The Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind recommends Mr. Subhashish Acharya for extraordinary achievement. Over the past 5 years, Mr. Acharya has taught and mentored over 300 blind or visually impaired individuals globally, helping them transition to contemporary careers like sales, customer service, and project management. Through his digital training model, individuals can work remotely from anywhere as long as they have a computer, screen reader, and internet access. Mr. Acharya believes his model can create thousands of new jobs in areas like cloud prospecting, writing-as-a-service, and recruiting & sourcing by training unemployed individuals and connecting them with small businesses in the US. The Commissioner is impressed by Mr. Ach

1. CHARLIE BAKER
Governor
KARYN POLITO
Lieutenant Governor
MARYLOU SUDDERS
Secretary
PAUL SANER
Commissioner
Tel.: 617-727-5550
800-392-6450
TDD: 800-392-6556
Fax: 617-626-7685
www.mass.gov/mcb
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Commission for the Blind
600 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
January 8, 2018
RE: Recommedation for Extraordinary Achievement: Mr. Subhashish Acharya
To Whom It May Concern,
I was appointed Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind (MCB) in August 2013 and serve
as the seventh commissioner for the agency. I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) at an unusually young
age of 4 and was declared legally blind in 1991. My personal experiences, extensive volunteer efforts, and
advocacy work have made me a strong leader and ambassador for the 26,000 legally blind residents of the
Commonwealth. I have worked for several large corporations in the past, hold an MBA, have led Executive
positions at several non-profits and am passionate about the cause of employment for blind / visually impaired
individuals.
I came to know Mr. Acharya's philanthropic work several years back. Currently, Mr. Acharya works at Oracle
with exceptional knowledge of the workforce trends of the future. He is also a current working student at Harvard
Business School Executive Education working on a leadership program called PLD, which I understand is a “rapid
fire” MBA for exceptional business professionals. For the last five years, Mr. Acharya has been teaching and
mentoring hundreds of blind/ visually impaired professionals globally, who are unemployed or underemployed
and helped create jobs and employment by building an extraordinary “digital” model of training. With his effort
in the last five years, I understand over 300+ individuals globally have been able to pivot to contemporary careers
such as Sales, Customer service, Business Writing, Recruiting/Sourcing, IT Accessibility and Project
Management.
Mr. Acharya's work is very important not only considering the benefit of the United States but, globally. The
visually impaired community has the highest unemployment rates in the USA and needs innovative employment
models in a fast-paced world of skill obsolescence. Mr. Acharya's model is contemporary and digital and equally
focused on industry demand for specific jobs that are typically being outsourced, which makes it globally unique.
His model has the possibility of scale for this community because individuals who are blind/visually impaired can
work from home instead of depending on transportation, as long as they have a computer, screen reader, and the
internet. Individuals can be anywhere in the USA as long as they are digitally connected, and post-training they
are assisted in connecting with small businesses in the USA to work as remote digital workers. The unique model
claims to create new jobs in the country; a second chance for marginalized workers; inclusiveness for a population
that has been deprived of opportunities and a springboard to get back to the workforce.

2. Mr. Acharya serves as a Business, Labor and Industry member of MCB’s Rehabilitation Council. The position is
Governor confirmed. From my direct discussions with him, I can only say I am impressed at his passion,
knowledge about the future of work and selflessness towards his purpose of helping solve the unemployment in
the country for blind and visually impaired professionals and other marginalized people. Mr. Acharya firmly
believes in the possibility of transforming unemployed individuals into sales professionals for cloud prospecting,
which he believes can soon create 10,000 jobs in the country, considering the presence of five thousand new cloud
startups who would need business prospectors. He also thinks writing-as- a service, which is typically outsourced
can be brought back to the USA by training workers who are blind. Another sector where Mr. Acharya believes
over 10,000 new jobs would be created or brought back to the United States is Recruiting & Sourcing of
professional candidates. He has produced several successful pilots and has observed very positive outcomes of
visually impaired individuals pivoting to this new career opportunity.
Mr. Acharya is extraordinary in his ability to put a unique employment model that is producing results through
skill development. He has the vision to build a Knowledge Processing Center staffed with visually impaired
individuals, veterans, ex-felons, jobless students, etc. in the USA that will offer several business services to small
and medium scaling businesses who need talented workers for short periods. Once these candidates achieve
exceptional job skills, they will be integrated with large corporations as employees, who in the past have only
hired a few candidates in the past. Changing this low intake is very important, however building the execution
strategy to create employment on a large scale will require resources, which he expects to learn at Harvard
Business School. This initiative will help small and medium enterprises. It may equally help thousands of
unemployed/displaced workers by launching a program very similar to the apprenticeship model, entirely free of
cost for trainees. He believes this can be a significant opportunity for the USA to re-skill unemployed population
and provide work opportunities at scale and keep jobs in the country.
I am proud to be associated with Mr. Acharya, and wish him immense success.
Sincerely,
Paul Saner
Commissioner
Massachusetts Commission for the Blind
www.mass.gov/mcb