Turkey’s Changemakers: Dream partner for visually impaired people

Sabancı Foundation Turkey’s Changemakers Program is continuing in its sixth season to share the unique stories of extraordinary people who contribute to the social development. The ninth Changemaker of the sixth season is Duygu Kayaman.

Kayaman lost her sight when she was 2.5 years old due to a lump behind her visual nerve. Kayaman, who communicates with the world through four senses, worked in the “Blind Leaders Project” of Young Guru Academy (YGA) that was established to raise socially conscious leaders. The project aimed to contribute to the economic and social development of visually impaired people. Later, Kayaman worked on the development of “My Dream Partner” application with the support of Turkcell that eases the access of visually impaired people to information. Currently she works at Microsoft as an inside sales specialist.

As a visually disabled person herself, the dream of Kayaman was ensuring easy access to books, newspapers, training and location information for people like her. She started working to realize her dreams and developed an application with the support of YGA. The application helped visually impaired users access daily news and articles, read audio books and get hundreds of trainings. They could also have access to location information of the closest hospital, pharmacy, school, bank branch, market and notary. Currently, 110,000 visually impaired people are using the “Turkcell My Dream Partner” application.