To develop a village or a nation, citizen’s equal access to resources is vital. In the current scenario, access to Information Technology and e-services at a village level helps in providing information and same opportunities to the youth, children and adults at the grassroot level.
Humana People to People India in partnership with TCS Ltd. is implementing the BridgeIT Project in the aspirational districts of Latehar and Lohardaga in Jharkhand, which focuses on IT entrepreneurship for youth from Affirmative Action communities, Computer-Aided learning for school going children and computer-based functional literacy for illiterate women.
In October 2020, 32 youth who were trained under the Project successfully started their own businesses and are providing e-services in their own villages.
The Project encourages women to start their own livelihoods and thus with 29 females and 3 male entrepreneurs, the Project started with a one-day induction training in August where the chosen youth entrepreneurs were introduced to the project, concepts of Financial Literacy, entrepreneurship, communication skills, business management and marketing management. This was followed by a five-day training on digital entrepreneurship. In September 2020, a 4-day training was organised on IT skills specific for the project, during which the entrepreneurs received an IT Package comprising of Laptops and accessories to start their businesses.
Within the first month of the enterprises being set, the entrepreneurs have earned more than INR 19,000 with a huge demand for their services. Going forward, all 32 entrepreneurs will be continuously supported through multiple touchpoints building their capacities on entrepreneurship, use of the IT Package and provision of services, making their start-ups grow. With the help of these enterprises, the Project aims to bridge the digital divide of access and competency gap between marginalised communities and mainstream society using digital tools.
