Competing for a Cause

Adda52, a leading online gaming site with offices in Gurugram and Kolkata, has joined hands with Act Grants and Hemkunt Foundation by organising a cause-based poker tournament with the objective of providing Covid-relief to help and support people in rural areas. Excerpts from an interview with Shivanandan Pare, CEO of Gaussian Networks, which owns Adda52:

What did this initiative entail?
We decided to hold this tournament to help the people in need for Covid relief. We will be donating
twice of the revenue generated from this poker tournament to ACT Grants and Hemkunt Foundation, two credible notfor- profits at the forefront of Covid-19 relief initiatives.

What led to Adda52 tying up with ACT grants and Hemkunt Foundation?
It is because Covid-19 has created havoc in rural India due to slow and limited supply of life saving support such as oxygen concentrators, medicines, vaccines and testing kits. It is a chronic situation which is detrimental to the rural health system in terms of the quality and availability.

Could you give some details about the tournament: its duration, number of participants, etc?
With the aim of contributing to the fight against Covid-19 in rural India, we held our tournament over a period of seven days in late-May. With 49,397 players and 254 tournaments held over the week, the initiative has yielded a total contribution of Rs 50L from Gaussian Networks.

Has the company taken part in any other relief efforts/donation, either by itself or in association with others?
We had also planned another similar activity last year with a fiveday long tournament, wherein the amount raised was donated to PM Relief Fund.