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008 - Read your daily newspaper without ICT skills, FFVI, Finland
CONTACT
Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired
Mr. Iliro Nummela
Finland
+358 50 464 5339
OVERALL GOAL /MISSION
The founders of this project asked themselves the question how to bring services based on ICT into the lives of visually
impaired persons, who do not have good ICT skills. Even though several devices have been developed over the years,
none of them are accessible to those who have weak ICT skills. Therefore, the overall goal of the project is to give
visually impaired persons that are not equipped with good ICT skills the possibility to benefit from ICT. The aim of the
project is to support the access to information for persons who face the biggest challenges when functioning in an
information society. The mission of the service is to provide visually impaired persons a device with which they can read
magazines and newspapers of their interest and the ability to use this device without a computer, in whatever form, and
without ICT skills.
THE SOLUTION THAT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED
Since the 1980's the Finish Federation for the Visually Impaired (FFVI) has developed, produced and delivered talking
newspapers and magazines online to visually impaired persons by using a specially tailored application for PC's.
Although the service was well received among users, it was limited to persons with a computer and other users were
not able to access the newspapers and magazines, as they were current. Therefore, in 2011 the FFVI started to develop
an online newspaper and magazine service for users without ICT skills or a computer. Newspapers and magazines,
intentionally produced for the above-described system, can now be read with DAISY players, so that only very basic ICT
user skills are needed to use the service that has been developed. The service is based on the Daisy Online Delivery
Protocol that is a global open standard that allows interoperability of client and server solutions from various suppliers.
Visually impaired persons have now the possibility to read newspapers and magazines, without using a computer, when
they are released.
COUNTRIES IN WHICH IT WAS DEVELOPED: Finland
COUNTRY/ COUNTRIES IN WHICH IT IS OPERATING: Finland
FACTS ABOUT SIZE AND SCOPE
 300 users at the moment