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Press Release, Date: 12. December 2001, ECDL Norway (Datakortet a.s.)
Blind Man gets Driver's Licence
The first blind person in the world has passed all tests in European Computer Driving Licence. (ECDL Norway) Geir Ålien, 40 years old from Oslo Norway has been blind all life. Impressively, he has a better documentation of IT skills than many other seeing persons.
Bernt Nilsen (Datakortet) and Geir Ålien
ECDL Norway (Datakortet a.s) has conducted tests for blind persons in cooperation with the small company MediaLT. The first blind person has now passed all 7 modules of the European Computer Driving Licence. The owners of MediaLT, Magne Lunde and Morten Tollefsen are both blind, and the combination of good IT skills and own experience has made it possible for them to develop tests for blind people. Geir Ålien, 40 years old, has been blind all his life. Earlier he has been working with IT in a Norwegian Bank. The European Computer Driving Licence has now changed the employment prospects for Geir, who now has the documentation of an attractive education.
Adaptive technology
In the testing process blind people use some adaptive technology:
- Jaws screen reader: Program that reads the lines on the screen
- Braille display: Technology that presents the text and icon for blind people
- Synthetic speech: Reads the text loudly for the blind person
All this adaptive technology can be bought from private companies in Norway, and the government covers the expenses. MediaLT will continue testing blind people. In January a girl will do the two last modules. After Christmas five persons will start with distant education, and 2-4 persons will start with ordinary training.
Das ECDL Zertifikat in Braille
More information:
Datakortet a.s: Bernt Nilsen, adm.dir.
Tel. 78 97 35 00, 901 03 456
e-post: bernt.nilsen@datakortet.no
More information about Datakortet: www.datakortet.no
