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Hi, my name is George Abraham, and welcome to this episode of Eyeway Conversations. My guest today is Dr. Homiyar Mobedji, who's had a very interesting innings thus far in life. He is visually impaired, he started his professional career as a physiotherapist. He manages and promotes one of the largest online libraries. And he's also a digital literacy activist. Welcome Homiyar. Hi George, thanks for inviting. Well, Homiyar, let's begin with Bookshare. Tell me a little bit about what is Bookshare and how did it start?
Well, George Bookshare, is a synonymous word for the world's largest online library. So this Bookshare is a library designed for persons with print disability, and with print disability I mean, all those individuals who cannot hold or read standard printed text. So this would include people with blindness, like you and me, people with low vision, people with dyslexia, learning disabilities, orthopedic challenges of the hands and dexterity of the fingers through which they cannot hold or turn a page of a book, all these are printed disabled. So Bookshare serves all these people around the world, providing them with the digital access to content, which was originally not made accessible by the publishers. And today Bookshare has a collection of more than 10 lakh books, as we call them in India, or it is a million books, as it is known across the globe, serving 69 languages and adding constantly to that. And these books are divided in almost 50 categories for ease of access of reading.
This started in the United States, I believe, and how did it make its journey to India? And what were the challenges that Indian blind people and disabled people had in terms of accessing the books? And what are the some of the challenges that you faced in promoting the library in India?
So Bookshare, globally is just 21 years young. It entered India in 2008. And remember, in 2008, technology, especially the assistive technology that we use to read and write was not that mature. Even our Android phones, in those days, were not so accessible. So the digital content that Bookshare provided in 2008, was accessible but the devices which were there in those days, were not that many. So you could only if you had a computer, you could read the Bookshare book on a computer. But then as days went by, more and more devices became accessible. In came, the fully featured Android phones, which you could use with your TalkBack, then came in the refreshable braille displays, and then came in the hardware Daisy players. So all these devices combined together provided the user, the opportunity to read at his own will. So you could download a Bookshare book. And because this is a digital book, the size of the book is extremely small. So you can download it on any sort of internet connection, store it offline, read it anytime you want, on any sort of device that you have. And the best part is Bookshare also offers you the choice of formats. That means if you are a person with a learning disability, and you prefer a karaoke style reading, Bookshare offers that using your E pub readers. If you're a blind user, like you and me, you would prefer a daisy text file, which is more accessible using your screen readers and easy to manage. If you are a Braille enthusiast, you could use them with your refreshable Braille display. So all these formats provides the reader the independence to choose the way he wants to. And that is the biggest advantage of Bookshare. So obviously, when we started in 2008, as I said, it was not picked up so well. Because the devices were not there, the devices were expensive, whatever was there. But as time rolled on, more and more devices came in, and today we are serving more than 20,000 users in India, and more than 800,000 users across the globe in 93 countries with accessing the digital content of their choice.
It is commonly kind of felt that reading is a kind of dying activity. Do you kind of think it is true with visually impaired people in India?
I agree with you, George. But then it's how you look at reading is important. We have also experienced the same issue that people do not want to read if just given a choice of reading. But then when we combine this word reading, with employment, that has made the difference. What we have been talking now to people, when we sensitize them, when we spread awareness about digital reading, is we simply ask them, what are the chances of you getting employed, if you cannot read and write digitally as a person with blindness. So we are connecting the art of reading and it could be any reading, it could be your textbooks as a school or a college student, it could be leisure reading, it could be reference material, it could be upgrading your skills. Reading can be anything, but when you're connecting it with a final end goal of employment, employability, being able to be cornered by and respected by the society as a contributing individual that has made people think twice and accept digital reading as a part of their day to day life.
If a person with disability wants to become a member of the Bookshare library, how does he qualify and what is the process?
