IBM logs on to SEWA

Ahmedabad
The Times of India
Thirty-eight-year-old Kensuke Kobayashi from Japan, an IT architect, is busy developing a user friendly computer application for members of Self Employed Women's Association (Sewa) and will help connect its rural members on a regular basis for their day-to-day needs by creating a database.

Kobayashi is among a group of IBM employees from Brazil, Canada, Ireland and Germany who have voluntarily opted to work in Ahmedabad for a month on various economic and social problems like improving the livelihood of rural tribal community, security of self-employed women, using technology to connect remote locations to centralized information hubs related to disaster warnings, weather reports and others. They all are part of IBM Corporate Services Corp (CSC) launched in year 2008.

Vice-president, Sales India /Sales Asia, IBM India Private Limited, Vanitha Narayanan told TOI, "CSC is a corporate version of the peace corps- where IBM addresses core societal, education and environmental challenges by placing employees in developing countries." She added, "IBM professionals voluntarily travel to developing countries where they will work with local bodies and agencies for capacity building and skill enhancement. Only 100 candidates out of 5,000 were chosen after a rigorous selection process."

Over a period of four months, about 40 global IBMers will partner with nine NGOs in Ahmedabad and Mumbai such as SEWA, IndiCorps, Tribal Development Department of Gujarat, Friends of Women's World Banking, India, Pratham, among others to work on diverse social projects.

Director of SEWA Reema Nanavaty said, "SEWA has over 1.1 million members who have 31,000 micro enterprises in diverse sector. We needed a user friendly and cost-effective technology to increase our operational efficiency. Technical input from IBM will help us develop a multiple marketing strategy for our 'RUDI Ben' project which will generate more employment opportunities for rural women and also improve their livelihood."