Our Philosophy

About Us

Chakshumathi is a global think tank dedicated to ensuring barrier-free, equitable, and quality education for print-disabled and visually challenged students.

Advocacy & Pedagogy

Our Story & Mission

Inaugurated in June 2011 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, Chakshumathi began as a DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) Resource Centre to make reading materials accessible. We quickly recognized that children with special needs were being segregated into "special schools" that limited their potential.

To solve this, we collaborated with global tech companies, academic research laboratories, and educational institutions to create a Digitally Accessible Pedagogy. This curriculum lets students with sensory challenges and neurodivergence study side-by-side with mainstream peers.

We focus on enabling visual-minority students to study science and mathematics independently, showing that disability is simply a mismatch between user interaction and conventional print-based systems.

Core Philosophy

"It is easy to build stronger children than to rehabilitate broken men." We insist on integrated, inclusive education over special education, providing the tools so that any child can succeed in mainstream schools.

How We Operate

A Global, Cloud-Based Collective

Chakshumathi operates as a fully decentralized, cloud-based network. We do not have a physical head office or permanent staff. Instead, our organization is powered by a dedicated collective of hundreds of volunteers, engineering student networks (primarily IEEE chapters), and parents of children with different abilities worldwide.

We provide consulting services and inclusive education training to school faculties, university boards, and state education departments, helping institutions adopt digitally accessible platforms.

Our work has also served as a catalyst for legislative change, advocating for national and international copyright amendments (such as the Marrakesh Treaty) that allow books to be legally converted into accessible formats for print-challenged individuals.