Gabriele Serpi

Gabriele Serpi, borned in Rome on the year 1980.
During the first years of Gabriel were just happy to have been due to his lack of communication with parents and other siblings were scattered in different families adottative, even his brother Joseph was entrusted to the grandparents because of the liveliness of Gabriel's parents could not deal with other children.

I have long been convinced that it's possible to teach IT to people who are as hearing impaired as I am, by providing a LIS interpreter (Italian Sign Language) even if the interpreter is unfamiliar with IT terminology – for it is not much use to deaf people, and not essential to understanding generally.
I knew there were six deaf colleagues, so I decided to tackle a fellow HR worker, and offer my services as a teacher to do a course for the deaf.
Hearing-impaired workers in firms often don't manage to develop their careers as well as others, and they frequently feel "useless" and "unprofitable for the company".
In October 2010 I was immensely excited as I realised my dream of many years: to teach IT to the deaf. Module 1 of the course, "Basic IT" tackled Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP in the Ubuntu operating system. These are essential subjects for anyone setting out to conquer the world of IT and aiming to acquire a common vocabulary they can use in discussions with more expert fellow-workers.

I wanted to stimulate them and communicate some self-confidence as well as IT
knowledge, so on Day One of the course I wrote on the flip-chart: "WILL-POWER, PATIENCE AND CONFIDENCE". Those I think are the three fundamental things anyone needs in order to develop and get on in IT. That's how I did it when I was seven: I just never gave in.
These students are now coming on, using their own will-power, growing in selfconfidence.

I hope I shall be able to take this dream further, and teach deaf workers from other IT firms as well, so they can be more thoroughly integrated into the world of work and improve the way IT workers think of deaf people.
What kind of world would it be for the deaf community, without IT? My motto is: "IT means making good people's hearing deficit".

Lastly, I'd like to express my thanks for the computer applications that have enabled me to pursue my career since 1987 without needing to hear.