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In addition, the companys efforts to encourage students to develop an interest in science has resulted in TryScienceunder which it has donated sixteen TryScience kiosks to science and technology museums in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Trichyapart from supporting a series of workshops focusing on science and creativity for over 150 teachers and students in Bangalore in partnership with the Bangalore Association for Science Education.

While most companies have concentrated their energies on Indias primary and secondary school education, the higher education system too is crying out for overhaul. Archaic teaching methodology and outdated syllabi are a few challenges. Companies like Cisco and HP have focused their CSR programs for this hitherto neglected segment.

Cisco India has been running its Networking Academy (NetAcad) program to train students to design, build and maintain computer networks. Currently, there are over 190 Cisco Academies across twenty-two states and union territories with 12,294 currently active students, more than 24% of which are women students.

HP Indias Teaching Grant program meanwhile has given away Rs 90 lakh in FY 07 for supporting the development of mobile technology environments in higher education environments. Apart from helping each university establish a mobile learning (m-learning) center where students can access content using hand-held computers; enterprising students can also submit project proposals to a project incubation center that has been set up under this grant. In 2007, the technology for teaching grant was awarded to IIT Guwahati and to Anna University and Jadavpur University in 2006.

EMC Indias program, BridgeIT India, is intended to make engineering students industry ready when they enter the workforce. The company has entered in partnership with Junior Achievement India reaching out to 300 engineering students in Bangalore, offering customized course content and having interactive volunteers deliver sessions in these engineering colleges.

Oracle too addresses the challenge under Oracle education initiatives reaching out to around 1 lakh students and teachers in around 1,300 institutions through the Oracle Academy and Think.com programs.

Oracle Academy providing a portfolio of software, faculty training and certification resources reaches out to around 200 institutions including NIITs, IITs and IIMs. Apart from a tie-up with the Karnakata government for offering advanced computer science and business courses to fifty engineering colleges and hundred polytechnics. Oracle Academy has also partnered with Andhra Pradeshs sixty Jawahar Knowledge Centers.

Microsofts Jyoti intends to touch the lives of 1 lakh people to train in IT skills

Unlike HP, EMC and Cisco who are working in technology-related training programs, Accenture India has tied-up with Dr Reddys Foundation for its Livelihood Advancement Business School (LABS). The school trains youth from marginalized backgrounds to receive formal vocational training in BPO and IT courses. The company involvement comes in the form of re-designing the course curriculum as well as providing apprenticeship and final placement opportunities for meritorious performers.

Community Development
As the Congress-led UPA alliance rode back to power riding high on the success of the National Rural Employment Guarantee program (NREGA), rural India suddenly seemed to have come into the limelight. Indian IT companies are now using their technology expertise to solve community problems.

For connecting rural India to the development network to enable them to become part of Indias digital society, Cisco introduced the Lifelines India initiative in November 2006. A voice-based service for village communities providing them information related to agriculture, animal husbandry, horticulture, fisheries, dairy sciences.

A joint collaboration between BT, Cisco and OneWorld charity, the program is in support of the UN Millennium Development Goal on digital inclusion. Currently the program is being implemented in 150 villages in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

The company has also been involved in setting-up a comprehensive satellite based rural transformation initiative along with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and ISRO. As a part of the initiative, they have set up Village Resource Centers in rural areas to provide tele-education, tele-medicine, tele-agriculture, tele-fisheries and disaster warning and management services.

Lack of basic health amenities in villages prompted Intel India to undertake an eighteen-month long project for creating an inexpensive wireless solution to connect Arvind Eye hospital, a specialist hospital that has pioneered low cost eye surgeries to remote vision centers in Theni, a small district in Tamil Nadu that enabled reach and cure to 30,000 people suffering from eye ailments.

With most government aid reaching rather late to any disaster struck areas, coupled with inadequate assistance, corporate houses too come forward to provide monetary and material relief. During the tsunami a number of companies like Intel and Microsoft came forward to contribute.

A two-year endeavor, Intel sought to provide relief and rehabilitation to the tsunami hit Arcoduthurai village including reconstructing the demolished school buildings with a vocational training center, a computer center, a play school and a community center. Microsoft contributed by way of cash assistance worth $277,000 to the Prime Ministers National Relief Fund.

For fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship so that they become job providers rather than job seekers, HP India and Accenture have come forward. HPs Micro Enterprise Development Grant program has given away Rs 3.2 crore as grants in 2008 providing business training via the HP micro enterprise curriculum. In 2008, ten organizations in India were awarded the HP 2008 Micro Enterprise Development Grants namely South India Producers Association, Tide Development Research Foundation, Dhriiti, FOOD India, Saransh, Development Alternatives Group, Center for Entrepreneurship Development of Karnataka, Enable a Child, Entrepreneurship Development Institute India and AWAKE.

Accenture meanwhile runs an Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India implementing Micro Enterprise Development Programs for disadvantaged and unemployed youth across rural Karnataka receiving formal training on various aspects of entrepreneurship to enable them to earn a livelihood.

Ciscos Harvest of Hope program has fed around 7,500 governance school students

Children of a Lesser God No More
Confined to live on the margins, ignored by the mainstream society, women and the differently-abled section are now finding their place under the Sun; with IT companies now designing technology accessible to groups who are conventionally not associated with using technology.

IBM India supports the entire hardware and software requirements for the computer centers at the Mitra JyothiIBM Center for people with disabilities in Bangalore and Noida-based IETE-IBM computer center, dedicated to providing IT skills to visually impaired people and more recently at Dignity Foundation in Mumbai and Bangalore.

Even among the differently-abled, the intellectually challenged were the most marginalized with not even a single initiative that looked at using technology to help them overcome their disability, gain technical literacy and become a part of the new digital economy. IBM India was instrumental in the launch of Indias first comprehensive Assistive Technology Center, with the Spastic Society of Karnataka and PACER Center, with IBM donating the hardware and accessibility works software apart from working as volunteers in supporting the center. The new center would enable children and adults with any disability to participate more comprehensively in work and life.

Intel meanwhile partnered with NGO Amba for developing the technology curriculum and certification for program being offered by the Amba Center for Economic Empowerment of the Intellectually Challenged through eleven centers in India. Through this, 104 young people have been trained, seventy-nine placed in basic data entry jobs earning them dignity and acceptance in their own communities.

Another marginalized sectionwomenhave been at the core of Cognizants community development initiatives with projects like Shikhar and Ek Mouka employability training programs. While Shikhar is working to develop women to enable self dependence; the Ek Mouka program is working for the upliftment of women and adolescent girls through vocational training, access to education and health services.

Tech Mahindra too is running a program called Nai Raahena women literacy program intended for mothers with children studying in municipal schools.

Volunteering Anyone?
Apart from organizations contributing to societal development, employee volunteering is also an integral part of any CSR initiative wherein companies either match the employee donation monetarily or allow employees off days to work in NGOs of their choice.

Under Dells Road Run employees raise awareness program and funds for the Bangalore-based Freedom Foundation, which takes care of children affected by HIV, the employee donation is matched equally by Dell with over 1,200 employees having participated in the run raising Rs 20 lakh this year. Not just cash assistance, Dell employees also donate their time by adopting a class of forty children and teaching them until they pass their higher secondary at Christel House which provides free education for the underserved.

HP India has recently launched its first company-wide volunteering program allowing HP employee organizers to create and post volunteering opportunities and open them up to the entire base of employees for taking up.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

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