Reporting on Empower 2022 conference

Empower 2022 conference was held from 13th to 15th October 2022 at  IITM Research Park, Chennai.We were invited to attend the conference. The Founder of Society for the Empowerment of the Deaf-Blind, (SEDB), Mr. Zamir Dhale  decided to send his colleagues, Mr. Sunil Abbas, General Secretary and Mr. Pradip Sinha, Chairman to attend the conference. The tactile signing interpreters and Access Providers were provided by the conference and Chetana Trust, Chennai. Through the workshop, Mr. Kesavan, Mr. Rajesh, Mr. Ambrose, Dr. Namita, Ms. Sudha and Ms. Teresa were there to help us with interpretation  and worked very hard to provide access. We are very grateful for their support. We used to book taxis independently through Uber and Ola but the support of the access provider was really appreciated. 

People who attended the conference learned a lot about the deafblind people like us. When they met and interacted with us, they understood that tactile communication and specialized interpreters  are very important for deafblind people to learn to communicate and understand the whole world. So many people wanted to meet and interact with us to understand deafblind issues. They were not aware about the difficulties of deafblind people.  

We visited many different exhibits and learned about the latest devices developed for persons with disabilities. We learned for the first time about the wheelchair which helps a person with locomotor impairment to stand up independently. 
Another innovation is by a company called Neomotion. It is a wheelchair with a connection that converts it into a  bike. A wheelchair user can drive on road with it. Pradip decided to try and surprised everyone when he learnt to drive correctly. He looked very confident on bike and everyone was impressed. 
We explored many different devices for the visually impaired persons and gave some feedback which can be useful for the deafblind as well, by making the app screen-reader friendly. We were excited to purchase very good and useful canes from the exhibition. Through the conference, we  interacted with lots of people with disabilities from all across India and we learned a lot from their experiences and success stories. 
In the workshop, we learned how thermoplastics can be cut, heated and quickly moulded to make it easy for people with hand injuries and weaknesses to hold pencils or tools and do many activities. It was a practical workshop and very interesting. There was also a visit to "Museum of Possibilities" (MOP) where all kinds of assistive technologies are displayed in areas like leisure, daily life, work and communication. There were many speakers on assistive technology like Mr Kasnabis from WHO and Dr. Namita also presented on technology and early reading. There were different awards and competition winners and one team got a gift of one lakh!
Thanks to the Empower 2022 conference, for giving us many opportunities to learn a lot of new experiences in our life. Nothing is impossible. The blind person is a tough life, Deaf is also a tough life but deafblind is the toughest life.  Next year, IIT Madras will host the Empower 2023 conference again. We hope that it will increase the technologies available to persons who are deafblind

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