October Newsletter

On September 9, VOSAP Founder, met with Hon. Cabinet Minister for Commerce and Industry, Govt of India, Shri Piyush Goyalji at Los Angeles, California. He presented India’s opportunity with the US and worldwide to emerge as a global hub for Assistive Technology, innovations, production and services.

Mr. Desai shared, “We are working on how inclusion of divyangjan through assistive technology can also be looked at as an economic expansion opportunity. India can be an export hub of assistive devices required by 1+ Billion people. How functional Specially Abled People can contribute to the economy with the help of the Assistive Tech industry. Hence it should be considered as a separate industry segment by commerce and industry ministry”

Hon. Minister appreciated the unique viewpoint of looking at Disability, Assistive Technology Sector, inclusion of Person with Disability as lever for economic expansion.

Hon. Cabinet Minister Shri. Piyush Goyalji shared “Very valued thought. While in last few years we have been trying to make all our buildings accessible. Honestly, I didn’t think of this as an economic (expansion) perspective. This could be a unique category. This is a good idea and we need to study it further.”

September 16, SAP’s in Botad were enabled with Assistive Devices such as Sewing Machine, Tricycle, Hearing Aid, wheelchair and Smartphones. Hon. Prohibition Officer Vasantben Bagdaji joined the event as Chief Guest. Shri Kamlesh Chauhan, Director, Logic Rain company and our Donor joined the event as Guest of Honour. Rohitbhai Shah, VOSAP Advisor and Executive Team Members Ashish Deliwala, Kalpesh Shah also graced the event with their presence.

An event was organized at NFBM Education Complex, Pune on 17th September 2022. The event was aimed at enabling visually impaired students with assistive and enabling devices like Smartcane and Smartphone. These assistive devices were distributed among visually impaired students of Jagriti School, Pune. Brigadier Vijay Prabhu, Vishistha Seva Medal Awardee, was the chief guest who honored the event with his presence. Wing Commander V.K. Kala (Retd.) also joined the event and became the testimonial for the event which gave wings to the dreams of more than 50 students with visual impairment.

With the launch of International AT Hackathon which is a collaborative effort with VOSAP partners – LD College of Engineering and AKTU (Abdul Kalam Tech University) to reach out to the young minds, inviting them to apply their collective talent and potential by proposing abstracts, prototypes to participate in AT hackathon to solve problems of Specially Abled People. VOSAP also entered in MoU with AT Partners Innovation Hub, AKTU, Atal Innovation Mission(AIM), Atal Incubation Centre – Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini(AIC-RMP) to provide Incubation, Funding and Technical support to Selected Hackathon Entries.

VOSAP also identified various Expert Mentors from Industry to provide expertise to budding entrepreneurs and innovators from Technology, business and marketing perspective.

With over 114 entries from 10 states in India and CA, USA, we identified the top 20 projects with help of esteemed jury members .from AT industry, academia and incubators. Top 10 Winners will be announced on Dec 3 at VOSAP Annual Event

Volunteerism is the voice of the people put into action – Helen DyerMany many Congratulations to VOSAP Ignite batch of 2022 on behalf of Voice of SAP for the outstanding contribution to the mission, contributing to 1,300+ hours of volunteering work in the US.

6 Ignite Volunteers received PVSA including 4 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze Medal. VOSAP Ignite 2022-2023 was also launched in October 2022 with the new batch of Highschoolers from USA.

VOSAP commemorated our beloved Gandhiji’s birthday by enabling ‘Divyangjan’. An event was organized at APH, Belgaum, Karnataka, on October 2 2022. The event was aimed at enabling SAPs with assistive devices like Tricycle and sewing Machine.All the beneficiaries belonged to outskirts of Belgaum area and few of them received assistive device for the first time. VOSAP Founder, Pranav Desai and VOSAP team joined the event virtually and addresssed the beneficiaries.

Mr. Desai motivated beneficiaries to make the right use of the device, become independent and earn well and help other SAP in future with such devices. Various Ward Members of Belgaum joined the event in person. Mr. Desai also requested them to make atleast 25 Public Places fully accessible for SAP by the end of 2023.

Voice of SAP organized a get together event at Bay Area on October 8, 2022 to present VOSAP impact and deliberate ideas with the tech community of Silicon Valley. 61 volunteers and donors joined this event.

Raghu Belur, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Enphase Energy was invited as Chief Guest. In Conversation with Mr. Desai, on being asked “What Inspired him the most”, after seeing the presentation, he shared How VOSAP Multiplier (qualitative, quantity) effect inspired him and said how a family of 5 or 6 experience the happiness by helping 1 Specially Abled Person and the multiplier effect can help millions of Specially Abled People and spread happiness to billions of people and these multiplier effect makes things stay.

On October 19,2022 VOSAP Enabled 85 SAP of Lucknow, Sitapur and Hardoi with Tricycles,Sewing Machine,Daisy Player and Smartphones in an event held at SR Group of Institute, Lucknow.

Hon. Vice Chancellor of AKTU Dr. Pradeep Kumar Mishra, Hon. Pawan Singh Chauhan MLC Lucknow-Sitapur graced the event with their presence. Members of VOSAP Partner organization Care Educational Trust, Dr.Abdul Kalam Technical University and VOSAP Volunteers joined the event.

On Dec 3, VOSAP will host its Annual Event to announce Top 10 winners of the International Assistive Technology Hackathon.

Chief Guest for the event is Dr.Chintan Vaishnav, Head of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Govt. of India.

We invite you to Join us at VOSAP Annual Event 2022 – online event to Celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities and learn amazing innovations of Top 10 Winners of International Assistive Technology Hackathon, Learn about our 360 degree impact in Disability Sector with help of our partners, highly compassionate team and generous donors in the US.
You can join the live events on our social media platform Linkedin Facebook and Youtube.