ePUB-Hub is participating in the Accessible Publishing Conference

ePUB-Hub, a prominent 360-degree digital publishing platform powered by Cygnet Infotech, is participating in the Accessible Publishing Conference, a prolific platform created to spread awareness on the varied developments of Inclusive Publishing.

To be held on 18^th February at St Xavier’s college, this conference is an initiative by DAISY Forum of India as an endeavor to generate awareness on reading solutions to print-disabled persons across the globe.Publishing houses of all stature, keen in contribution towards the impaired community, would be present to showcase their varied platforms and learn further about the various advancements.

Access to information can be seen as a fundamental right. Approximately 10 million Indians are print-disabled (either through visual impairment or other conditions) and require alternative formats to gain access to information. The Copyright Act was amended in 2012 to permit the reproduction of printed matter in accessible format for print-disabled persons. To facilitate this demand, new technological advancements are reaching out to ease the discomforts for these factions.

The Daisy Forum of India (DFI) is a network of over 100 organisations working for the disabled, which has launched Sugamya Pustakalaya, India’s online accessible library in partnership with Bookshare. This resource has been supported by the Government of India's part of the Accessible India and Digital India campaigns.

Through this participation, ePUB-Hub intends to break barriers, and create access as well as opportunities for print-disabled persons, ensuring that all content created digitally is born accessible, keeping Inclusive Publishing in mind. Great emphasis would be laid on their special feature ‘text to speech’, which opens immense possibilities for ‘print challenged’--visually impaired, dyslexic, illiterate or millions of gen-X who know the language, but cannot read the printed word in their own mother tongue.

On this momentous occasion, Apurva Ashar, Executive director of ePUB-Hub, said, ePUB-Hub is proud to participate in the Accessible Publishing conference, a prestigious platform to spread awareness on the variety of all-inclusive branches of publishing accessible to all. Through incorporation of Inclusive Publishing, ePUB-Hub aims to promote publishing processes through which publishers deliver "born accessible" publications that are fully accessible to all readers, including people with print disabilities. Text-to-speech is a unique property, offered through our Inclusive Publishing package that strives to bring the beauty of literature amongst people from all walks of the society.”

He further added” Adopting to Unicode based language publishing can open out new markets, by discussions to overcome the challenges and use available tools like Indian Language OCR, spell checkers, template based publishing for the benefit of all. We at ePUB-Hubpledge to create a world where all content is born accessible or created in a way that allows people with disabilities to read content from the get-go, without retrofitting or reengineering”.

ePUB-Hub Digital Publishing solution has been working in tandem with DAISY Foundation of India (DFI) and its international partner Bookshare to further this movement and encourage all publishers to adopt this methodology in their publishing cycle. Through this association, they intend to generate awareness of ePUB-Hub’s maiden products and innovations, aimed to ease reading for the visual and print impaired, to a larger audience.