HMD Global and the Shikhar Dhawan Foundation have announced a partnership to promote e-learning for underprivileged students in India who may not have access to affordable technology. This CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative is an effort to make education more accessible to all students in India, regardless of their financial circumstances. Sanmeet Singh Kochhar, Vice President of HMD Global, spoke with India CSR’s Rusen Kumar about how the initiative aims to improve digital education in India. Through this partnership, HMD Global and the Shikhar Dhawan Foundation hope to provide equal access to education and create a more equal and just society.
How do you look at India’s status of Digital education in the next 10 years with the rise of user friendly smartphones and rapid distribution of 5G in India?
Education is one of the most important pillars for a successful future. For students to acquire new skills, access to high-quality teaching and learning materials is a prerequisite.
Digital education helped millions of students in the country access better quality education and removed time and space constraints. Now with 5G in place, one can only expect improvement in the education system. The recently launched 5G in India will bring speed and reliability to digital networks across the country. The education sector is all set to benefit highly from this. Better speeds, sub-millisecond latency, reliability, and the ability to quickly transfer large amounts of data will help digital education proliferate much faster. 5G will also make the internet much more affordable for students, teachers, and institutions.
In the future, 5G will enable immersive virtual experiences. The ability to connect with other people and share ideas through holographic technology is one of the most exciting aspects of 5G. This would allow the sector to create new ways for students who need help with their studies such as those who are visually impaired or deaf-blindness sufferers who require additional support when taking exams that rely heavily upon written material alone rather than audio recordings being used instead!
What is the idea behind partnership with Shikhar Dhawan Foundation and your vision behind the same?
Technology and education have continually evolved hand in hand and it became powerful post the covid era because of the circumstances. Shikhar Dhawan Foundation is known to be contributing to the welfare of people from underprivileged backgrounds and largely educating the youth. Given the mutual vision, we decided to partner with them as we envision that these children get access to devices after school hours. In this way the students can also leverage digital devices at home and so learning never stops for them and simultaneously they can help others at home.
In order to align our vision with reality, we provided smartphones and tablets to students so that they could adapt to technological advancements in the education sector and continue their studies through online mediums. Children can further help their families understand technology, contributing to the vision of a Digital India. With this, we believe learning never stops.
This initiative is in tune to HMD Global’s commitment to ensuring everyone has access to affordable and long-lasting technology. Shikhar Dhawan foundation, share our values and ideals of creating deep and sustainable impact in people’s lives. We feel blessed to be able to support the journey of these bright young minds by equipping them with the right tools to further their education. As a part of HMD Global’s ongoing campaign, Smarter Banega India, we intend to empower people with the right technology. We will continue to undertake such social initiatives that align with the HMD Global vision and values.
Future plans with respect to partnership with SDF? How many drives do you plan to do under this partnership?
So far we have already conducted 4 distribution drives with Nokia Mobile Phones & Tablets worth 35 Lakhs in collaboration with Shikhar Dhawan Foundation. The idea was to help these underprivileged students to the best of our capabilities.
So far we have done 4 drives and moreover, we truly believe, this drive is not just about distributing devices, but also to analyse the growth and learning post the distribution of devices. Distributing is just one part of the goal we wish to accomplish. What we are aiming for is an empowered and inclusive education system. For this, the analysis and monitoring part becomes equally crucial.
How will this initiative help both sides of the table, that is, the students and the teachers?
The use of information and communication technologies in education can play a crucial role in providing new and innovative forms of support to teachers, students, and the learning process more broadly. In this emerging education landscape it is as important for students as well as teachers to be technologically well equipped.
With so much news about fake messages, it becomes difficult to decide what to believe and what to ignore. With the technology reaching the teachers, it becomes really helpful for children, as they can help them filter out incorrect information, and guide them in a holistic manner throughout. With so much information available on the internet today, the teachers can always take help whenever they are stuck, like new methods/techniques to make learning fun and more interactive.
Much more attention must be directed on how technology will enhance teaching and learning in a blended learning environment reaching students, both in school and at home.
What is HMD Global’s CSR plan/approach & vision?
Our endeavour is to make technology accessible to everyone. We at HMD Global – Nokia strive to democratise technology and reach every hand in the Globe. Moving forward, we will continue to bridge the technology-gap more and more.
With the advancement in technology we are equally focusing on techniques to control electronic waste management. We’ve been working extremely hard on our sustainability strategy since 2017, and our efforts are paying off. We were recognized by the sustainability rating agency EcoVadis, which awarded us with Platinum status in 2022, putting us in the top 1% of businesses and 98 percentile of companies audited for their commitment to sustainable practices in the manufacturing of communications equipment.
To demonstrate our commitment to people and our planet, we’re now integrating a sustainability management system directly into our business strategy covering four focus areas: Environment; Labor and Human Rights; Compliance and Sustainable Procurement.