Very important questions, George. So Bookshare as I said earlier, we serve more than 93 countries, 800,000 people across the globe. So they have different variables for Bookshare memberships in the developing countries like India, like our neighbors in the southeast Asian region or Africa. If you come from a developing country, Bookshare membership is absolutely free. If you come from a middle income country or a developed country, then Bookshare membership might be a paid affair, wherein we charge a small amount as a subscription for an annual membership of Bookshare. Now since we are talking from India, let's talk about the developing countries first. To become a member from any developing country, you need to write to our membership team, which is based out of India and you need to send us an email. And the email id is pretty simple membership-india@bookshare.org. I repeat, it's membership-india@bookshare.org. So what do you write in this email, you provide your details like your name, your date of birth, your mobile number, your email id, your postal address, including your zip, or PIN code as we call it in India and attach your copy of your disability certificate. This should be provided to you by either your government, it could be your disability card, or it could be ophthalmologist's in terms of blind person or it could be psychologist's in terms of learning disabled individual. So all these people can certify that you are a print disabled person. So either a government certificate or a certificate from your medical practitioner depending upon your disability should be attached as a scanned copy and sent to the ID which I mentioned earlier, membership-india@bookshare.org. And within three to four working days, if your medical certificate is accepted and your details are correct, you shall receive an email from the Bookshare membership team giving you your username and your password to access Bookshare. So, this is a very simple process. You can also contact our helpline, the Bookshare helpline number which is based out of India, which is also available on WhatsApp, Google Duo and a regular cellular number. So I'll spell out the number. It's +91 for India and it's 9650211575. I'll repeat, it's +91 for India, 9650211575. So you can call our helpline number anytime between 9am to 7pm, India time, or any of these options, what's Google Duo or regular cellular call and provide your details, and then you could even WhatsApp your disability certificate to us, even that is accepted, and we can process your memberships. So we're trying to make it as simple as possible for our print disabled friends, to become members of Bookshare and access our content.
It is very clear that you are very keen on actually adding as many members as possible, reaching out to as many people as possible. In recent times, Homiyar, you've been very active in promoting digital literacy, especially among schools for the blind. Tell us a little about it.
George this is one of the pioneering work in India, especially. Bookshare, as a team, we don't do all this across the globe. But in India, what we are doing is, we are specifically going to the root of the problem of unemployment amongst persons with blindness. So what we do in India, is we have identified that if you are unemployed or finding it difficult to get employment as a person with blindness, we tried to analyze the reasons for it. And the main reason is lack of skilling, lack of skilling in terms of reading and writing digitally, which will make you employable. Now, the current situation was that people would go through their academic area, people would learn to read using Braille or audio. And then they would write using the help of scribes or writers, as we call them in India. Now, this does not help them read and write the mainstream way, the mainstream way means the way people with sight would read and write. So this excludes them from the society when it comes to integrating them within the mainstream society, both for education and for jobs. This also prevents our visually impaired friends, especially in India from taking up Science subjects, STEM subjects, as we call them, and have a choice of a different career other than Humanities. So to solve this, previously, in years gone by people used to have these stopgap arrangement way once people have completed the academics, they have completed this, then they would sort of go and do a short term course, short term course in basic computing. And it would be a two month three month four month course content that is not sufficient to make a person digitally literate. And if you're not literate, as I said earlier, you are not employable. So how do we start? So we started working with the blind schools, the special schools, as they call and trying to address the situation at the grassroot level, right at the fundamental stage where students learn to read and write that is where we started putting our resources and started helping these institutions transform their digital journey sorry, transform their traditional educational methods to digital methods. So what we do there is right in the first place, we train the teachers. Because teachers themselves are not digitally literate, they are not equipped to handle technology, they do not use technology because they were never exposed to technology. Unless these teachers are equipped. We cannot expect the students to be digitally literate. So we start with these teachers, provide them a lot of training in use of assistive technology. And these teachers could be both sighted as well as visually impaired. Once the teachers are equipped to handle assistive technology, specially in this COVID period, we then train them how to use these assistive technologies and train their students educate their students online, and also prepare them for the day that the schools will reopen. And as some schools are reopening in India, fortunately, we are also training these teachers how to handle digital literacy at the classroom level, and teach their students using digital tools. So this is a transformation of the ecosystem. We are trying to change the system where we can introduce digital literacy in the life of a child at a very early age. So that this child grows up reading and writing using digital tools, writing his own assignments, writing his own homework, his own examinations, so he doesn't have to depend on anybody for writing needs. So this prepares him for future employment. So this is one of our pioneering schemes which we have introduced in India, and we hope to replicate this in most developing countries, where Bookshare is active today.
When I met you for the first time, in Ahmedabad, way back probably in 2008, or 2009 or thereabouts. You were heading an an institution on physiotherapy, but I remember going to the building and you introduced me to your faculty and various things. Tell me about your innings as a physiotherapist and as head of that institution.
