Knowledge lies ‘within’

Information technology is a knowledge workers’ industry, where labor is not defined as a sweaty brow, steady hands and two sturdy legs. What’s up for grabs here is the power of the mind, not the limitations of the body. Then again, a slew of adaptive technologies are now available to help overcome specific handicaps created by specific disabilities (see box). Traditionally, physically challenged people have found employment in low-end, low-paying jobs?manning STD booths, Class C and D positions in government offices, handing out water on railway stations. But software is now available that makes it possible for the blind to not only use a computer competently, but intelligently; that helps the deaf communicate over the phone; and aids people with severe motor disabilities to manipulate a cursor.

However, it’s not very easy to make traditional, old economy companies adopt such technologies. It is even more difficult to convince old economy managers to spend money on it. And in that sense, the IT industry is uniquely placed?after all, it creates these technologies and is therefore far more open to what are still seen as “experimental solutions”.

Which is really why and how Jyotindra Mehta, blind since birth, got his job at IBM India as mainframe programmer, and later, as systems administrator.

After 19 years in the US, Mehta wanted to return home. Stateside, there are laws that make life a lot easier for the physically challenged. But he knew that no such laws were in place in India. So he came with his voice synthesizer, some hope and a lot of caution, to hunt for a job. “I was well aware of the fact that my employers here would not provide me with any help. So I came prepared with my own voice synthesizer and adaptive software,” says Mehta. He also came prepared to go right back to the US if India didn’t find him fit enough to hold a decent job.

Almost by accident, he applied to IBM and was hired on a tentative basis. The understanding was that if the company found Mehta’s blindness too much of an obstacle, they wouldn’t keep him on. “The first six months were rough,” recalls Mehta. For his first assignment, IBM put him on a customer’s site in Delhi. The bad news was that the customer had really old computer systems that were not compatible with his adaptive software (most synthesizers need a multimedia system). The worse news was that the customer was the government-so it refused to provide him with a desktop that would run his software.

Thanks to IBM, however, Mehta hit lucky the second time too. His company gave him another chance. “After the first project, I sat with my employers to find an alternate project. I cam to Bangalore on a trial basis, but as time went by, things became increasingly congenial. The company realized I was doing my job well.” And what you have is a well-entrenched Mehta, today the lead systems administrator for IBM’s mainframe division in Bangalore. He is responsible for the S390 and all products loaded on it, high-level tech support to the operating system, database manager, mail server and Unix system services, among other things. He also has a team of five reporting to him.

Source: DATAQUEST
Issue: Dated April 30, 2001