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Cape Town - Visually impaired people are set to benefit from a new partnership between Vodacom and the Cape Town Society for the Blind (CTSB).
The partnership will see the operation of a smartphone kiosk at the office of the CTSB aimed at empowering disabled people to gain mobile independence.
At the kiosk, visually impaired people will be helped with switching on the accessibility settings in their phones and activating talk-back features such as Google Voice. Both Android and Apple iOS phones have these types of settings.
"We really believe that through this there is the opportunity to enable people and enhance people's lives to be able to do things which normally visually enabled people take for granted," Alberts Breed, managing executive of Vodacom Western Cape said in his introductory remarks.
Vodacom has engaged in the partnership to enable people to more fully access digital content through smartphone technology.
Past efforts have been frustrated by the requirement to install specific software of mobile phones that allowed people with disabilities to communicate.
However, modern smartphones can be enhanced with "talk back" functionality that makes it easier for people with challenges to send text messages, update a Facebook status, or browse the web.
In a demonstration for journalists, officials from the CTSB showed using the smartphone is easy, though some newer devices may limit access because of their cost.
Breed conceded that the company still had some way to go to fully integrate visually impaired people into the mainstream.
"It is my view that this is just the start - the start of enabling."
