ARISE Impact showcases its Edtech for the visually challenged, at the Collaborative and Classy Awards
Founded in 2010, Act to Rise for Innovation in Special Education (ARISE) is a non-profit organization that is transforming the education of differently-abled children, through innovative technology and resources. Through these self-learning solutions, we have dramatically increased employability and self-confidence in visually challenged children. The founder, Abhishek Syal’s visions of innovative technology has now transformed into a mission to make a difference in the lives of differently-abled children.
To date, ARISE has impacted over 1000 visually challenged children with their Special Education Modules (SEMs), based on their SPECIAL (Specialized, Perceptive, Experiential, Concept, Instruction Augmented, Learning) methodology. Through extensive field surveys and in class research from 2010–2011, the SPECIAL methodology led to the development of the capstone project that tested the content methodologies for engaging the visually challenged children. As a part of the SPECIAL methodology, we have developed proprietary content development techniques for representing map and diagrammatic information in textbooks in audio format. Focusing on a human-centric design, we actively involve the end users, the visually challenged children, in the content development process thus making the Special Education Modules (SEMs) more applicable and easy to understand.
The SEMs are also bilingual, helping the visually challenged children develop English fluency as well as their self-confidence while conversing in English. Impact studies have demonstrated an increase in the engagement levels for audio-based SEMs to 95–98% against traditional audio resources which are around 30–40%.
ARISE Impact has received recognition through the years for its imaginative approach to create highly engaging self-learning resources for the visually challenged children. This year, ARISE Impact will be showcasing its innovations in the global arena at the 6th Annual Classy Awards and The Collaborative conference, rubbing shoulders with other major social innovators such as charity:water. The conference culminates with the 6th Annual Classy Awards, honoring the leaders who are fighting on the front lines of social change. The prestigious 3 day event that is held in Boston, MA from June 14th to 16th brings together prominent players in the field of social impact, making it an incredible platform that gives rise to discovering, learning and collaborating.
Following the remarkable success of the Special Education Modules, ARISE Impact has set its sights on collaborating with partners around the world, virtually, to develop and implement new online and offline learning programs to scale up the impact on the education of visually challenged children. With these programs, coupled with on the job training for companies who employ visually challenged individuals, we intend to propagate self-learning for higher employability outcomes in the differently-abled.
ARISE Impact’s well researched, innovative technologies contain the best content and design for cognitive self-learning. In our journey to transform the education and careers of the visually challenged children, we are in the search for more global partner institutions to develop an online, audio-based SEM learning service. Find out more about ARISE and how you can partner with us at: http://ariseimpact.org.
