FRANCOIS VAN DER WESTHUIZEN
Erik Meyer, a masters student in financial management, donated a R10 000 touch screen computer to UP’s Disability Unit.
Meyer won the MSI Intel Core i3 touch screen in a competition held by Matrix Warehouse in Montana. “I knew that I wasn’t going to use this computer to its full potential and thought that the visually impaired students could use the touch screen technology more sufficiently,” Meyer told Perdeby.
Juan Erwee, senior admin officer at the Disability Unit, said, “It’s the first time since I’ve been here that someone has come on their own with a donation of this magnitude”.
Erwee explained that the computer was something that they could put to good use.
“Partially sighted students will benefit most from this computer. They will often lose track of where the mouse cursors are, so instead of looking for it on the screen, they can just touch an icon and open up something”.
Visually impaired students currently make use of a reading programme that reads the text on the computer screens to them. With this touch-screen computer, students can enlarge the text on the screen by simply tapping it and this will make it easier for students to see text and images on the screen.
Jan Boshoff, Managing Director of Matrix Warehouse, told Perdeby, “We are involved in a few institutions where we give help in the form of donations.” Boshoff explained that they launched the competition in order to establish the demand of their products in the student market.
Photos: Kobus Barnard