A graduate student at the University of Thrace has transcribed a poem by Nobel-prize-winning poet Odysseas Elytis into Braille, as part of a greater project to release to the public a free software programme anyone can use to transcribe a text from Greek or English into Braille, ANA reports.
Apostolos Garoufos is from Tsotili in the area of Kozani, where he first studied Greek literature. He is now studying programming and communication technology for special education, and wants to help out people with visual impairments whom he loves, he notes in an interview to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA). In an attempt to understand how the blind manage their daily lives, he spent 24 hours with a blindfold. “Time passed relatively easily, as I could use Braille to use the television and the computer, but I couldn’t do something which was of vital importance to me, to read literature by myself,” he says, explaining the path he decided to take.
He is offering his services online to whoever wants a book or a fairy tale transcribled for them. Soon, nevertheless, the software will be uploaded onto the internet, so everyone can access free transcription. “The MinaDot application is a software I created with my professor, Telemachus Goudas,” he says. “It is a computer programme doing automated transcriptions. You input the Greek or English text and it gives you the transcription (in Braille). Easy, plain, and without having to know Braille. It can make thousands of transcriptions in seconds. So far I’m the only one using it because it needs a lot of tweaks to become easier to use,” but it is in working order now, he says.
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