The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Taking books to the disabled

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Sunday, Apr 27, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Taking books to the disabled

— Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

James R. Fruchterman.

Students start out with ideas to benefit the deprived and the poor, but often, the need for material benefits propels them away from altruistic thoughts. Some, however, revisit their ideas and work on them.

One such person who carried forward his idea of helping the blind read is James R. Fruchterman (Jim), president of Benetech Initiative, U.S. During his recent visit to Chennai, R. Sujatha spoke to him about his plans for India.

Jim was fascinated with military intelligence technology as a student at the California Institute of Technology. He wondered if a particular technology, used to pick out an object and blow it up, could be used to pick out words and enhance them. The idea remained in his head but it was several years before he could act on it. After working as an electronic engineer in a rocket company where the push of a button led to a rocket blowing up before take off, he was back in Silicon Valley pondering over his idea of helping the visually impaired.

His boss from the rocket company was also part of the character recognition company that Jim set up with an investment of $25 million. But investors wanted returns and were not pleased with the idea of social service efforts, such as developing reading systems for the visually impaired.

The seed for his project, sown in 1982, bore fruit in 1989 when he founded Arkenstone, a non-profit organisation. It became the world’s largest provider of reading systems serving 35,000 persons with disabilities in 60 countries. Ten years later, he sold the $5 billion enterprise and used it to launch Benetech Initiative in 2000.

One December evening in 1999, when he returned from work, he found new software installed in his personal computer. Upset that someone had tampered with his computer, he wanted to know who had done it. His 14-year-old son owned up and played Jim’s favourite music using Napster and Jim was hooked. “He spent a whole hour with me. That’s a miracle and I learnt a very cool technology,” he recalls.

He decided to do the same with books. “What my son did was illegal but getting books to the blind is legal.” And he set up Bookshare.

Today, Bookshare.org is the world’s largest online book library for persons with disabilities. The library offers them membership at subsidised rates and provides 3,000 current copyrighted books (published over the last 20 years) and 4,000 public domain books, including those published since 1923. All major American newspapers are also available. Bookshare has fiction and non-fiction, trade books, 1,000 Spanish books, 700 IT books and 100 children’s books.

Mr. Fruchterman says he wants to take the tools to people who need them most. “The visually impaired in India will pay Rs.400 to sign up and read books. I am meeting publishers to scan books and text books for Indian readers. It is better you have a clear exemption [in copy right laws for such organisations]” he points out. His company has already tied up with a couple of Indian publishers.

“Publishers have a social responsibility,” he says. “Today we are in India where we were in the U.S. six years ago. In a few years in India, we will have 20,000 books, best sellers and educational text books.”

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