patrina

SINGAPORE: Over S$130,000 has been awarded to two local organisations for their IT projects which will help improve the lives of those with disabilities.

The two projects were among the 16 winners selected from more than 250 submissions from countries like Australia and Thailand.

This comes under the Samsung Digital Hope initiative, which supports projects that use technology to help youths and those with disabilities.

30-year-old Eunice Heng is intellectually challenged and has to carry picture cards to express her needs. Her situation has since improved as she can now use a computer software to make her needs known – a change that is made possible with the monetary award.

Sivaraj M, Director, Programmes Movement for the Intellectually Disabled, says: "Through this technology, we hope to improve their quality of life, speed up their process of integration into society so that they can participate in more mainstream activities as they're able to communicate their intent, wishes and dreams."

Khairul has moderate intellectual disability and he has problems saying what he wants.

But with a new PDA, he is able to express his needs with just a touch of the screen. And the key difference with this new programme is that the items and the recordings are all in the Singapore context.

The other winning project is an initiative that enables those with disabilities at Bizlink to design electronic greeting cards and animation.

Benjamin Chia, Projects Executive, Bizlink Centre, says: "Previously, what we used to do is that when there was a demand for e-cards, we would engage an external supplier to produce e-cards for us. With this, we are able to do our own e-cards, which is a bit more meaningful because then we're creating employment for the disabled and equipping them with the capabilities to compete in the open market."

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister, says technology is being used as a tool in these projects to generate innovative ways to make the world a little better and to help mankind.

Samsung awarded a total of US$620,000 this year to all the winning projects, which is a 20 percent increase from last year.

Calis

I would say the initiative is applaudable. People with disabilities, physical & mental difficulties need specially designed devices, software and tools to assist them in doing things. Not many companies or initiatives are catered to this group of people in Singapore yet, sadly.