IBM Receives GoI's National Award & NCPEDP's Hellen-Keller Award
IT News Online Staff
2009-12-01
IBM announced that it has received the National Award by the Government of India and the Helen Keller Award for year 2009, given by the National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), for its commitment to creating an inclusive environment at workplace, especially for people with disabilities.
The National Award, given by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, was conferred upon IBM for its technology innovation, Spoken Web, recognizing its immense potential for improving the life of people with disability. The Shell-NCPEDP Helen Keller award was given to IBM for demonstrating policies and practices that promote equal employment opportunity for people with disabilities.
IBM received the Government of India's National Award in categories of "Best Employer" and "Accessibility Innovation" in 2008 and 2007, respectively. This year, three IBM employees, Hari Raghavan, Murali C. Sharma and Madhu Bala Sharma, also received this award in individual categories. Hari Raghavan and Murali C Sharma earned the award in the "Best Employee" category, while Madhu Bala Sharma earned the honor in the "Role Model" category.
"IBM recruited its first employee with disability almost a century ago and has a long history of creating an inclusive work environment. We take pride in promoting accessibility through innovative products and unique services that can drive growth for the company, individuals, and the larger society. We are honored to receive these recognitions for the third consecutive year," said Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India Pvt. Ltd.
The Spoken Web technology helps people, who have little or no literacy or are visually impaired; get the benefits of the World Wide Web by creating a parallel system similar to the Internet. This voice-enabled technology enables physically challenged people to have access and share information, do business transactions, or create social networks by creating "VoiceSites" through their mobile or landline phones.
"IBM strongly believes in developing technologies that not only assist people with disabilities in their personal and professional lives but also enable them to reach their full potential. The Spoken Web project has the capability to create a more inclusive society and open up new avenues for a large section of the population who at this time are most easily able to create and access information on the Internet by speaking and listening," said Dr. Guruduth Banavar, Director, IBM Research - India, and Chief Technologist, IBM India/South Asia.
IBM said it promotes diversity in every sphere of work and opened up the opportunity for people with disabilities way back in 1914. Today people with disabilities have jobs in a number of roles at IBM India/South Asia, including project management, programming, consulting, operations, quality assurance, and human resources.
For decades, IBM has been developing technology to assist with physical challenges. The company was one of the first developers for people with disabilities when they developed a Braille printer in 1975 and in 1980 created a talking typewriter for the blind. In 1985, IBM created the Special Needs Group specifically to address technology needs of the disabled. Most recently the Special Needs Systems Group created the Home Page Reader tool, a self-reading Web browser.
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