Nominated by Dina Mehta

I was in Bangalore last week and happened to meet the young guys who are running Inclusive Planet. I was quite impressed with what they're trying to do - creating innovative online services for the differently-abled with the vision of leveraging these services to building a community on the web. The common theme across their projects is 'access.'

The first of their services is a technology platform that enables the blind to share and access books and materials relevant to their study or leisure in formats totally accessible to them. In this they are collaborating with the Centre for Internet and Society and leading blind associations of the country and soon, school and college syllabi will be accessible, making this the world’s largest such library. The beta version of this service is at 'Readable'.

They're also developing several other offerings that include a community-driven (crowd-sourced) platform that will index and rate urban locations and routes according to the level of their 'accessibility'; and a social network designed to connect the differently-abled along issues relevant to their lives. These platforms will address three core ‘access’ issues – to people, to learning and to places. The network will allow users to share favourite books, places and people, creating a unique and powerful community in the process.

This piece is part of Worldchanging's Attention Philanthropy campaign. All week long, the Worldchanging Network will be delivering "attention grants" to worthy projects, individuals, resources and more. You can learn more about these gifts of notice and find other entries by clicking here.