D-30 Disability Impact List: Vashkar Bhattacharjee honoured

Vashkar Bhattacharjee, national consultant for accessibility of a2i, has been selected as an honouree for the 2021 D-30 Disability Impact List.

The D-30 Disability Impact List, through a nomination and selection process, honours unique accomplishments of the most impactful community members around the world, said a press release.

Born with a disability, Bhattacharjee also serves as programme manager of Young Power in Social Action.

Bhattacharjee is a devoted social worker for challenges surrounding disability and, in particular, accessibility and inclusion.

For the last 15 years, he has been working for persons with disabilities through policy formulation, advocacy, and innovating assistive and accessible technologies.

He was awarded the Unesco/Emir Jaber al Ahmad al Jaber al Sabah Prize for Digital Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities for successfully developing Bangladesh's first accessible dictionary.

While working to transform Chittagong University into an inclusive institution, Bhattacharjee converted over 200,000 pages of reading material to accessible formats and trained over 500 persons with disabilities on ICT skills and assistive technologies.

He also supports government initiatives to make information and services accessible for persons with disabilities during the pandemic.

Speaking about the honour, Bhattacharjee said receiving any recognition is a matter of great pleasure.

Bhattacharjee has also received other international and national recognitions for his contributions, such as Bangladesh Prime Minister's Award 2016, Henry Viscardi Award 2017, and International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing.