The 5 day ICT training programme for Visually Challenged school teachers of Alappuzha District was conducted from 16th to 20th February 2010. Six teachers were trained at the it@school resource centre, Alappuzha. The training was on the use of computers as part of enriching their pedagogy with the latest ICT tools.

INSIGHT has been running a customised training programme, spanning over 160 hours, for the benefit of the differently abled.  Training is provided in Free Software and is aimed at comprehensively equipping the differently abled to make best use of ICT. More than a 100 students from educational backgrounds have been trained by INSIGHT so far.

Further to this approval, all students completing the training and clearing the examination thereafter will be issued a certificate from IGNOU. More modalities on the actual implementation are being worked out.

Second batch of Training , jointly conducted by Kerala State IT Mission and District Panchayat has started for differently abled students of Pallichal Panchayat . The training adds a new dimension as it gave them opportunity to use the accessible technologies available today to become self-reliant in life. It will continue for three weeks.

A two day training programme was held for the Akshaya Entrepreneurs at Palakkad on 10^th and 11^th February 2010, for training the Visually Challenged in using computers. 34 participants from different Akshaya centres participated in the training programme which was held at BPL Telecom Wireless and Computer Training Academy, Chandranagar, Palakkad.

The first batch of training for differently abled, jointly conducted by Kerala State IT Mission and District Panchayat has started on 1^st February 2010. 21 visually challenged students are undergoing training at INSIGHT centre, on the use of computers with the latest free and open source ICT tools in two separate sessions.

The next set of trainings will be starting shortly.

The inauguration of training for the differently abled, jointly conducted by the Kerala State IT Mission and District Panchayat was held on 30^th January 2010. Hon. District Panchayat President Sri. Anavoor Nagappan inaugurated the programme.

KSITM Director Dr. Rathan Kelkar IAS, Sri. Anad Jayan( Member, District Panchayat), Sri. V.S Santosh ( Secretary, District Panchayat), Sri. K.Vijayachandran ( Director, Future India Foundation), Sri T.M Suresh Kumar (District Social Welfare Officer) and Dr. V. Sasikumar (Coordinator, SPACE) were also present for the function. Sri. V.S Aravind (Chairman, Social Welfare Standing Committee) presided over the function.

The first batch of training for 10 visually challenged will begin on 1^st February 2010. The training will attempt to equip them with the required free software ICT tools.

The Inauguration of Insight Centre at Calicut University was held on 28th January 2010 at CHMK Library, Calicut University. Hon. Vice Chancellor, Smt. Anwar Jahan Zuberi inaugurated the centre. The centre inside the C.U library, will benefit the Visually Challenged students to access the huge repository of e-Books and e-Journals available in the library. Free training will also be given to the students at the centre on Ubuntu platform using the Orca screen reader.

Insight will shortly  be conducting a training programme for the
library staff of Calicut University on accessible technologies for the Visually
Challenged.

A two day training programme was held for the Akshaya Entrepreneurs at Alleppey on 19^th and 20^th January 2010, for training the Visually Challenged in using computers. 56 Akshaya Entrepreneurs participated in the training programme which was held at Cherthala and Purakkadu Akshaya centres. A technical quiz programme was conducted on the final day and prizes were distributed. Certificates were also issued for all the participants.

A 5 day ICT training programme was conducted from 12th January 2010 for the students of Louis Braille School for Blind, Idukki.The programme was inaugurated by Hon. M.P Shri P T Thomas. 23 students and 3 teachers were given training on the use of computers with the latest ICT tools.

An interactive programme with parents of autistic children and Dr Arun Mehta was organised at insight on 13th january . Dr Mehta enlightened them on Skid, a free software package similar to Gcompris which the children are already working with. Skid has many tiny modules that a child can select and combine, based on the specific task she wishes to perform. Parents were happy to note that ICT training through packages like Skid or Gcompris can really help an autistic child to communicate in real life situations.