The convention had been going on for three days, and by then we had heard enough conversations to realise that the formal sessions were only part of what was happening.
People kept finding one another between sessions and continuing discussions in smaller groups. Someone would talk about education, another about employment, someone else about examinations or banking. There were conversations about travelling independently, finding training, dealing with institutions and the many small decisions that become difficult when information is not easily accessible.
The convention, “Blind Stars Beyond Facebook, Bridging the Gap,” had brought around 160 visually impaired people from different parts of India to Agra. The purpose was to bring people together and discuss the issues they faced, but as we listened, we began to notice something beyond the individual problems.
Again and again, the real difficulty seemed to be finding the right person or the right information.
A person might have a problem with a bank, but not know which rule applied to the situation. Someone preparing for an examination might need a scribe but have no contact in the city where the examination was being held. A student might want to pursue a particular course but have nobody to explain what it was actually like to study there as a blind person. Someone facing a new difficulty might simply need to speak to another blind person who had already gone through something similar.
We had always tried to help when someone approached us, but our method was largely based on personal contacts. Someone would call, explain the problem, and we would start making calls or searching through whatever information we had. Sometimes we knew exactly whom to contact. Sometimes we had to ask around. Sometimes we found an answer only because somebody happened to know somebody else.
The convention made us wonder whether this could be organised in a more useful way.
Instead of expecting a blind person to know where the answer was, what if the person could simply tell us the problem and we could help find the answer?
And what if the person who provided that answer was not necessarily an expert sitting in an office, but another blind person who had already faced the same situation?
That was the beginning of the idea that eventually became Drishti Connect.
The first proposal was built around this simple principle. A visually impaired person could contact the service, explain a problem and receive help in finding information, resources or another person who could guide them. The proposed system included a telephone and email-based support mechanism, a database of resources and volunteers, regional connections and follow-up to see whether the problem had actually been resolved.
The idea was not to create a system where the blind person was always the person asking and someone else was always the person answering. We wanted the experience already present within the community to become part of the solution. Someone who had struggled through a particular problem could become the person who helped another person facing it.
A few years later, we saw how such a connection could work in a very ordinary situation.
A candidate had an examination in Chennai and needed a scribe. The problem was that we were in Agra. We did not have a ready contact in Chennai whom we could simply call and send to the examination centre.
For a moment, the distance itself seemed to be the problem.
Then we started looking for another way.
We opened LinkedIn and began searching for people in Chennai. We sent messages explaining who we were, what the candidate needed and why we were looking for someone locally. We did not know which message would receive a response, or whether anyone would be willing to help a person they had never met.
Eventually, someone responded.
One connection led to another conversation, and the problem that had begun with a candidate needing a scribe in Chennai was no longer entirely our problem. A person in another city had been found who was willing to help.
The candidate was able to take the examination.
It was a small incident, but for us it illustrated something important. We had not solved the problem because we had a large organisation in Chennai. We had solved it because information, technology and human willingness could be connected across a distance.
That was exactly the kind of thing we had been thinking about when Drishti Connect first emerged from the convention.
The original proposal had even used a scribe request as one of its examples: a person could submit a request for a scribe and the system could try to connect that person with someone who could help. It also imagined much broader situations—for example, someone facing resistance from a bank could receive the relevant RBI circular through the platform and use it to challenge the refusal.
In January 2017, we finally launched the beta version of Drishti Connect. It was described as a one-stop solution for various challenges faced by visually impaired people.
But the idea did not remain exactly where it had started.
As we received feedback and thought more about the possibilities, its scope expanded. In January 2018, eye care and eye donation were added alongside empowerment of visually impaired people. The platform was imagined as a place where people could discuss issues, seek expert advice, share information, find eye banks and hospitals, create opportunities for volunteers, participate in events, access documents and films, and learn about issues connected with eye care, eye donation and blindness.
In some ways, the idea became much bigger than the original question that had started it.
But the original question remained at its centre.
How do you connect a person who needs something with the person or information that can help?
The platform existed for a while, but eventually it became quiet. There were other priorities, limited resources and the practical difficulty of maintaining something that was more ambitious than what we could continuously support at the time. The pandemic and the financial disruption that followed also affected the momentum of several of our initiatives. Our later strategy documents acknowledge that Drishti Connect had reached the stage where it needed assessment and a restart rather than being treated as a completely new experiment.
Yet the idea itself never really disappeared.
That is the part that interests me most when I look back at it.
Even while the platform was quiet, we continued doing the work that had originally made us think such a platform was necessary. We kept meeting people, answering questions, creating resources, conducting awareness programmes, working with volunteers and learning from the practical difficulties faced by visually impaired people.
The current vision for Drishti Connect is therefore very different from simply rebuilding an old website. It brings together what we have learned over the years in eye care, eye donation and empowerment of visually impaired people. The newer design again includes volunteer matching, requests for scribes, readers, guides and mentors, a helpline and access to resources and opportunities.
In a strange way, the years in between have made the original idea more convincing.
When we first imagined Drishti Connect, we had the idea before we had the experience to fully build it.
Now we have the experience.
We have seen how a blind student may need a scribe in another city. We have seen how a piece of information can change the outcome of an argument with an institution. We have seen how much difference it can make when one person who has already gone through something is willing to guide another.
The platform may have changed. The technology has certainly changed. The scale of the idea has changed too.
But the reason for creating it has remained remarkably simple.
The convention began with people talking about the difficulties they faced. We listened, and slowly realised that many of those difficulties did not need a completely new solution. In many cases, the solution already existed somewhere—in another person’s experience, in a document, in a contact, in a resource or simply in knowing whom to ask.
Drishti Connect was our attempt to bring those scattered answers closer to the people who needed them.
It was launched. It became quiet. And now, years later, we are trying to build it again with everything we have learned since that first conversation.
Some ideas survive because they succeed immediately.Some survive simply because they were never finished.