Making visually-impaired students happy

A 23-year-old engineering graduate C Sriram has been helping visually impaired students write exams. He created an app called "Scribe Finder Application" to help students to find volunteers who can write exams for them. The application already has more than 3,000 registered volunteers from across India.

"I studied my engineering for the Oxford Engineering College from Bangalore. During my graduation, I got to know about difficulties visually impaired students face to get volunteers for their exams. I and my friend have written hundreds of such exams to help them. Once, I had to write an exam for two people at the same time. With the help of my friends, I managed to get that done. But, I realised that their needs to be a permanent solution to this. I created an app Scribe Finder Application along with my friend Srikanth in 2018" says Sriram.

The features include a separate interface for volunteers who want to register in this application and the visually impaired users who are looking for scribes. The visually impaired can either look for scribes in their nearby location or select an area where they need the scribe. Furthermore, they can broadcast a request specifying the location, date, language and exam centre which will notify available volunteers.

In the former search feature by location, the visually impaired person has to contact the volunteer and provide additional details. In the broadcast, however, once a volunteer decides to take up the task, it becomes that person's responsibility to contact the visually impaired person for further details. The talkback feature enables the visually impaired person to communicate with the volunteer seamlessly.

"We have a large presence in South India with Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh showing the maximum utility. This app can be used by anyone in India, however, it cannot be used outside of India" he added.

When asked about the design Sriram said, "The design behind the navigation has been addressed to keep it simple for the users. Having a complicated design will spoil the user experience and the team decided to keep it extremely simple yet functional in all aspects." The app is free and is available on the PlayStore for Android currently.