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I am sharing my friend Sudeepto's Story. The words below are his.
In 2016, I was in a book fair where I saw a visually impaired boy. The boy had come there with his elder brother. I observed a strange thing. The elder brother was buying books based on his younger brother’s review. I became curious to know how he was buying books based on the opinion of the visually impaired boy.
I went up to the elder brother and spoke with him. I came to know that the he read the books out loud to his younger brother. In this way, the blind boy could enjoy the books.
After some time, the elder brother said to me something that I will never forget. “I can’t keep reading to him, I am starting a new job.”
After I came home I started researching and I found out that there are more than 35 million people in India and 3.5 lakhs people in Bangladesh who are blind. The next day I went to the nearest blind school and learned that they are using the braille system, but literature books are not readily available and very expensive in braille. I started thinking on innovative ways for visually impaired people to learn. Audiobooks can be the solution.
I started the organization Shruto. My team and I have been making audiobooks for visually impaired for the last two years.
Who else can use audiobooks? In India and Bangladesh traffic jams are a major problem. Millions of students and professionals use public transportation for more than three hours a day, stuck in jams. At the same time the reading rate is decreasing every year, due to increasingly busy lifestyles. Market research says that audiobooks are an accepted solution for this massive group of people.
How can we provide audiobooks? An app is the best solution to this problem, allowing a user to buy audiobooks remotely. They can listen to audiobooks offline and without data in a traffic jam. All content will be free for the visually impaired people.
Why am I fundraising?
I have spent all of my money to date to make sure I can provide free audiobooks to the visually impaired. But now it is becoming difficult due to financial issues. This fundraiser will be utilized for creating an app which will help Shruto to have a revenue model which will compensate the costs of the audiobooks being prepared for the visually impaired.
In 2016, I was in a book fair where I saw a visually impaired boy. The boy had come there with his elder brother. I observed a strange thing. The elder brother was buying books based on his younger brother’s review. I became curious to know how he was buying books based on the opinion of the visually impaired boy.
I went up to the elder brother and spoke with him. I came to know that the he read the books out loud to his younger brother. In this way, the blind boy could enjoy the books.
After some time, the elder brother said to me something that I will never forget. “I can’t keep reading to him, I am starting a new job.”
After I came home I started researching and I found out that there are more than 35 million people in India and 3.5 lakhs people in Bangladesh who are blind. The next day I went to the nearest blind school and learned that they are using the braille system, but literature books are not readily available and very expensive in braille. I started thinking on innovative ways for visually impaired people to learn. Audiobooks can be the solution.
I started the organization Shruto. My team and I have been making audiobooks for visually impaired for the last two years.
Who else can use audiobooks? In India and Bangladesh traffic jams are a major problem. Millions of students and professionals use public transportation for more than three hours a day, stuck in jams. At the same time the reading rate is decreasing every year, due to increasingly busy lifestyles. Market research says that audiobooks are an accepted solution for this massive group of people.
How can we provide audiobooks? An app is the best solution to this problem, allowing a user to buy audiobooks remotely. They can listen to audiobooks offline and without data in a traffic jam. All content will be free for the visually impaired people.
Why am I fundraising?
I have spent all of my money to date to make sure I can provide free audiobooks to the visually impaired. But now it is becoming difficult due to financial issues. This fundraiser will be utilized for creating an app which will help Shruto to have a revenue model which will compensate the costs of the audiobooks being prepared for the visually impaired.
