Since 2010 We’ve Skilled Over 280,000 People In India: Rekha Menon, Accenture
With socioeconomic disparity still being a major issue in India, skill-training and employability becomes a critical factor in empowering the youth of our country. In an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld, Rekha M Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director, Accenture India, shares her organization’s initiatives in creating community impact and skilling youth for employability and entrepreneurship. Edited excerpts:
What are some of the initiatives by Accenture to create greater community impact?
While economic growth continues to be strong and technology innovation transforms lives, socioeconomic disparity remains an issue. Our flagship CSR initiative Skills to Succeed is aimed at enabling employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for vulnerable communities including women, youth and PwDs. Through Tech4Good, we use our digital innovation capabilities to drive positive social impact. Finally, as a people oriented business, we are committed to becoming the most diverse workplace, ensuring that we help create a level playing field for the disadvantaged communities including women, PwDs and LGBTs.
How is Accenture driving technology innovation to drive social impact?
Accenture Labs’ Tech4Good initiative leverages digital innovation to address societal issues, and to date, this initiative has resulted in a wide variety of socially minded partnerships and programs. Accenture Labs in Bangalore has developed an accessibility solution called Drishti using Responsible AI to empower the visually impaired, in collaboration with the National Association for the Blind. Another example is ‘Million Meals’ a collaboration with Akshaya Patra, the world’s largest NGO-run Mid-Day Meal Program to increase the number of meals served to children in government aided schools. Among other technologies, the team used IoT sensors to monitor and sequence the cooking process to ensure optimum energy consumption and consistent food quality.
How is Accenture aiming to increase employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for underserved communities?
Through our Skills to Succeed initiative, we focus on demand-led skilling and creating a strong talent pipeline that is easily employable, and we partner with the right organizations, combining their expertise with our own to deliver sustainable impact at scale. We have identified five sectors that have the maximum potential for employment and match our business capabilities and expertise. These include business process outsourcing, hospitality and facilities management, retail, construction and micro enterprise. Since 2010, we’ve skilled more than 280,000 people in India.
What is Accenture’s Social Innovation Architecture?
Our social innovation architecture harnesses the capabilities available across Accenture to develop sustainable, disruptive and scalable solutions, and address a wide range of complex societal issues across multiple sectors and geographies. Different entities across Accenture such as Accenture Research, Accenture Labs, Accenture Liquid Studios, or Accenture’s Delivery Centres work together to drive innovation.
How does Accenture facilitate employee volunteering for creating impact?
Accenture has a robust volunteering program which includes the right access channels, information and training courses. Employees use this to volunteer their time for community development through programs with nonprofits and their beneficiaries. Our global online volunteering platform, myCorporateCitizenship, makes it easy to volunteer- and in our last fiscal, our people donated more than US$9 million and 700,000 hours to charitable causes.
What is unique about Accenture’s social impact initiatives?
Three factors make our social impact initiatives unique: our global focus on skilling which allows us to get to the heart of key socioeconomic issues; our Social Innovation Architecture which brings together our diverse capabilities as an organization to offer solutions that deliver real impact; and our holistic approach to extending support through grants, employee giving, and imparting skills by sharing our own talent, know-how and capabilities through pro-bono programs.
What does the future hold for Accenture’s social impact initiatives?
Under Skills to Succeed, by the end of 2020, Accenture will equip more than 3 million people globally with the skills to get a job or build a business, and through Tech4Good, we will continue to invest in technology innovation that makes a meaningful difference to the lives of the underprivileged.
