Global IT Challenge for Youth with Disabilities, 2018

GS 2: Governance | Issues relating to development & management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources

Why in News?

  • The event is being organised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Highlights of the event:

  • India is hosting the event in collaboration with Government of Korea and Rehabilitation International (RI).
  • The Global IT Challenge for disability is a capacity building project that helps youth with disabilities to overcome their limitations and challenges for a better future through access to ICT.
  • It will alleviate the digital divide and expand participation of youth with disabilities in the society.
  • It propagates implementation of United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) – Article 21 relates to access to information.
  • The competition will be held on the following aspects:-
  • E-tool (competition on application of MS-Excel, MS-Word etc) – individual event
  • E-life map challenge (ability to respond to specific situation) – individual event
  • E-creative (ability to create animated story or game) – group event (country wise)
  • E-content (ability to make video) – group event (country wise)

Participation:

  • About 100 youth with disabilities in the age group of 13-21 years in the category of visual disability, hearing disability, locomotors disability and developmental disorder from 18 will participate.
  • These youths with disabilities have been selected on the basis of National IT Challenge conducted through National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra in June, 2018.

ICT for the Divyangjans:

  • There are about 1 billion i.e. about 15% of the world population persons with disabilities.
  • Majority of this population live in developing countries with low ICT development indexes.
  • Because of this information divide, persons with disabilities are being excluded from society suffering inequality and poverty.
  • The Global IT Challenge was initially designed to enhance the information utilisation skill of youths with disabilities and to encourage their social participation.
  • The event started in the year 1992 in Korea. Subsequently it expanded to the neighbouring countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region and since 2011 it has become a global event.
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