Mindtree platform offers livelihood, skill solutions
, ET Bureau|
Dec 04, 2017, 11.13 PM IST
BENGALURU: Bengaluru-based IT company Mindtree has launched a new digital platform Mindtree.org, which broadly showcases the company’s domain specific solutions that at the moment include livelihood, skilling and education.
“We decided that what we know the best is to build IT solutions, so why not focus on building software platforms to make an impact on three quintessential domains including livelihood, skilling and education,” Prashanth Mehra, head of Mindtree.org, told ET. Citing an example, he said, “I spent two years in Bihar, a flood prone area understanding how we can leverage on it. So, we arrived at Madhubani district, with local consultation at a portfolio that was flood friendly.
I then started working with five farmers and in two years’ time, we were working in three different villages with collectively 170 farmers with a fourfold increase in income”. The company applied the same basic principle to waste pickers in Bengaluru. “My team members actually picked waste because you can’t ask a waste picker what is your IT requirement. To understand the on-ground challenges, we decided to become one and then solve it,” he said.
Today, any waste picker or farmer can go onto the platform and collaborate to find solutions and solve pertinent problems irrespective of geographies, he said. Mindtree is also planning to work with artisans through an organization called Indus Tree. “We are looking at this segment as creative manufacturing.
It’s not really handicraft, its manufacturing to be a viable business at the end of the day. So, we will treat it with the same discipline that is required for manufacturing,” Mehra said.
“We decided that what we know the best is to build IT solutions, so why not focus on building software platforms to make an impact on three quintessential domains including livelihood, skilling and education,” Prashanth Mehra, head of Mindtree.org, told ET. Citing an example, he said, “I spent two years in Bihar, a flood prone area understanding how we can leverage on it. So, we arrived at Madhubani district, with local consultation at a portfolio that was flood friendly.
I then started working with five farmers and in two years’ time, we were working in three different villages with collectively 170 farmers with a fourfold increase in income”. The company applied the same basic principle to waste pickers in Bengaluru. “My team members actually picked waste because you can’t ask a waste picker what is your IT requirement. To understand the on-ground challenges, we decided to become one and then solve it,” he said.
Today, any waste picker or farmer can go onto the platform and collaborate to find solutions and solve pertinent problems irrespective of geographies, he said. Mindtree is also planning to work with artisans through an organization called Indus Tree. “We are looking at this segment as creative manufacturing.
It’s not really handicraft, its manufacturing to be a viable business at the end of the day. So, we will treat it with the same discipline that is required for manufacturing,” Mehra said.
