India has the second-largest population in the world and almost 28 million Indians suffer from hearing disabilities. However, there are only 250 sign language interpreters available for these people. Bleetech Innovations has come up with a very tech-savvy solution to solve this problem in the new age.
Bleetech Innovation: The Beginning
In 2015 students from MIT Pune founded the BleeTV app under Bleetech Innovations. Janhavi Joshi and Nupura Kirloskar are the cofounders of Bleetech Innovations. This is an online platform that offers aid to people with hearing liabilities in the Indian Sign Language (ISL).
BleeTV contains a surplus of learning and educational content all in ISL. Bleetech Innovation is working hard towards bridging the gap between people with hearing disabilities and the ones that do not have hearing disabilities. They strive to achieve a stage when the people suffering from hearing liabilities do not feel left out and do not feel “different”.
BleeTV App
There are 2 versions of BleeTV app. The first is for young adults. This provides knowledge about employability skills, learning English, news, etc. The second version is for kids. This is operated with guidance from special schools. Since these kids need special attention and should also be given an equal chance to build their career. Topics like science, experiments, value education, and other Indian Sign Language (ISL) content has been made available. BleeTV Library is a digital library for education and entertainment and the content is available in ISL.
Bleetech Innovation makes their service available to the student by providing educational tablets to special schools. They are also providing interactive sessions to the students. Considering that training the teachers for special children takes more than 15 years and time is of the essence, Bleetech Innovations have also started training for the teachers and staff of the special schools.
Currently, they are only engaged with schools in Maharashtra, one in Meghalaya, and one in Karnataka. However, they are planning on expansion.
Solution to the Pandemic
With the beginning of the pandemic, Bleetech Innovations also designed special kits for students. These comprised a workbook and some basic stationery. These books contained special QR codes which when scanned redirected the students to an informational video explaining a particular topic in Sign Language. The BleeTV library was also made accessible through Playstore for free download.
Impact and Other Services
Bleetech Innovations has been working for 5 long years and in a short period of time, they have managed to benefit 12,000 individuals with their initiative. Apart from this, they have also started workshops for teachers, special educators, and hearing learners. Everyone has access to Sign Language lessons at a minimal cost. Interpretation training is also provided by Bleetech Innovations.
This app was developed to bridge the gap between the community’s access to information in sign language. Regular apps or any other online platforms do not provide any such kind of service, and so it was difficult for people with hearing disabilities until now.
Before Bleetech Innovations, the only recognition they got was on DD National during the Republic and Independence Day parade. However, now with BleeTV, they have been given a chance to achieve every goal which was previously only in the reach of people with no hearing disability.
Even though Bleetech Innovations have made a tremendous change by providing aid to people with hearing disabilities. But we as a nation are still far away from equality for disabled people. There need to be more initiatives that offer the idea of helping the disabled.
We as a society also need to be sensitive and recognize our privilege and help those in need. Just like Bleetech Innovations, we need to think of the people in need before ourselves.
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