The eighth year of the NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum, arguably India’s largest Social Innovation honours with 1000+ applications year on year culminated in the award ceremony, honouring the 10 winners of this year at the industry’s premier event – the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum. In the context of the Government’s Digital India and Make in India programs, technology led social development initiatives are all set to take centre stage. Ten of these projects across the thematic areas of Education, Skills, Accessibility, Health, Women’s empowerment and other social issues, will receive INR 70 lakhs as catalytic grant and industry led mentoring through the NASSCOM Foundation.
IT giants Mphasis and Genpact have been long time supporters of the Social Innovation Forum and continue to support social innovations through the initiative. Projects with the potential to bring transformative change in the fields of Education and Skills respectively will be supported by the two organizations, as a part of their CSR activities.
After a rigorous two level selection process, 11 projects were chosen from among 1200+ entries this year. The winners include:
| Category | Winner |
| Primary and Secondary Education | vChalk Education
CFBT Education Services Humana People to People India (HPPI) Educate Girls |
| Skills and Employability | Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled
Rankskills Knowledge International Pvt Ltd |
| Accessibility | Innovision |
| Health | Sohum Innovation labs India Pvt. Ltd |
| Women’s Empowerment | Sukhibhava Healthcare Solutions Private Limited |
| Other Social Issues | OnionDev Technologies Pvt.Ltd.(FormerlyGramvaani |
| Youth Innovators | Haqdarshak |
The grand jury that selected the winners comprised of many renowned industry stalwarts like Amit Aggarwal, SVP – Learning & Development, Genpact; Arun Seth, Non-Executive Chairman, Alcatel-Lucent, India; BVR Mohan Reddy, Founder and Executive Chairman, Cyient and Chairman, NASSCOM; Ganesh Ayyar, CEO and Executive Director, Mphasis; Ganesh Natarajan, Vice Chairman & CEO, Zensar technologies and Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation; Neeraj Aggarwal, Managing Director, Boston Consulting Group, India; R Sukumar, Editor, Mint; Sandhya Vasudevan, Managing Director & Chief Operating Officer, Deutsche Bank Group India.
Genpact is a frontrunner in employability driven skilling of the underserved youth of the country through its CSR intervention – the ‘Reach Higher’ initiative. Commenting on the partnership with NASSCOM Foundation in the search for scalable skilling solutions, Mohit Thukral, Senior Vice President and Business Leader, Genpact said, “With the Government of India’s aspiration to train 150 million people by 2022, this is a pivotal moment in the history of vocational skilling in India. With so much to achieve in so little time, Genpact in partnership with NASSCOM Foundation’s NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum is looking towards various different social innovations to help create a talent pipeline from the underserved youth of India, truly generating long-term sustainable impact ”
As a firm believer of technology being a viable solution to improve and India’s Primary and Secondary Education landscape, Mphasis continued its support of NSIF this year. Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Ganesh Ayyar – CEO, Mphasis said, “Technology enabled social innovation holds tremendous promise. We believe that Digital Technology can revolutionize the field of learning especially at Primary and Secondary Level. We are thrilled to partner with NSIF to contribute to the government’s progressive agenda of transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Through NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum, we have tried to find the best technology solutions to bridge the literacy gap across India.”
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation said, “In a complex world, with increasingly complex problems, technology seems to be the only hope to bring the social solutions to fruition by providing them the reach and amplifying their impact. NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum is trying to find and nurture the right fit techno social solutions to create a meaningful impact which results is faster growth of our country. I would like to congratulate the winners and believe that these solutions can fuel a positive change towards solving the problems in Skills, Education, Accessibility for all, Health and Women empowerment among other social issues. ”
As India’s leading “Tech for Good” platform, the Forum receives interest from numerous innovators each year from far corners of the country. Through focussed support, the Forum has helped scale some of the most impactful initiatives fostering inclusive development.
