BENGALURU: Over the last sixty years, our country’s use of fertilisers has increased dramatically–120 times or more over, even if we go by conservative government data. This degrades the soil and increases our carbon footprint. Unfortunately, there has been no successful attempt to come up with a solution which is simple and effective enough to be used by the farmers.

To tackle this problem, OpenCube Labs, a Bengaluru-based start-up, is working on an open-source based app exclusively for the farmers to help them gauge the right measure of pesticides and fertilizers to use.

Bangalore campus attracts several students living with disabilities

The vast campus of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) will welcome a fresh batch of 400 Postgraduate Programme (PGP) students on Thursday. However, a few students have arrived early to attend the voluntary preparatory classes.

The National Mobile Service Provider, Mobitel plans to bring the light of joy to the visually impaired in the country during the Vesak season with the introduction of the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform to enable users to listen to the stories on display on five prominent Vesak Pandals in Colombo this year.

Users can call the short code 565 from any Mobitel number to listen to the stories free of charge from May 10 to 20, 2017.

Paul D’Souza

BENGALURU: Meet a Bengalurean Paul D’Souza, who has developed Touché, which works as an e-reader for the blind.The device, a Refreshable Braille Display, has a display area or a window where there are hundreds of small pin like projections that can be felt like the embossed Braille dots on paper.

BENGALURU: Each year people with disabilities and those without find unique ways to celebrate Helen Keller’s birthday. June 27 is the birthday of the woman who inspired millions of people.

This year Bengaluru will celebrate Helen Keller week with a silent human chain, not by holding hands but by forming a chain teaching sign language.

The Amway India in association with the Turnstone Global launched a Braille library for the visually-impaired students at the Bhima Bhoi School for the Blind here on Tuesday.

Fire Services DGP Dr Binoy Behera gracing as chief guest inaugurated the library in presence Secondary Education Deputy Director Snehamayee Senapati, School Principal Sumit Dasgupta and Amway Odisha Cluster Operations Manager Rana Pratap Pradhan.

More advanced equipment to be procured soon

The Louis Braille Centre was recently opened at the Library Annexe of Ananda Rangapillai Library in Pondicherry Central University. Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy inaugurated the centre.

Researchers have developed a wearable device for the visually-challenged people that can help them avoid a collision.

Researchers have developed a wearable device for the visually-challenged people that can help them avoid a collision.

People who have lost some of their peripheral vision, such as those with glaucoma, or brain injury that causes half visual field loss, often face mobility challenges and increased likelihood of falls and collisions.

Innovators from India  have created a new device that has yet again changed what we can or cannot do without seeing.

Plastic sliding calipers known as Squirrel Devices, developed by MIT grad students, make geometry's continuous shapes and lengths measurable for blind and limited-vision students, who can read measurements in Braille.

Innovation uses echolocation to detect obstacles

A high school student in Arunachal Pradesh has invented a unique pair of goggles that uses ultrasound and infrared sensors to help the visually impaired detect obstacles on their path. On Friday, the State government pledged financial support for him to develop the gadget.

Anang Tadar, a Class XI student of New Galaxy Academy, Nirjuli, was recently awarded the Dinanath Pandey Smart Idea Innovation Award for inventing a gadget called Goggle for Blind (G4B).