Soundarya Pradhan, a visually-challenged chess genius from Nuapada district, has developed a website that makes chess more accessible to the blind. Pradhan, 22, is counted among the top three blind chess players in India and started working on the software application in 2019 for his own convenience. In 2022, he decided to make it available to the public and launched the website accessiblechess.herokuapp.com. “The website is more user-friendly for blind chess players compared to the existing ones they use to learn and play chess. Almost all of India’s top blind players are using my website because it helps them play with ease,” he told the Times of India.
Pradhan, who has been blind from birth, began playing chess when he was 10 years old. He currently works as a manager at HSBC Bank in Gurgaon. His website also supports popular chess applications like Chessbase India, Fritz, and Winboard.
Pradhan claims that his website can interpret diagrams, which other screen reading software like JAWS and NVDA cannot. For designing the website, he has been nominated for the universal design award by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), a private organization that partners with the government to create policies on disability issues.
He won a gold medal in the ninth International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) contest and was part of the world team chess champion for the blind held in Ohrid, Macedonia from July 28 to August 7 this year. He also won a silver medal in men’s rapid team chess in the third Asian Para Games held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Pradhan is currently ranked as one of India’s top three blind chess players.
