Page 20 - Mainstreamer e-Magazine 01 June 2022 - Final (4)

BARRIER FREE SOCIETY
Equal access to computers had been the
primary goal of NVDA since its inception. The
global community that it had built from its
inclusiveness was so massive that NVDA received
contributions from every imaginable part of the
world. A blind person who knows how to code
or file an issue on GitHub can contribute to the
evolving ethos of NVDA, making it better and
timeless. This community-driven growth had been
the fuel for all open source software on earth,
and its success was clearly reflected following the
expansion of NVDA into 60 languages and still
counting.
“ for a language when needed, utilising the
Perhaps, the most valuable lesson
that other communities can
learn from the progressive era of
NVDA is that it takes a lifetime of
cooperation and willingness for
people to come together to close
the gap of non-existence and to
proliferate invention that is always
needed for disabled persons to
survive and improve themselves.”
The sheer access that it provides for blind
people who wouldn’t otherwise have the access
to the Internet makes it a breeding ground for
new developers and technologist from developing
countries. Although the success and community-
led growth of this project is least documented, its
reach to many organisations, and the creation of
flash drives for students, continues to be used as a
tool for web testing.
The NVDA has gained a prominent place in
computer researches for the blind and has brought
about progress for the entire blind community,
uniting everyone across the globe. Just like any
other solid open source communities around the
world, NVDA developers and enthusiasts would
have an annual virtual global conference to chart
its future direction.
While the rise of NVDA may chart
19 Vol. 01, Issue 1 | June 2022
unprecedented access to shopping,
communication and information exchange at the
blind community level, the underpinning success
of NVDA is its multilanguage facility. ESpeak acts
as the integrated speech synthesizer which allows
the screen reader to localise the interface and
messages in multiple languages. In addition, it
allows the integration and programming of various
linguistics. This arduous process requires hard
work and systemic collaborations from the blind
that speak a particular language and have the
passion to extend their helping hand to fellow
members to promote literacy.
It begins by creating speech variants
NVDA’s interface to translate messages and
documentations to a particular language, and
enabling access to more people. Back when there
regularly maintaining it to avoid dormancy whilst
was no availability of mainstream translations and
mobile access, NVDA had started the language
revolution in the blind community that no one
saw coming. It was a shocking development in the
history of the blind community, whereby it was
created by the blind for the blind.
Now, any child from any part of the world,
can read her storybook and poetry in her mother
tongue, and also contribute to the language
development and translations by developing a
passion for it and going through a decent learning
curve. The immense literacy contribution that
the open source project had done for the
blind community was underappreciated and
undocumented. This serves as a witness to the
bleak understanding of progressive history on
technology for the blind community and tools
made by the blind, for the blind.
Perhaps, the most valuable lesson that other
communities can learn from the progressive era
of NVDA is that it takes a lifetime of cooperation
and willingness for people to come together to
close the gap of non-existence and to proliferate
invention that is always needed for the disabled to
survive and improve themselves.
In all its glory, NVDA had enabled
unprecedented access to all computers since it
is small and portable. The predawn of Microsoft