The IBrailler software assist vision impaired persons to type in Braille in an Ipad which will convert into sighted letters. The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon I.C.T. Training Centre headed by Ms. Manique Gunaratne together with the vision impaired trainees supported the developers by checking the accessibility by providing them with new ideas. In March 2015 Sunday Times news paper published an article about the IBrailler software. It acknowledges the support given by the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon. Please read the article for more details about the IBrailler on:

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150308/business-times/sri-lankan-helps-create-world-acknowledged-it-app-for-the-blind-138671.html

The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, I.C.T. Training Centre for Persons with Disabilities was registered as a CISCO Academy in November 2014. It is another mile stone in the history of this I.C.T. Training Centre. The I.C.T. Training Centre conducts CISCO courses on Information Technology Essentials (I T E) a CCNA. The CISCO Sri Lanka had its CISCO Awards at Global Towers in November 2014. The E.F.C. I.C.T. Training Centre was recognized at the awards. Ms. Manique Gunaratne completed all CISCO examinations on Information Technology Essentials conducted by CISCO, Curtin University of Technology in Australia and S.L.I.I.T. (Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology). Now Ms. Manique Gunaratne joins the international team of Trainers to conduct CISCO courses. All academies and trainers were recognized at this awards ceremony.

The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, I.C.T. Training Centre for Persons with Disabilities is a well-equipped Training Centre with the latest technology for persons with disabilities. There are several courses conducted at this Training Centre. In November 2014 5 vision impaired persons completed Course no. 1 Microsoft Word. They are Tuan Cassim (Employed Graduate), Sumadika Fernando (Graduate from University of Sri Jayawardanapura), Sanjeewa Kumara (Job seeker), Ashan Nilame (Student, University of Colombo) and Harain Ramchand. Up to date 82 vision impaired trainees have successfully completed Course no. 1 Microsoft Word.

The employers’ Federation of Ceylon I.C.t. Training Centre for Persons with Disabilities publishes Braille and large print pocket and desk calendars every year. These calendars are distributed among the E.F.C. trainees and other vision impaired persons in the country free of charge. These pocket calendars are very popular among the vision impaired community. Each year on the New Year day Ms. Manique gunaratne presents the first Braille calendar to the Director General, Mr. Ravi Peiris.

6 vision impaired trainees completed Course no. 4 Microsoft Excel at The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon I.C.t. training Centre conducted by Ms. Manique Gunaratne in January 2015. Up to-date 35 vision impaired trainees have successfully completed Microsoft Excel. Out of these 6 trainees 2 are employed, 3 are unemployed and there was one University student. The successful trainees are Tuan Cassim, Sayed Ahamed, Chandana De Silva, Sanali Senanayake, Jeewan Lilaratne and Pream Kumar.

                                                                                 It is very important to inspire young women to select ICT as their career option and retain the whom who are already in the industry. It has become a major concern the number of female participant in the IT industry and specifically Cisco do consider on networking profession. With the current statistics it is considerably low and this has being directly impacted to the productivity of the organisation around the world due to in parity of the gender.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the IT sector will have nearly 1.4 million job openings by 2020. Yet over two-thirds of these jobs could go unfilled due to the insufficient pool of college graduates with computing-related degrees. Quite simply, if we don’t have enough people with ICT skills to manage and protect the computer systems that power our lives, we are in serious trouble. One third of the unemployment of the world is in Asia Pacific. From that one third as well female percentage is higher than male. Cisco believes as a social responsible company can raise the voice to do a different. To promote Information Technology for Women, CISCO Sri Lanka organized a webinar in February 2015 at the University of Colombo, College House. Ms. Manique Gunaratne was one of the panelists at the programme. She spoke on the “Importance of information technology for women”. The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon I.C.T. Training Centre for Persons with Disabilities conducts CISCO courses on Information Technology Essentials (I.T.E.) and CCNA for vision impaired persons, hearing impaired persons and persons with physical disabilities.

The IBrailler software assist vision impaired persons to type in Braille in an Ipad which will convert into sighted letters. The Employers’ Federation of Ceylon I.C.T. Training Centre headed by Ms. Manique Gunaratne together with the vision impaired trainees supported the developers by checking the accessibility by providing them with new ideas. In February 2015 Stanford U.S.A. published an article about the IBrailler software. It acknowledges the support given by the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon. Please read the article for more details about the IBrailler on:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/february/braille-writer-app-021015.html