Tata Consultancy Services Limited, a global leader in IT services is leading the community response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Tata Group of companies and Tata Trusts have committed $200M towards a multi-prong approach including equipment, infrastructure, necessities, awareness & capacity building. As a strategic partner of the World Economic Forum, TCS is contributing to the COVID-Action Platform in partnership with the World Health Organization to address critical needs through TCS' expertise.
TCS is leveraging their R&D infrastructure to support high priority needs across the world. Some of our initiatives include a COVID-19 patient tracker (a quick and light platform for clinical trials), systems to rapidly collate effectiveness data in collaboration with pharma and medical institutions, drug molecule discovery using their patented technology and frameworks, and exploring promising ideas for affordable and effective ventilators and kits.
In the U.S., states are facing a tremendous challenges in disbursing unemployment benefits to a large pool of people who have made applications in the past weeks. In response to a call to action from the Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, TCS has pledged volunteer and pro-bono services on COBOL, mainframe and consulting to improve the capacity and performance of benefits systems. For New York State, TCS has formed a tech 'SWAT team' with the support of their employee volunteers to champion these efforts.
To address education interruptions, TCS has launched free and accessible virtual learning programs through their flagship education programs goIT and Ignite My Future in Schools. goIT has developed a project template that integrates the core elements of the program and that can be shared directly with students as an at-home virtual inquiry-based learning project. Students, teachers, and parents can also request feedback from TCS industry experts as they move through the content. For teachers holding virtual classrooms, TCS industry experts are available to video conference into the classroom. TCS’ Ignite My Future in School shares distance learning activities around computational thinking that teachers of any subject, grade, or student population can leverage and immediately put into action. In addition, the program offers an interactive digital platform, an open community of teacher leaders, and year-round engagement at https://www.ignitemyfutureinschool.org/. TCS is hosting weekly virtual training sessions to assist educators in delivering the content to their students, and once a week Virtual Career Day mini-series was developed to guide students about their careers and educators to bring relevancy into the classroom.
Additionally, TCS has opened up free access to their proprietary virtual learning platform - TCS iON Digital Glass Room- for any educational institution globally for the entire academic year. The program empowers educators to engage with students in real time by sharing lessons, videos, worksheets, assignments, and assessments. As an add-on, the platform also provides an embedded live classroom, which simulates the experience of a real-time transfer of knowledge. TCS iON also announced a free,15-day self-paced digital certification program called Career Edge, specially designed for university students and working professionals to enhance their digital skills during this period of lockdown. Through Campus Commune, TCS’ student engagement portal, TCS has a coding practice platform for the students to prepare, practice and challenge themselves for their World Class Global Coding Contest - Code Vita. This platform is available for all the students undergoing their undergraduate courses in science and engineering.
Digital entrepreneurs of TCS flagship BridgeIT program are resolving one of the biggest challenges impacting rural India by providing banking correspondent services. The entrepreneurs have created a system to ensure the cash transfers made by the government under various schemes is accessible to marginalized groups. Clusters of entrepreneurs are supporting 45,000+ people in rural India by facilitating average transactions worth USD $5600 every day. Supported by Primary Healthcare services, the entrepreneurs are also supporting access to emergency ambulance services for patients.
Globally, TCS has introduced employee donations through payroll giving for its 400,000+ employees and is enabling a corporate match. The nonprofit beneficiaries are localized to the region in which TCSers live and work and were selected based on need and impact such as Feeding America in the United States and the Canadian Red Cross in Canada. TCS is exploring opportunities to support their nonprofit partners through pro-bono consulting on IT projects, as well as virtual volunteering and mentorship programs to accompany their digital education programs.