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A snowy day in October, 2018, is the most memorable day in Na Li\u2019s life. She walked into her office, wore headphones and skillfully operated the computer with screen off. With the quickly voiceover instruction from headphones, her fingers were rapidly click on the keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As one of the first visually impaired employees working for Internet company, Na Li\u2019s job is provide support for the artificial intelligence speaker, which we can say instruction like \u201cturn off the light\u201d and it the AI speaker can do. She give a classification for users\u2019 voice instructions and labelling them so that the AI system to learn those. With the development of artificial intelligence, there is an increasing demand on this job and rely on screen reading software, visually impaired people have the ability to finish it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recalling her first day at work, Na said, \u201cI was so excited to stand in front of a skyscraper. I could have a nine-to-five job just like ordinary people.\u201d Shanghai\u2019s subway is crowded, especially at rush hours, \u201cI felt that I was squeezed into a meat pie,\u201d but when she thought that she could work as ordinary people, she felt she is full of power. She also get a sense of achievement because she could train other colleagues with her experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Na said, \u201cFor me, it\u2019s not just a job or an income, but more importantly, it\u2019s a platform for me to connect with the mainstream society.\u201d However, it was not easy for her to get this job. She had applied for many jobs before, including clerk in ordinary companies and telephone operator, but when they saw Na\u2019s situation, they always say, \u201csorry, we need computers to do this job.\u201d She felt aggrieved because she knows how to use a computer but many companies don\u2019t want to give her a chance to show that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although people like Na in China who received training and worked with computer is still in a small part, with the popularity of screen reading software installed in smartphones and computers and the solution of compatibility problems on office software, even the help of commonweal organization, more and more visually impaired people are actually able to enter the enterprise. Na\u2019s team, which currently has 27 members, is working for a project of China\u2019s leading Internet company Xiao Mi and have cooperation with Qualcomm. As a blind engineer, Na witnessed the progress of technology, she said that, training time has been greatly reduced, and on average, one week can be started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the popularity of digital products among visually impaired group, many softwares that assist visually impairments to use appeared. Jun Cao is a visually impaired person, but he also has an identity, the CEO of \u201cBenefit listening\u201d, who developed the earliest and most widely used screen reading software in China. It is a software that can read the screen of digital products and has a special usage for visually impaired people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Believing that \u201conly the blind can understand the problem of the blind,\u201d half of the staffs in Jun\u2019s company are visually impaired and the office was paved with striking tactile pavements. A decade ago, he gave up his own massage store (blind massage: the most common job for visually impaired people in China) and started a technology company that designs and tests software for the blind. He said, \u201cin China, a blind man who has not work as a massage is not the real one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n