Expert Chat with Raghavendra Sathish : Visually Impaired Entrepreneur

Hello Readers,

As a part of our “Birthday Interview Series“, today (23rd January) we are proud to introduce on our blog Raghavendra Sathish Peri, a visually impaired Entrepreneur, digital web accessibility consultant, digital marketer, blogger, speaker. It will take another 1000 words blog post to write more about this awesome personality.

So I am leaving few of the links of media where this fantastic gentleman has been featured. I bet you people will get admired for sure on seeing, viewing, hearing about his achievements despite being having a vision disability.

List of a few mentions about Raghavendra Sathish Peri

1. An interesting and inspiring article from NextBigWhat
2. Article from The Hindu newspaper
3. Interview by Laxmi Rebecca
4. A video from TEDxYouth

Gurunath Nakka: Let the readers of Best Of Guru (BOG) know Something about “Entrepreneur” Raghavendra Satish Peri.  How, Why and when did you start Blogging?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: I started blogging sometime during 2006 but I took it seriously during 2009. I moved to Bangalore & started a new life, I really got bored  & lonely..that is the time I took to writing. I got the domain ragava.in & published my first post on my 23^rd birthday  On My Arrival At The age Of 23.

This blog became the place where I poured my soul & where I opened myself to the world. I got a lot of good response from the blogging community & whenever I turn up at the Indiblogger community meet-ups I always meet a lot of them who admire my writings.

Why I blog:

There are many reasons for me to blog, the process of writing keeps me calm because I spend lot of time thinking & that thought process slowly evolves into a story that I want to tell the world. What I write is what happens around me & inside my own mind.

Gurunath Nakka: Explain your life in one simple sentence?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: I did some neat things for myself & I would like to do things that have not been done before.

Gurunath Nakka: What exactly  is Digital Accessibility consultant means to you?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: I have a very interesting job “Digital Accessibility Consultant” & I bet most of them who is reading this post will not understand what that means. In short if I have to explain I help  businesses make their web applications & mobile applications inclusive so that people with disabilities, elderly, color blind  etc can access the digital information. For the last 5 yrs I am doing this interesting job & I feel that I am making an impact each day, this feeling keeps me going.

Gurunath Nakka: Being Visually Impaired, what are the Challenges you have faced and how did you overcome?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: you can spend an entire day with me & you will never know that I cannot see the real world. I started losing my eyesight at the age of 8 & at the age of 14 doctors confirmed that it is a degenerative disorder called “Retina Pigmentosa”.

There are challenges everywhere & my challenges start the moment I get up from the bed & walk out of my room. Each step of my life there was a challenge & I always breezed through it. It was not easy I need to find help, I need to coach myself, I need to be mentally strong & there are a lot of I need…my family is biggest strength & there are those who are with me during my tough times. I always found help whenever I am faced with a challenge.

Gurunath Nakka: What are the abilities and possibilities you look at things in life from a different angle?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: I believe each one of us are unique & we all need to play according to our strength’s. I did some neat things for myself in life & going forward I want to give back to community, during my each phase of life I always found myself in a position that I will not be able to do a lot of things but I pushed myself hard &became as a winner sometimes while I failed a lot.

Gurunath Nakka: Apart from Blogging what else you are interested?

Raghavendra Satish Peri:  I will do trekking, running, listen to a lot of audiobooks, I enjoy cooking & spending time with nature. On weekends, you can find me in local meetup events/conferences or in a pub partying hard. In one sentence I am interested in everything & there are very few things that don’t get me high.

Gurunath Nakka: Was going through your wish list, how many got fulfilled and how are you planning for that?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: One midnight I made this wish list “101 things I will do before I die” & I was able to fulfil 5 of them for now. To pursue that wish list I need to spend a lot of energy & work myself up which I am not doing. When something comes my way I take it, this March I am going to California & I am planning for my “Sky Dive”. This wish list keeps me motivated &I believe there is this wish list that will keep me busy enough for a while.

Now that you asked I might be doing my “skydive, Scooba dive &  Solo trip of India” during 2016.

Gurunath Nakka: Tell us about digital Eyes and Running Legs?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: I was in a deep depression when I thought of running, this was during 2012. I was losing my eyesight at a rapid pace & all that pushed me into depression. I wrote about my running stories here  what it took to run my first 10k Marathon at Auroville, my attempt to run 21km at Airtel Hyderabad Marathon.

If you read those two blog posts you will understand what I went through physically & emotionally…the word “digital eyes” was given by “Virginia Sharma” who was Vice President at IBM. I had an opportunity to meet her & then she wrote a post on her blog.

I want to run more because it brought a lot of change in my life & especially I understood myself more than ever. Running is my meditating ground & where I am true to myself.

Gurunath Nakka: What is your advice for a kid who would like to start and make his/her career in blogging?

Raghavendra Satish Peri: It is easy to get started in blogging & very tough to stick to a schedule, making a career in blogging is a big thing. I would recommend to pursue it as a side thing apart from your professional life, while blogging pays well it needs a different drive & energy to make it as a full-time career.

Gurunath Nakka: What are the sources of income for a blogger? Name a few with details.

Raghavendra Satish Peri: When I got started in 2006 AdSense was the primary source & then I diversified to sponsored posts, Affiliate & other models. For example, Digital Challenger gets me some consulting, speaking & lot of training gigs that pay me a well.

Sometimes blogging is not always  not about money, it is a place where you build a brand for yourself & that brand will pay you back in the long run. With digitala11y, Digital Accessibility Blog, I am trying to achieve the same now & it is working out great. So I would say think of direct rewards less & concentrate what you can get from other avenues.

Raghavendra Satish Peri, we are thankful to you for giving us your valuable time. We are very glad to have your thoughts and personal experiences shared here with bestofguru.net. We are so happy to have your chat on this auspicious day of your Birthday and we wish you a Very Happy Birthday to you and have a great year ahead.

If you want to have more updated information as of today (July 2020), about Raghavendra Sathish, then please check his latest interview on our BestOfGuru channel:

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