New Delhi: Around 100 youth with disabilities (visual disability, hearing disability, locomotor disability and intellectual disability/developmental disorder) from 18 countries namely, India, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, UK and UAE are participating in the “Global IT Challenge for Youth with Disabilities, 2018” here today. This three day event was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment, Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar yesterday. It is organised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in association with Rehabilitation International Korea and their associated partner LG Electronics from 9th to 11th November, 2018. The award ceremony of the event will be held on 11th November, 2018.
The individual competition on e-tool and e-life mapping was held yesterday and the group competition event was completed today. Alongside the IT challenge competitions another parallel programme namely IT Forum was also organised to showcase the best practices followed by various participating countries regarding use of ICT for enhancing empowerment of persons with disabilities.
Today a cultural evening programme was organised by Government of India in honour of the participating youth with disabilities and other representatives from various countries followed by Gala Dinner. Performance by youth students with disabilities from National Institute of Empowerment of Visual Disabilities, Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust, ALPANA and Balwantray Mehta Inclusive School enthralled the audience in the cultural evening programme. Union Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot, Secretary, DEPwD, Smt Shakuntala D. Gamlin, Ambassador/High Commissioner from some of the participating countries, senior Union Government officials and officials from Rehabilitation International Korea graced this occasion.
The objective of the Global ICT Challenge for Youth with Disabilities is to leverage IT skills among youth with disabilities and also to spread awareness about the application of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) in enhancing the quality of life of persons with disabilities especially in Asia-Pacific region. It is a capacity building project that helps youth with disabilities to overcome their limitations and challenge themselves for a better future by providing them with access to ICT and related experiences, improving their ability to leverage information and social participation while setting ICT agendas for participant countries related to disabilities and boosting international cooperation and exchange. It is being held with a total of four events including e-Tool Challenge to evaluate the skills of using the MS Office programme and e-Life Map Challenge to evaluate the online information search ability in specific situations.
India has nominated twelve youth with disabilities to participate in the event. These youth with disabilities have been selected on the basis of the National IT Challenge conducted by the Ministry through NIT, Kurukshetra in June, 2018. India has been participating in the event since 2013 and has been winning awards ever since. Last year the event was held in Vietnam.
