Vision Empower

Vision Empower Vision Empower is working on research and design of programs to make STEM education inclusive and accessible for students with visual impairments.

Jyoti Sroat Higher Secondary School in East Khasi Hills, Shillong, has secured the top rank in the Meghalaya School Perf...
19/08/2026

Jyoti Sroat Higher Secondary School in East Khasi Hills, Shillong, has secured the top rank in the Meghalaya School Performance Grading Index 2025–26, with a score of 930 out of 1000, among 11,443 schools across the state.

The Index assesses schools across 43 indicators covering accessibility, digital education, infrastructure, NEP activities, and quality parameters, making this recognition a wonderful reflection of the school’s commitment to creating a strong and inclusive learning environment.

This achievement is very special to us, as, in collaboration with our CSR partner, Great Eastern Foundation, the CSR arm of The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd., we have had the opportunity to work with this inclusive school since 2023, where students with and without visual impairment learn alongside one another. We have been glad to support the school in making STEM learning accessible through tactile learning resources, teacher training, and setting up an Accessible STEM Lab.

As shared by the Principal of the school, “Vision Empower’s support has strengthened experiential learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving, helping shift classroom learning from theory to discovery.”

Congratulations to the students, teachers, school management, parents, and the entire Jyoti Sroat community. Here’s to many more milestones ahead!

15/08/2026

Warm Independence Day greetings from the entire Vision Empower family - our team, learners, teachers, school communities, partners, volunteers and everyone who is part of our journey. 🇮🇳

Across several special schools for children with visual impairments that we work with, learners brought their own expression to the day through songs, performances, handmade flags, creative competitions, themed activities, and by reading and sharing about the significance of Independence Day.

Each school celebrated in its own unique way. For us at Vision Empower, that feels especially meaningful because independence is also about being able to access, participate, express, and belong - in ways that work for each of us.

Video description: A montage of celebrations from some of Vision Empower’s partner special schools for children with visual impairments. The video shows learners reading with the Hexis Braille Reader, participating in group celebrations, creating tricolour-themed artwork, and making a tactile map of India.

Happy Independence Day from all of us at Vision Empower.

What difference can one year with an Accessible Science Lab make?At Lighthouse for the Blind School, Kolkata, the answer...
12/08/2026

What difference can one year with an Accessible Science Lab make?

At Lighthouse for the Blind School, Kolkata, the answer can be seen in the way students now explore, question, and understand science.

A year ago, Vision Empower, with the support of Cognizant Foundation India, established the Accessible Science Lab at the school - the first accessible science laboratory in West Bengal.

Since then, the lab has benefited 60 learners with visual impairments, helping them engage with concepts that were once difficult to access. As shared by a parent, “Earlier, my ward relied on rote learning. Now, through the Accessible Science Lab, she can use tactile models and other learning materials that help her understand concepts in a more concrete and meaningful way.”

Today, accessible models and hands-on experiments are helping learners build stronger conceptual understanding. Teachers are seeing greater participation and curiosity, with students asking more questions, engaging in discussions, and approaching science with greater confidence and independence.

It was this transformation that made the first anniversary of the Accessible Science Lab especially meaningful.

The occasion brought together students, teachers, the school management, the Vision Empower team, and members of the Cognizant Outreach Team.

We thank Cognizant Foundation for its support in enabling accessible science learning at the school, and the Cognizant Outreach Team for their continued engagement with the students.

08/08/2026

What needs to change first to make education truly accessible?

Not just the classroom. Not just the curriculum.

It begins with the teacher and with helping teachers experience what accessible and experiential learning can look like in practice.

Over two engaging days in Lucknow, Pragya, Vision Empower’s teacher capacity-building workshop, brought together 32 educators from different schools to explore accessible approaches to teaching students who are visually impaired.

Conducted under the AI Innovation and Inclusion Initiative (A4I), in collaboration with Microsoft CSR and the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-Bangalore), the workshop combined hands-on Science and Mathematics activities, accessible games that build Computational Thinking skills, and demonstrations of assistive technologies such as IRIS, an audio-tactile learning device, and Hexis, a refreshable Braille learning device. Teachers were also introduced to Subodha, Vision Empower’s accessible digital learning platform.

