SAP, NASSCOM Foundation To Open 25 More Digital Literacy Centres In12 Cities Across India

BANGALORE (November 2015):   SAP India and the  NASSCOM Foundation joined hands recently to open  25 new National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) centres in 12 cities across India.  The states of Delhi, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, West Bengal, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu will benefit from this collaboration.

The NDLM centres will equip young men and women from underprivileged communities with computer skills, teach them to send e mails, use social media and leverage the internet to access online government services, like registering for Aadhaar cards, ration cards, PAN cards, etc.  Additionally, identified meritorious beneficiaries will be provided further employable skills and advanced training in subjects like coding, HTML5, SAP Lumira and Internet of Things.

SAP India also plans to bring its existing 15 computer training centres under the NDLM umbrella in the next couple of months. Since January 2015, SAP has trained over 7000 young men and women at these 15 centres. SAP’s long-term aim through the NDLM programme is to train 100,000 individuals in digital literacy over the next 3 years.

The launch announced in the presence of Dr. Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India, aims to strengthen the Government’s flagship ‘Digital India’ programme.

"SAP is committed to the vision of Digital India and strongly believes that it is key to transforming India into a technology driven entrepreneur superpower,” said  Dilipkumar Khandelwal, Managing Director, SAP Labs India and Executive Vice President and Global Head of Suite Engineering, SAP SE.  “We are proud to be the national partner for the NDLM programme. This collaboration will help us equip women and youth from the marginalized sections of the society with IT skills for a better livelihood.”

Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation said, "This partnership epitomizes industry’s commitment towards Digital India. We encourage more and more corporates to take SAP’s example and utilize their CSR funds for strengthening the digital literacy initiative as we attempt to bridge the digital divide."

NASSCOM Foundation is the industry partner to the Government of India to accomplish the first phase goal for NDLM or ‘DISHA’ by making 525 milliion  individuals in India digitally literate in the next three to four years.