Who am I?
My name is Prashant Ranjan Verma and I am a Indian national presently residing in New Delhi. I am a visually impaired person – about 75% loss of vision. I am a Sagitarrius by birth and I am married.
What do I do?
I am working as a Consultant – Training & Technical Support for The DAISY Consortium. I am also working as the ICT Coordinator and Guest Faculty for a Training & Resource Centre for Persons with Disabilities at University of Delhi. I am also a trainer and conduct trainings in application of assistive technology and web accessibility.
I am associated with…
- Equal Opportunity Cell, University of Delhi
- This is where I spend my days now. I have got the opportunity to work for other disabilities too.
- NTPC Foundation, NTPC Ltd.
- This premier navratna PSU is my employer.
- DAISY Consortium
I am contributing my bit in the mission of this organization. I share DC’s vision all published material should be available to persons with print disabilities at the same time, at no extra cost and in a navigable feature rich format.- National Association for the Blind, Delhi
- This organization gave me a new life and is still my identity to a great extent. I worked here for more than 8 years but it will take many more years to return all that I got from this place.
- Saksham Trust
- I greatly admire and respect the people behind this organization and try to do my bit for them.
- NAB Centre for Blind Woman
- The best rehabilitation centre for blind woman in my book. I am assisting in the establishment of 100 ICT centres for PwDs all over India under the ERNET project.
- Centre for Internet & Society and many more…
I am proud of…
I was blessed with a National Award in 2007. I was given this award on the World Disability Day by the President of India in the “Best Employee” category in recognition of the work done by me for the visually impaired at NAB Delhi.
I am extremely proud of my wife Veena’s achievements. She too was given National Award on the same day in the “Best Role Model” category. We are perhaps the only couple to have received National Award of any type together for individual achievements.
I have won Gold & Silver medals in Abilympics, which is an international competition in occupational skills for persons with disabilities.
Most of all, I am proud that I am doing meaningful and productive work which brings changes in lives of others. I am proud to have seen smiles on depressed faces within short span of time.
I love…
I love animals more than human beings(excuse me if it offends you). I find them innocent, loyal and good looking!
I love watching cricket and I am a great fan of players like Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Akram and M.S. Dhoni. I follow the game very closely.
I love watching or listening to current affairs specially on BBC. I try to keep myself abrest of the surrounding and feel very unsecure if I miss out on news for a long time.
I really like Aamir Khan movies and like to listen to Indian music.
“My work entails a lot of travel to foreign countries where I conduct training workshops in software development for the differently-abled,” says Prashant, who has created cheque-writing and railway reservation softwares for the blind. “Blind often get cheated when they ask for help. With this software, they can themselves write their bank cheques,” says Prashant, adding, that the country is lagging far behind when it comes to the welfare of the physically-challenged.
Prashant also got associated with the Equal Opportunities Cell of the Delhi University, where he helped set up a computer lab for the blind. “My hands are already full, and it often gets difficult to balance so much work, but I know there is a lot still to be done. So, I decided to conduct computer classes in DU thrice a week. We convert all the academic and other books into talking-book format,” says Prashant, who married his student Veena, who is among the few blind people to have done an MBA and working with a public sector company”