Government launches website for the blind

JAKARTA (JP): A website for the blind was launched on Monday in a bid to create an opportunity for the blind to explore and share knowledge with fellow blind people.

State Minister of Research and Technology Muh. A.S. Hikam, said the website, jointly developed by non-government group Yayasan Mitra Netra and the state Agency for the Research and Application Technology (BPPT), showed remarkable progress in the country's technological advancement.

"Today, this is a momentous event where we can see that our technology experts have faced stiffer challenges to sharpen their sensitivity and develop their skills to contribute their expertise for the people, including those with visual disabilities, " Hikam, who chairs BPPT, said.

The website, www.mitranet.or.id, is complete with speech synthesizer software that enables the blind to operate a computer and to browse the Internet, as the software, named George, converts all computer commands and website visual displays into speech.

George speaks in English and uses English pronunciation when it reads Indonesian texts.

Contents of the website are, among others things, an online braille library, mailing lists, news and links of organizations working with the blind.

Spokeswoman of Mitra Netra Aria Indrawati said the launched website was part of the foundation's campaign to raise awareness of the general public about the blind, as their current image is one of being in a hopeless situation. This site will show how the blind study and develop their skills in our organizations."

For the blind, the website also provides software that enables the browser to download the contents and convert the text into braille.

Nationwide there are only 100 sets of the Braille Converter Machine, dotmatrix-base printers that automatically print latin texts into braille. The printers are mostly owned by state-run special schools for the handicapped (SLB).

Aria agreed that while there are still few blind people who could get access to use the Internet, she added, "This is just the beginning, we hope that the cooperation with BPPT will help us develop cheap and accessible technology for the blind."

On Monday BPPT and Mitra Netra also signed an agreement to develop an Indonesian-based speech synthesizer and closed circuit television (CCTV), a hardware facility that would enable people with impaired vision to enlarge the size of letters in texts. (emf)