The Nizhny Novgorod IDEA Center is based in the Computer Center of the Nizhny Novgorod boarding school for the blind and visually impaired. It was equipped through the school’s participation in a number of international and Russian grant contests. In June 2008, Microsoft volunteers remodeled the computer center for visually impaired students and re-equipped two more computer classes, installing Jaws for Windows, donated by Freedom Scientific and the Elite Group.

The Center has participated in the IDEA project since its very start in April 2006.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential training has created an additional opportunity for students with severe visual impairments to acquire computer proficiency and skills of working with basic Microsoft Office applications, fostering their successful integration into the mainstream society. One of the main challenges for the school’s alumni is continuing their education in colleges and universities, where large volumes of information are available mainly in the traditional printed format. Only ICTs enable blind and visually impaired students to receive and process information on a par with other students.

Thanks to the Microsoft Unlimited Potential courses, the school now has better curricula and more qualified instructors to teach visually impaired youth the essential skills of using basic computer programs. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of such skills in helping to integrate the visually impaired into mainstream society.

The Nizhny Novgorod IDEA Center has successfully implemented a number of projects including opening its own American English Center (2005, a project by Flex-01 alumna Kseniya Pozdeyeva), "Including visually impaired students into the national educational project Intel – TransTeleCom,” and “Time to Come Home,” organized together with Ariadne’s Thread, a Nizhny Novgorod NGO for rehabilitation and integration of children with disabilities.