Giving back to Society

Mindtree strongly believes in the critical roles that businesses play in shaping communities that they operate in. Contributing to the society is embedded in Mindtree’s Mission Statement. Over the years, we have structured our own social initiatives and created an enabling environment for our Mindtree Minds to engage local communities in an impactful manner. As a global corporate citizen, with the sole intention of giving back and without any expectation of return, our commitments towards ‘giving back’ have gone far and beyond regulatory mandates – we believe as a global leader in the technology space, we can leverage our internal capabilities to create solutions that lead to inclusive societies.

The social obligations of Mindtree are delivered through three modes – as Corporate Social Responsibility programs implemented by Mindtree Foundation through grassroots NGOs, encouraging volunteering activities among our Mindtree Minds and supporting Mindtree.org. In the last year, through these initiatives, Mindtree reached out to over 30,000 human lives.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Total spend (INR Millions)

• FY18 : 124
• FY 17: 109

Total outreach (Human lives)

• FY18 : 23,836
• FY 17: 32,117

Our investments in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are aligned to our CSR policy and are implemented through the Mindtree Foundation. Since 2014, we have streamlined our CSR activities to focus on promoting Education, Livelihood generation and supporting development of People Who are Differently-abled (PWD).

We have collaborated with grassroots NGOs with sound technical expertise and strong community connect to deliver our CSR projects across 12 locations. Our block concentration approach ensures higher cost efficiencies and ensures penetration of outcomes. Further, acknowledging that development needs of societies are multi-dimensional and require holistically planned interventions, we are continuously striving towards implementing integrated CSR projects. ‘Sanchalana’ is an example of one such project that links education and livelihood generation components to provide a better quality of life to PWDs. The project with NGO ‘The Association of People with Disability’ has impacted 291 PWDs during the current year.

Learning from our experience with integrated development projects, we took a step further on our charter of social inclusion through the Samrudhhi Abhiyan. This new initiative in Kanakapura, Karnataka addresses gaps in education system/delivery, health and sanitation and sports development for thousands of children attending government schools. The Karnataka State Government taking notice of the outcomes of Samrudhhi Abhiyan has adopted the program and is scaling it up in other schools across the state.

Under the thematic areas of supporting PWDs, Mindtree has partnered with Aravind Eyecare since 2005 to develop solutions that will transform the lives of visually impaired individuals. In the last FY, we presented prototypes for DIGNIΦ (Digital Nethra for Eye) and VIKAS (Visual Intervention Kit with Analytics for Special Children) to Aravind for further testing and validation.

• DIGNIΦ , an Android based application, converts printed text image into audio inputs to the headset of the low-vision or visually impaired user. While it is currently available only in the English language, the plan is to launch it in 23 Indian languages going forward. In the future, it will also have capabilities of converting charts, diagrams and pictures to audio.
• VIKAS helps parents or care takers of children with Cognitive Visual Dysfunction (CVD) to conduct optical and perceptual function exercises at affordable prices at home.

Highlights of 2017-18 across thematic areas of focus

Education initiatives

• 13,395 students in Govt. schools learn basic Mathematics and Kannada in Kanakapura block under Mindtree Foundation - Sikshana project
• Agastya Mobile Science Labs reaches 6,000 children in 72 schools across Pune (Maharashtra) and Kanakpura (Karnataka)
• Under Suvidhya, 800 students from 5th - 7th grades learn Math and Science through tablets and technology platforms in Kanakapura
• 26 meritocratic students from underprivileged backgrounds in Kanakpura identified to pursue medical education under Narayana Health

Livelihood initiatives

• 1,400 rural youth in Koratagere were provided training in skills such as computer data entry, tailoring and embroidery, electrical motor winding, electrical wiring etc. under a partnership with BRDO
• 125 prison women skilled - which helps them earn remission from their tenure of punishment
• Under UMBC partnership, 52 urban poor women and youths in Bhubaneswar (Odisha) provided with entrepreneur skills and computer education to create sustainable livelihood opportunities
• 40 urban poor women are provided with livelihood skills needed to teach and nurture children from Balvadisin Bangalore, Karnataka, through KSCCW

Support for PWDs

• 291 differently abled children in rural Bijapur, through APD, provided with mobility aids, corrective surgeries, physiotherapies and access to school education
• 514 differently abled children in rural Tiruvallur (Tamilnadu) provided with early interventions - home based physiotherapies through SPASTN
• 75 differently abled children in Bengaluru (Karnataka) supported with education fees, corrective surgeries, assistive devices and physiotherapies through KSCCW
• In partnerships with AMBA, 247 intellectually challenged youth across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were offered placement linked training computer data entry operations
• Several prototypes of assistive technology for PWDs are being developed in partnerships with experts such as Aravind Eyecare, SPASTN etc. These solutions being worked on by Mindtree Minds will benefit differently abled individuals.

Volunteering at Mindtree

Mindtree Foundation conceptualizes and facilitates the volunteering programs for the Mindtree Minds to participate. The in-campus volunteering activities like Blood-Donation, Stem-Cells Registration, Clothes Donation are facilitated along with the motivation and support from the senior leaders. For the out-reach programs like Technologists for Social Action (TSA) and Joy of Giving events Mindtree Foundation provides the transportation facilities and the food, organized through its core volunteers and field workers from NGO partners.

6,761 Volunteers

6 Projects undertaken in the FY 17-18

6,219 Lives impacted

Our highly motivated and socially conscious Mindtree Minds contribute both time and money to Mindtree Foundation’s initiatives. Many of our CSR projects are selected such that there is scope for our Mindtree Minds to participate based on their skills and interest areas. Additionally, they also organize a multitude of initiatives such as blood donation drives, tree planting, regular visits to homes for underprivileged and neglected, stem cell registration, clothes donation etc.

IG (X) initiatives and platforms

INR 194.6 Million Investment

472,873 hours invested to build such platform

5 Domain solutions

46 Partners including 10 platform partners

In 2014, the engineers at Mindtree started working on a digital platform that improves access to technology solutions and professional services for those in India’s informal sector. In a short span, Mindtree.org has been successful in reaching its vision of enabling social inclusion by supporting micro-businesses (in making them sustainable), creating a network of relevant eco-system players and providing linkages to sellers through a digital marketplace platform. The platform provides stakeholders, across government agencies, social businesses, donors and impact investors and community based organizations, access to domain specific solutions that can be further customized based on their requirements. Further, with data analytics capabilities of the platform, stakeholders can track their initiatives and ascertain the outputs and impact periodically – the updated dashboard also allows for in-time identification of issues and speedy resolutions.