Bengaluru: Visually impaired woman tops IIITB course

Bengaluru:  An aspiring educator, singer, and RJ, Vidhya P is on her quest to conquer not just her own dreams but also of many others who face constant challenges because of their unfortunate impairments.

“More blind students like me should be able to chase their aspirations to take up engineering and medical careers without much ado that I faced all throughout these years,” she said after winning a gold medal in M.Sc. Digital Society from International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIITB).

Vidhya, who hails from Attibele, is currently working on developing a technology that would help visually impaired students to grasp science and mathematics, right from primary school. Referring to the hardships she faced growing up at various stages of education as the sole reason behind such a thought, she said,” The saga of admission refusal because of my imparities started from High School,” until which she studied at Jyothi Seva School for Blind.

She continued, “A lot of schools refused to take me and tried to force me pick up political science and economics instead of mathematics and science.”

Vidhya went on to score 95% in the SSLC exams but still her dreams were challenged again when colleges refused to admit her into the science stream for PU. “I had to opt for commerce and I started giving importance to mathematics from then,” she remembers. 

The youngster was again discouraged by the authorities, when PU officials asked where why she was “giving them a headache.” Vidhya joined IITB for M.Sc. Digital Society in 2015 after completing her Bachelors in Commerce from Christ University. One among the nine students of the first batch of the programme, the 23-year old has scored a CGPA of 3.82 out of 4 to top the course.

The faculty and students at the Institute are in all praise for her achievements and optimistic spirit. “Vidhya had topped the admission tests and she persists to be so even while graduating. I salute the positive spirit of this young woman,” said Prof. S Sadagopan, Director, IIITB.

“Vidhya’s capability to absorb a concept by listening to the screen reader just once was something that left me astonished. The way she completed such a course which required intensive reading speaks volumes of her abilities over imparities,” said Priyanka Arora, Vidhya’s classmate and another gold medal winner for her contribution to Community Life at the Institute.  Vidhya was one among the 269 students who graduated from IIITB on Sunday.