The workshop also created valuable opportunities for teachers to learn from one another by sharing classroom experiences, challenges, and best practices.

We are grateful to Mr. Shashank Singh, District Disability Empowerment Officer; Mr. Rajesh Kumar Mishra, Deputy Director, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Lucknow Division; Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal, Honorary Advisor, Vision Empower; and Mr. Omkar Nath Shukla, Principal, Sparsh Government Blind Boys Inter College, for their presence, encouragement, and support.

As teachers return to their schools, we hope to see these learnings translate into classroom practice through greater use of accessible activities, tactile resources, assistive technologies, and experiential learning methods.

Video description: The video shows moments from the two-day workshop, including teachers attending sessions, participating in hands-on activities with accessible learning materials and assistive technologies, and engaging in group discussions. It also includes moments from the certificate presentation, followed by a group photograph of the participating educators and facilitators.

What begins as classroom practice can grow into knowledge worth sharing.It was a proud moment to see our community of pr...
05/08/2026

What begins as classroom practice can grow into knowledge worth sharing.

It was a proud moment to see our community of practice take its learning to a national platform.

A 12-member team from Vision Empower, comprising teachers from special schools for children with visual impairments and Vision Empower coordinators, participated in the Computational Thinking in Schools Conference (CTiS 2026) at IISER Pune.

At Vision Empower, we work closely with teachers to make STEM learning more accessible by integrating computational thinking pedagogy, adapting games and activities for learners with visual impairments, and embedding them into regular classroom teaching.

These approaches help students strengthen skills such as logical reasoning, decomposing, pattern recognition, problem-solving and algorithmic thinking, while also deepening their understanding of mathematical and scientific concepts.

At the conference, our teachers and team members presented papers and posters demonstrating how computational thinking can be made accessible and how STEM learning can become more engaging and meaningful for learners with visual impairments.

We congratulate the team for confidently sharing their classroom experiences and insights with the wider education community. We also thank ACM India for providing this valuable platform.

A laptop is more than a device. For a child with a visual impairment, it can make the difference between being left out ...
01/08/2026

A laptop is more than a device. For a child with a visual impairment, it can make the difference between being left out and being included.

At a special school for children with visual impairments in Birbhum, West Bengal, students were eager to learn computers. However, the school did not have a single functional device for digital literacy classes.

A few laptops changed that. Regular digital learning sessions have become possible, ensuring students are equipped with essential computer skills and can embrace technology confidently.

Using screen readers, keyboard-based navigation, and adapted digital content, the students can now read, write, communicate, explore information, and participate in digital learning more independently.

This is not an isolated need. Across the country, many schools require laptops to support digital literacy and accessible technology.

Your organisation can help bridge this gap by contributing new, refurbished, or functional pre-owned laptops, opening doors to learning, confidence, and greater independence.

Partner with Vision Empower to facilitate digital learning for learners with visual impairments. If you wish to support, contact:

HR Team | [email protected]

Education becomes powerful when it responds to the way learners understand and experience the world and enables them to ...
28/07/2026

Education becomes powerful when it responds to the way learners understand and experience the world and enables them to apply that knowledge in real life.
Sustainability cannot remain a concept explained only through a textbook, especially for students with visual impairments.

Through the Wipro Foundation's Wipro earthian initiative, topics such as water, waste and biodiversity are brought to life through tactile resources, practical models, hands-on activities and experiences connected to the world around them. The emphasis is on learning by doing, touching, exploring, working with models and understanding concepts through direct experience.

This accessible approach to learning about nature conservation helped Aniket recognise a real challenge faced by his family, who depended on farming. He connected what he had learned about conserving natural resources and sustainable practices such as rainwater harvesting to the water shortage they experienced.

On this World Nature Conservation Day, we bring you a real-life story in which lessons on nature conservation did not remain confined to the classroom, but inspired a meaningful and practical solution.

