Deaf artist Apoorv Om urges United Nations to promote a digital revolution of inclusion

Apoorv Om, a young deaf artist from New Delhi, has asked the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to create a revolution of inclusion for the deaf by using advances in digital technology.

The President of UNGA, Miroslav Lajcak, assured Om that he would do his best to promote the inclusion of disabled people in all walks of life, and at the UN.

Om met with President Lajcak at the UN this week. He presented him with a portrait that he had drawn of him.

Om, who studies architecture in Delhi, is also an activist, who advocates for the inclusiveness of disabled people.

Om said he wanted to make people aware of the possibilities of e-world’s technological devices to enable inclusion of people with disabilities, especially deaf people, in society.

Digital technologies can promote education in an inclusive setting for all with disabled people and the others studying together. However, Om said that not enough was being done to make them available everywhere.

The rights of disabled people and the promotion of their inclusiveness is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

To show the digital possibilities for the deaf, Om used a mobile phone app on which he typed his part of the conversation, while it converted Lajcak’s spoken part into text for him to read.

Om has drawn portraits of several international leaders and presented to them in his campaign for disabled people. They include former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Ronny Abraham, the president of the World Court.

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