Solutions In Sight

Inclusive Planet (IP) was born in August 2009 when Chennai-based copyright lawyer Rahul Cherian and some friends discovered the paucity of accessible online content for the disabled. While Cherian is the policy head of IP,CEO of Acrodelon Technologies Reuben Jacob is chief technology officer,lawyer-turned-social entrepreneur Sachin Malhan is chief executive officer while Kandivali-based former associate vice president at HSBC,Simon Jacob,is the head of marketing and project management. Together,their philosophy is simple. It’s virtually impossible for the visually challenged to convert books,notes and study material into accessible formats like Braille,audio or e-text. So why not connect the print-impaired across the world so they can pool their resources and minimise duplication of the effort required to convert reading material? For the first time,it also provided a platform for the visually impaired across the world to come together,share their experiences and discuss common problems and possible solutions.

Today,the site has more than 3,000 members from 76 countries and 18,000 uploaded files. Building an online library for the visually impaired was only a speck in the horizon of the founders’ vision. With the addition of more than 100 channels where the Planeteers could discuss everything from Shakespearean literature to blonde jokes to conspiracy theories and UFOs,the site now also offers special interest groups for the tech geeks,the soppy romantics,the IPL buffs. And when a member of the South African National Council for the Blind,Lindie Van Zyl,decided to enlist the help of IP in designing an affordable Braille Voting Template,Inclusive Ideas was born. Forty distinct solutions were presented by Planeteers from different parts of the world on how the template could be made accurate,cost-effective and more accessible. The Planeteers have now moved on to their next challenge: helping three social entrepreneurs from Madagascar design a computer course for the blind.

“Before Inclusive Planet,I had never engaged with the visually impaired,” says Jacob. “We spent many weeks interacting with organizations working with the blind and learning the ropes before launching IP.”

Right now,IP has a number of projects in the pipeline: translating the site into different languages (it’s already available in Turkish,Spanish and English),converting the entire university syllabus into an accessible format,completing a scheme whereby members will be able to adapt any website into an accessible structure.

Cherian couches the ultimate aim of IP in a somewhat cryptic formula. “The utility of Inclusive Planet is inversely proportional to inclusion in society.” The more inclusive society is,the less you need platforms like Inclusive Planet. As Boshoff puts it,“Do you know how much more the pleasure in the things you’re interested in is going to be when you can share it with so many others?”