Could students with visual impairments independently conduct chemistry experiments, explore physics, or understand biolo...
25/07/2026

Could students with visual impairments independently conduct chemistry experiments, explore physics, or understand biology through practical learning? For many schools, this once seemed difficult, simply because they had never seen it done.

But seeing is believing.

In Accessible Science Laboratories, our students confidently demonstrate experiments and explain complex scientific concepts. As a result, perceptions are gradually changing, and more schools are recognising that science can be taught practically to students who are visually impaired.

From the very beginning, our partner Cognizant Foundation India has believed in this vision. With their continued support, we recently inaugurated two new Accessible Science Laboratories under the STEM4ALL initiative at Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Tirunelveli, and Kerala School for the Blind, Vallikkappatta, Malappuram. These laboratories will benefit 200 students with visual impairments and 30 teachers.

The inaugurations were graced by Dilip K. Kainikkara, IAS, Sub Collector, Tirur; Sunitha S., District Education Officer, Malappuram; K. N. Jaya Prakash, DDAWO, Tirunelveli; Rt. Rev. Dr. ARGST Barnabas, Bishop, CSI Tirunelveli Diocese; and representatives from Cognizant Foundation India—Asthaa Sarma and Edwin Moses. School management, members of the Parent-Teacher Associations, teachers, parents, students, and the Vision Empower team were also present.

Students confidently demonstrated science activities at both events.

Ms. Annal Suganthi, a teacher at the Tirunelveli school, shared:

"Students who earlier learned science theoretically are now able to touch, explore, and perform experiments independently."

Every innovation begins with a question: “What can we build?”But perhaps the more important question is: “Who are we bui...
21/07/2026

Every innovation begins with a question: “What can we build?”

But perhaps the more important question is: “Who are we building it for?”

At Vision Empower, this question shaped a recent sensitisation session for the Engineering and Research teams working on the AI Innovation and Inclusion Initiative (A4I), a collaborative effort by Vision Empower, Microsoft Elevate, and IIIT-Bangalore to leverage AI and accessible technologies to make quality learning more inclusive for children with visual impairments.

As the teams develop SEEDS 2.0, a multilingual and multimodal platform for accessible learning, and an Agentic AI-based Teacher Assistance Tool, we wanted them to gain a deeper understanding of the learners and educators for whom these solutions are being designed.

Through hands-on experiences with Braille, tactile learning materials, and assistive tools, along with discussions on how children with visual impairments learn and how teachers create accessible classrooms, the teams gained valuable insights into the realities, strengths, needs, and aspirations of the people behind the technology.

The session reinforced an important message: building accessible technology is not only about creating accessible solutions. It begins with listening, questioning our assumptions, and embracing a genuinely user-centred approach to design……… Because the most meaningful technology does not merely solve problems; it creates possibilities.


18/07/2026

A child trying an accessible game. A family member exploring a tactile greeting card. A Wipro employee pausing to understand how a worksheet can be experienced through touch. An enthusiastic participant learning about Braille and creating a personalised bookmark using Braille letters.

These moments came together at the Wipro Family Volunteering Event in Bengaluru, where the Vision Empower stalls became spaces of curiosity, participation, and learning. More than 500 visitors, including Wipro employees, their parents, children, and other family members across age groups, joined us.

At Vision Empower, we believe that sensitising the community around us is essential to building a more inclusive society. The event gave us an opportunity to share how learning can be made accessible and meaningful for persons with visual impairments.

Participants created tactile worksheets, accessible tactile greeting cards, and puppets, and explored accessible Computational Thinking games such as Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Connect Four, and Noughts and Crosses. Through these adapted versions of familiar games, children and adults experienced how a child with visual impairment can play the same games using tactile markings, accessible layouts, and inclusive design.

The most memorable part was the questions they asked, the conversations that followed, and their willingness to understand and experience accessibility from a different perspective.

Thank you, Wipro, for creating a space where volunteering became a shared family experience, and sensitisation became meaningful and memorable.

Address

IIIT Bangalore Innovation Centre, 26/C Hosur Road, Electronic City Phase 1
Bangalore
560100

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Vision Empower posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Vision Empower:

Shortcuts

Share

Category