We want to be a hub for tech for good in India: Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, Nasscom Foundation

A graduate of Delhi University and a Masters from the Delhi School of Social Work, Nidhi Bhasin spoke to indianexpress.com on the need for building a hub for tech for good in the country, the work done by Nasscom Foundation, and its efforts in digitally empowering the nonprofit sector in the country. Edited excerpts:

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us about some tech for good innovations which have come out of your overall programme and the impact they are having?

Nidhi Bhasin: Technology for good has been the core of our philosophy and our operations. We work across a large number of themes ranging from social innovation to women empowerment and we now have an Sustainable Development Goal lens to look at our programmes too. We look at how we can kickstart innovation at an early age with colleges and universities across the country with a variety of programmes.

We are trying to become a nodal point on tech for good, being the body to bring all stakeholders together. We find that there are a lot of players in this segment and things are fragmented. With our expertise and footprint in both the corporate and social sector, we find that we are rightly placed to bring about this convergence. We also hold annual tech for good conclaves bringing all the stakeholders together.

Here are some of the notable innovations that have come through our programmes. Savemom is one of the startups that we mentored which provides an IoT-based maternal healthcare solution to ensure effective monitoring and care for pregnant women in remote areas, contributing to the improvement of maternal health outcomes. Its focus is on detecting early stage maternal issues. It is a Harvard Business case study. We helped it with testbeds, and its work with women in rural areas is something of note.

Alveofit is another startup that we mentored. It allows one to easily and effectively manage asthma using an inbuilt machine learning system that understands the triggers, symptoms and medication usage patterns based on which it provides relevant insights.

“We are trying to become a nodal point on tech for good, being the body to bring all stakeholders together,” Bhasin says. (Express photo by Jithendra M)

Giftolexia was another startup mentored by us which focussed on learning disabilities in rural areas. Most of the learning disabilities in rural areas go undetected for a long period of time, and by the time it is recognised, it is too late.

Giftolexia’s mission is early identification and right remediation. We also worked on how schools and industries could adopt these tools and techniques and help their children. Cograd was another startup which is in the skilling space.

We identify these initiatives and startups in colleges, when students attend our Tech Challenge programmes.

We work actively with colleges, invite ideas to help social problems, and work with students to help create prototypes. We also have a few accelerator programmes, we help find testbeds, help them to scale up and also enable seed funding.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: What are your learnings/insights from your tech for good conclaves? Has tech for good become an integral part of business operations?

Nidhi Bhasin: We are wondering why nonprofits need to reinvent the wheel on using tech. Corporates already have solutions and are willing to share for causes which they think are relevant to them, and nonprofits and civic groups are looking for such solutions. We are looking at whether we can help them to collaborate. We want to be the bridge to help these innovators, connect them to CSR funding, and also guide them to use these solutions for social enterprises and nonprofits.

Tech for good has not yet become an integral part of corporate thinking or activity in India. However, there are some great initiatives, including volunteering by large corporations. We have some good success stories. We see that skill-based volunteering programmes work to a certain extent, when we get problem statements from nonprofits, and then have the tech teams of corporates come up with the solutions. For tech for good to become an integral part of a company’s policy, it would take some time.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us about your social innovation programme and innovations that have come out of it?

Nidhi Bhasin: We have a very robust student innovation programme and have created 60 innovative solutions so far. Many of them have gone on to become startups. These are from the hundreds of innovative projects that have passed through our programmes and many of them have sustained themselves and are continuing in one form or another. Among the interesting ones that we built is Raahee Wellness, a mental health solutions company working to eradicate the stigma around mental health and provide therapy at an affordable cost. We have startups working on automated parking solutions, on reducing carbon footprints, drones in agriculture etc.

Some of these startups joined us at the pre-incubation stage. We are mentoring them to be a part of our accelerator programmes, where we assist them in integrating AI components into their solution, with the aim of helping them achieve a meaningful impact on society.

Talking about Nasscom’s “impactful intervention”, Bhasin recalls ChildLine — a nonprofit which works with children in distress — where they worked on a solution to unclog their call centre lines. (Express photo by Jithendra M)

We have a variety of programmes like ThingQbator, where we connect around 35 universities and colleges, receive thousands of applications for new projects, shortlist a few of them and provide seed funding. We have connected with almost 30,000 students through these programmes.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: You talk about digital empowerment of the nonprofit sector. How does this work?

Nidhi Bhasin: We work with nonprofits in a variety of ways. First, we connect nonprofits with corporations which want to donate software. This kind of donation has helped smaller nonprofits as they need not buy expensive software. We are connected with almost 10,000 nonprofits and a large number of them benefit from the software donations by companies. We also help nonprofits digitise their operations, creating MIS and other software required for their operations.

Our impactful intervention was with ChildLine — a nonprofit which works with children in distress — where we worked on a solution to unclog their call centre lines. They were getting a lot of calls from children in distress and from their own field staff and perhaps it was not structured properly.

We are also building a learning management solution TechShila for nonprofits, where they can use it to train their volunteers or their employees. This would help them to stop reinventing the wheel of purchasing new LMS or building and working with sub optimal solutions.

We also have a Tech Baithak wherein we bring 20 leading nonprofits from various sectors and have a brainstorming session with them on understanding their tech problems. It gives us a rare insight into their issues. During our tech for good conclaves we also have something like Tech Clinic for nonprofits, where they get to clear all their doubts and we have mentors who are available to interact with them.

We are, in the future, looking to build an online version of Tech Baithak, wherein all the tech-related tools, resources, solutions and free software are available in one location and nonprofits and corporates can interact seamlessly online.

“We also have a Tech Baithak wherein we bring 20 leading nonprofits from various sectors and have a brainstorming session with them on understanding their tech problems,” Bhasin says. (Express photo by Jithendra M)

Venkatesh Kannaiah: You have a volunteering programme. Have tech companies taken to volunteering in a big way?

Nidhi Bhasin: Over the years we have had 30,000 corporate volunteers connect to various nonprofits and other social sector orgs through our organisation. Over the last 3-4 years, around 30 corporates have been intensely involved with us, and we are looking at providing more meaningful tech-based volunteering. Some of them now help in our skill-based programmes providing classes on Python and AI for underprivileged children. We want to have a mix of both feel good volunteering like planting trees, with more intense tech solution building for nonprofits. Volunteers mentor on software, hardware, scale-up and spend time on campuses.

Venkatesh Kannaiah: Can you tell us of your efforts to mainstream inclusion in the tech industry?

Nidhi Bhasin: Tech industry in India is a leader when it comes to inclusive practices. For example, the gender gap is much less in the tech industry than the other sectors. However, there is a substantial dropout as women progress in their careers and in the workforce. This is the challenge that we are working on. When the leadership is involved things move, but if it is merely ticking some box in some report, then things fall by the wayside. We have programmes on keeping women in tech, work and grow in the industry,with programmes on gender and disability. We are also a part of the global inclusion summit, where we bring the industry and the sustainability community together.

ESG compliance is catching on in the tech industry, but not yet caught fire. Issues like inclusive sourcing and supply chain compliance are being discussed, but will take time for us to see the fruits of these ideas.