International Day of Persons with Disabilities: 13-year-old who showed his device on Shark Tank, 32-year-old teacher from Pune win national award

A day after the award ceremony, the winners were on a Dilli Darshan, travelling across the historic landmarks of the Capital. “Rajghat was a great experience, the best part is that it is accessible to special people. There are Braille boards as well,” says Prathamesh, who wants to be an IAS officer.

“We talk of developing infrastructure in our country. There is no one who can understand how to develop infrastructure for specially abled people better than a specially abled person. The government should have policies where accessibility of infrastructure is checked by a specially abled person,” he says.

The youngest awardee at 13, Prathamesh had to face severe challenges very early. Diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was 16 months old, he lost his vision by eight. His mother, Deepshikha Sinha, remembers those days as “devastating”. “I would like to tell other parents confronting disability in a child that, it is normal to be disappointed. But, try to accept the situation and try to fix it through whatever gives you strength, whether spirituality or self-motivation or anything. It’s very important for a mother to be a strong, otherwise how can she can make her child strong,” she adds.

The youngest awardee at 13, Prathamesh had to face severe challenges very early. Diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was 16 months old, he lost his vision by eight.

“When we got the mail saying that Prathamesh had been chosen for the national award, I was on cloud nine. It’s such a proud moment for us as a family. This award shows the world what a person can achieve, even if they face challenges like blindness,” she says.

After facing rejection from mainstream schools, Prathamesh was home-schooled until 2019, when he joined the Poona Blind School. Collaborating with Bengaluru-based Thinkerbell Labs, Prathamesh became a key advocate for their ANNIE device, which helps visually impaired people learn Braille independently. His work gained national attention when he presented the device on Shark Tank India and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He now attends a regular school. “What has brought me so far is accepting things. I accept everything and proceed and I don’t dwell in negativity. I am a deep believer in spirituality. Many people think spirituality is something that will end your problems but no, it is something that will give you the power to face the problems. I am spiritual in that respect,” he says.

Pursuit of excellence

Her LinkedIn profile describes her simply as a teacher, but 32-year-old Priyanka Dabade-Kataria is actually an achiever. Winner of the silver medal in the Embroidery Skill Category and the Medal of Excellence at the 10th International Abilympics, a global skills competition for persons with disability (PwDs) held in Metz, France, in 2023, Priyanka has been felicitated multiple times by the central government. She was at Rashtrapati Bhavan last year to meet the President and again on Tuesday to receive her award.

“I am feeling very excited and honoured to receive the national award,” she says through sign language to her brother, Omkar Dabade. Priyanka had hearing and speech disabilities and bone disability from birth. “She was in a mainstream school for kindergarten where there was no other specially abled person. She was scared and people used to tease her. Later, after Class X, she was enrolled in a school for hearing impaired people. After that, it was an open school, where, again, she felt out of place. This time, she made up her mind that she would do something that would make her family proud of her. She wanted to achieve a great goal and started working hard for it,” says Omkar.

Priyanka studied till Class X and joined a fashion design course at MKSSS’s Nanavati Institute and later at iNIFD Pune. Crafts, especially embroidery, became Priyanka’s vehicle. She participated in extracurricular activities and competitions, such as drawing. She enrolled for a course in silver jewellery making and won a national award but chose hand embroidery to specialise.

Whenever she felt low, Priyanka would be bolstered by her mother, Sushma Dabade. Sushma raised Priyanka and Omkar single-handedly after the death of her husband when the children were very young. “My mother would support her and give her strength,” says Omkar. In March 2024, she got married.

A teacher at YMCA Garland Craig Memorial School For The Deaf in Pune, Priyanka still lives by her beliefs. “Not sympathy but empathy is needed. There is no shortcut to success. Systematic, consistent efforts, combined with strong willpower, can turn any dream into reality,” she says, adding that she envisions a world where everyone, irrespective of their challenges, can live with dignity and respect.