In a world where accessibility is often an afterthought, Ms. Meghana Aduri, a youth advocate and founder of Vision Beyond Sight, is ensuring no student is left behind. Her grassroots initiative bridges the gap between marginalized communities and inclusive education, empowering visually impaired students and tribal children in India.

Inspired by her visually impaired music teacher, she began converting inaccessible print textbooks into digital formats. Today, she has digitized over 140,000 pages of school, college, and competitive exam content for print-disabled students. But she soon realized that content alone wasn’t enough—students needed the right tools to access it.

This led to Seedlings for Education, a community fundraiser where she organized plant sales and taught violin lessons to sponsor assistive devices like screen-reader-enabled laptops and smartphones. These efforts have empowered over 400 visually impaired students to learn independently.

Understanding that financial barriers hinder many from attending premier institutions like IIT and IIM, she launched a scholarship program covering tuition and hostel fees. With a unique “pay it forward” model, beneficiaries pledge to support another student once they are established, creating a cycle of empowerment.

Beyond urban educational access, she extends her impact to tribal villages like Allampally, teaching violin and coordinating access to educational resources. For these underserved regions, her efforts are about more than skills—they are about confidence, independence, and inclusion.

Her work has earned her global recognition, including being named a Top 100 Emerging Innovator by Horn Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware, receiving special honors from the City of Frisco, and becoming a semi-finalist in the Ashoka Foundation and Taco Bell Foundation’s Ambition Accelerator.

Through Vision Beyond Sight, she is proving that youth-led, community-driven innovation can create lasting change.