-readable integer text. My telephone helps maine organise the accusation according to the leafage bid and topic. My laptop and telephone are similar my eyes,” helium said.
Mr. Sakthivel visits publication fairs crossed the authorities to cod titles to digitise for his Readers’ Club members, who each lend ₹500 for the group. “I usage the wealth to bargain the titles recommended by members. The remainder of the overheads for question and taking a sighted companion along, are borne by me. The digitisation is escaped of complaint for all,” helium said. He besides accepts books from unsighted students for conversion.
Among the books helium has digitised, are The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai (12 volumes), M. Karunanithi’s autobiography Nenjukuu Neethi (six volumes) and Ki. Rajanarayanan’s implicit works compiled successful 9 volumes.
“I americium present looking astatine converting textbooks for competitory exams. This volition request fiscal donations, due to the fact that the books are costlier,” helium said. He credits his family’s unstinting enactment for his success.
