This Is A Great Example Of The Struggle And The Steep Road For Blind People To Become Programmers

Aris Yohanes Elean.

JAKARTA - People with disabilities are still underestimated by many parties. With their limitations, people with disabilities are considered unable to carry out activities such as non-disabled people. In fact, people with disabilities are also ordinary people who also have the potential to develop.

This is what the visually impaired person, Aris Yohanes Elean, feels. The man who was born in Pemalang, did not give up facing obstacles to achieve his dream of becoming a programmer.

He also said that his passion for tinkering with programming languages began when he received his basic education at the Elementary Level Superintendent Special School (SLB) in 1996. At that school, there is a special computer that has programming features.

"Because the program is there, I can make new ones from things that don't exist yet. From that point on I was very happy. So I started my own ordinary computer, curious about ordinary computers. It turned out that I was quick to understand, I asked a friend who was first use," said Aris, in his statement, Wednesday, August 3.

With that interest, the man who was once a speech computer teacher for the blind took part in a program from the Mitra Netra Foundation, which at that time was still in the SLB area. Even so, Aris admits that he often learns programming languages self-taught.

According to Aris, currently blind people can not only use special computers, along with the times and technology, blind people can use ordinary computers.

"So Mitra Netra Foundation, at that time Mitra Netra's old building was in the same building as my elementary school, so because of one location I visited Mitra Netra following their programs, various kinds of things. But I was more self-taught, which I followed by typing 10 fingers," he said.

Determined to become a programmer, after high school in 2007, the creator of this website for the visually impaired wants to continue his higher education in the Department of Information Engineering (IT). However, Aris's determination did not go smoothly, because at that time there was no university that opened a special registration for the IT department for the blind.

For a decade in 2017, Aris' determination found a bright spot. One of the universities in South Tangerang opens registration for IT majors for blind people.

With this hope, one of the makers of the Mass Software immediately registered and also received a scholarship from the University of Pamulang (Unpam). After five years of studying IT, Aris has finally achieved his goal of becoming a scholar and mastering programming languages, like normal people.

"So whatever is just a will, there is a will there is a way, for us blind people, there is a will but most of it doesn't work, especially with technological advances, everything is helped," said Aris.

Aris's success in obtaining higher education in the IT field cannot be separated from the efforts of volunteers from Multinational IT Companies to open programming classes for the blind, which were initiated by Pandu Sastrowardoyo with Eno Retno Wulansari.

Eno explained, Multinational IT companies provide infrastructure support for the course of classes ranging from laptops, software to lecturers who teach programming languages for Aris and two other blind people.

"So, understanding a campus that embraces the marginalized. And already has a softcopy material module system, so I think it's suitable for blind friends, they can access lecture material files before starting lectures in class, and convince lecturers to proceed together. Alhamdulillah , now he has graduated 1 blind majoring in IT, following August 1 more majoring in IT, Mr. Sugiyo, "he said.

Meanwhile, Pandu Sastrowardoyo saw that the ability of the blind is not inferior, and can even be more concentrated and thorough than ordinary programmers.

"That's why my colleagues and I were inspired to initiate an IBM program to help the blind learn programming and access digital braille books," said Pandu who is also the founder of several crypto companies, including myriad, realitychain, and debio.