Yes that's true, George. We met way back in 2006. It was not even eight I guess. And I was heading the Pyhsiotherapy college for the blind and that's my academic training. I am a physiotherapist by profession. I started my career way back in 1986 as a clinical physiotherapist, and had the fortune of serving the injured after the devastating earthquake, which happened in the west of India in 2001. In 2005, I was given the opportunity to start the first physiotherapy college for the blind in India, which was offering a three and a half year program and which is still running and I am so happy to say that, to educate persons with blindness as physiotherapists, who could work at par with their sighted counterparts. So our focus was creating a cadre of physiotherapist who could stand in the society and be respected as people, as caregivers who are qualified, well trained and can perform in any situation. And you will be glad to know that even in those days, early 2005, this college that we had set up was one of the first colleges in India, which was completely paperless, used computers in those days for students to read, and even appear for their exams, even exams, which were conducted in those days were also conducted online using a very different piece of software where we used to have multiple choice questions for the students. And they would have to answer these questions and all that. So we started this digital journey, way back in 2005. And this created a norm after that, that all the visitor we call it as the major colleges serving the blind in India, there were four of them, then accepted digital teaching. And they also switched over from traditional ways of teaching the blind, using Braille and audio and all that stuff to digital means where classrooms were equipped with computers and students were encouraged to learn computers in the first months as they joined the training. So this is what we achieved till 2010. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you see it, people dragged me out of this profession in 2010. And said, you've done enough with physiotherapy, and we want you to switch over and go into NGO management. So in 2010, I was sort of given the responsibility as a Chief Executive Officer of the Technical Training Institute of the Puna Blind Men Association, which was an adult Training Center for the Blind in the city of Pune, in the west of India, a little 160 kilometers away from the city of Mumbai. So I was given the challenge of reforming this old organization, which was offering very old rudimentary programs as vocational training for the blind, and we, as a team, were able to reform this old center into a modern center of learning between 2010 to 2013, when I was there with the Technical Training Institute, and this is where we started for the first time, a program in call center management, which was not heard of as an job opportunity for the blind. So we tried this out at the Technical Training Institute, TTI, as we call it, where we employ persons with blindness, as call center executives. We train them initially in the use of Excel, the data was provided to them in Excel, and then these people would access the data, call the respective clients, gather the information, put the remarks back in the computer in the Excel format, and then that Excel was given to the higher authorities for further processing. So this simple job was made accessible in 2010. And today there are 1000s of people who have now been able to get into this preliminary job opportunity and start their careers as call center executives. Since that time with Technical Training Institute, unfortunately, I have not been able to go back to my career as a clinical therapist, which if you ask me today, even that is my first love. I would still love to practice as a therapist, but then situation has sort of forced me into more and more managerial roles, where in after TTI, I was heading the National Association for the Blind Delhi as the CEO. And then post that in 2015, I took up the responsibility with Benetech. Benetech is the parent body of Bookshare, who's running Bookshare as a global program. So I joined Benetech in 2015, as the India head, and then in late 16, I was given the responsibility of heading the entire Asia and Africa zones for Bookshare activities and Benetech activities. So that's my little journey from physiotherapy to NGO management, if you can say, George.
Tell me a little bit about your blindness, meaning, since when have you lost your sight and tell me a little bit about your family and your journey and your personal life until you trained to become a physiotherapist.
So I was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa. Retinitis Pigmentosa is a degenerative condition of the eye where you lose vision. It's a genetically acquired condition. And you lose vision gradually over years. I was never a completely sighted person, I was born partially sighted, but then kept on losing vision as I grew older. Fortunately, my vision did not deteriorate very fast as it happens in some cases. But I had the chance to see both sides of the world. That means I was able to see the sighted world, I was able to read and write the mainstream way. And that is probably why I never learned Braille, because I was introduced to text in my life. And I was able to read, though with difficulty initially, with reading glasses and all sorts of adaptive instruments. And then slowly as my vision went down, fortunately for me, assistive technology matured. And in 2000, when the screen readers came into India, that is where my life got transformed. I got hooked onto digital technology in 2001, one of the very, very early users of screen reading technology in India. And it was since then, that I understood the power of technology, the way it has transformed my life, the way it has impacted my career, initially as a physiotherapist and then as a leader in the NGO space. So I do appreciate that technology allowed me to perform at par with my sighted peers. It removed that inability in me as a person with blindness. And it allowed me to showcase my ability as a leader, as a therapist. So this is how technology transformed my life. Talking about my family, talking about my upbringing, I was born in a middle class family with a very supportive mother and a father and a younger brother, who always told me one simple thing, we are not going to pamper you, we are not going to be there for the rest of your life. You need to learn things and experience things. You might fall, you might get hurt, so what, everybody gets hurt. You need to learn and experience life as it is, as everybody sees it. You need to go through the challenges of life to appreciate when you succeed. So these fundamental principles which were imposed by my parents helped me to be where I am today.
I'd like to thank you for giving us this time and in spite of the fact that you slept only at 4 am this morning. Thank you.
Thank you, George for inviting.
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