Digital Inclusion and Skoch

Skoch Development Foundation was set up about a year and half back to look at poverty issues. We have had two interventions directly in this time period. One is we have adopted a little village called Sangram in Arunachal Pradesh at Indo-China border. This is inhabited by Nishi tribals. It is a subsistence economy where we are supporting a school. The second intervention which we have is in Mohand in Saharanpur where we bring similar educational intervention with the Ban Gujjars. Ban Gujjars are migratory shepherds, and when they travel their children can get educated so we are trying to get a mobile school that travels with them and continue their education. So essentially the whole idea behind setting up the Skoch Development Foundation was (a) to create a think tank which gets into policy issues and (b) also to have a first hand feel of what the felt needs of the poor are and what is it that we can really do to alleviate some of that.

Skoch actively works towards ICT-led improvement of citizen services delivery systems. These include governance, banking, financial services, health, education and infrastructure amongst others. Skoch organizes industry leading conferences to drive thought leadership in these areas. It also runs an independent ICT Think Tank. Team Skoch traverses the country to create knowledge repositories of what works and actively engages with all stakeholders from policy makers to ordinary citizens to share this knowledge for advancement of India through learning from best practices. Best of such efforts are saluted through the Annual Skoch Challenger Awards.