In a first-of-its-kind joint corporate citizenship collaboration, two of India’s largest organisations, State Bank of India (SBI) – India’s largest commercial bank – and Oracle India have launched the ‘D-Change’ programme. The initiative supports prime minister Narendra Modi’s “Skill India” and “Digital India” plan and furthers Oracle’s commitment to expand within the region.
As one of India’s largest digital and joint employee-volunteer programmes, employees from both organisations including senior leadership, “D-Change” will support education and learning, women’s empowerment and rural skills development in India. Further reinforcing the 20-year relationship between SBI and Oracle India, “D-Change” will merge SBI’s financial expertise and expansive reach with Oracle’s technology leadership to help local communities drive substantial change and develop a skilled economy.

The key highlights of the D-Change programme are:

Education & Learning
Oracle and SBI volunteers will help enhance IT literacy among high school students, teachers and parents from over 100 SBI-supported government schools through an initiative called “Digital Kushalta ki Aur.” As the first project to be launched under “D-Change,” it will be initiated at Rotary Bangalore Vidyalaya in Bengaluru and Mandal Parishad High School, Kondapur in Hyderabad on August 6, 2016.

Employee volunteers will help develop information and communication technology (ICT) skills, which can enhance their digital fluency. Select teachers will be part of the initiative for CPD (Continuing Professional Development) initiative in order to continually update their skills and knowledge. Additionally, parents of the student participants will attend specially designed sessions facilitated by students to acquire basic technology skills.

Oracle volunteers will also conduct regular educative sessions on emerging technologies like cloud, mobile, and security, in order to help improve the student’s IT knowledge and give them a competitive advantage as they enter the workforce.

Women Empowerment
“D-Change” aims to build awareness and promote financial literacy among girls and women, especially those that are underprivileged. Education sessions will be conducted across multiple locations with the help from SBI and Oracle employee volunteers.

Volunteers will come together to empower and encourage girls and young women to consider careers in the IT field. The education sessions will take place every April. This initiative supports the International Girls in ICT Day, an initiative backed by International Technology University (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for ICT. Since 2011, International Girls in ICT Day has been celebrated in 160 countries around the world with more than 7,200 events and over 240,000 female participants.

Rural Development
This initiative aims to mitigate the unemployment problems of rural youth in India. Oracle volunteers will conduct workshops for SBI Rural Self Employment Training Institute directors and faculty. Utilising digital presentation skills will bring additional value to their existing Trainer’s Training Programme (TTP) on entrepreneurship development. SBI sponsors 116 Rural Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs). RSETIs train unemployed youth to help them get employed with desired skill sets. RESTI faculty members train nearly 70,000 rural workers every year.

Commenting on the initiative, Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, State Bank of India, said, “State Bank of India is a proud torch bearer of a glorious tradition of social service in the country. Through the ages, our bank has taken pride in reaching out to help the underprivileged in many ways. We are extremely excited and committed to this joint programme with Oracle, where we can leverage Oracle’s expertise and technology prowess to bring about an effective change in society through the digital revolution that India is going through”.

Loïc Le Guisquet, president, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Oracle added, “We are very excited to partner with SBI in this special initiative. For more than two decades, Oracle employees around the world, including here in India, have volunteered their time to improve the quality of life in communities where we live and work. Today, we extend our 20-year old relationship with SBI to support India’s mission of creating a digitally empowered society. Through this program, we will leverage SBI’s financial expertise and expansive reach with Oracle’s technology expertise to bring about substantial change in the community and support the development of a skilled economy. We are bringing together a very large employee volunteer strength to make this vision a reality.”

SBI Foundation, a subsidiary of Mumbai headqurtered State Bank of India (SBI)- India’s largest commercial bank – was launched in 2015 under the leadership of Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, SBI with the aim of channelising State Bank Group’s CSR activities in supporting India’s underprivileged population to live up to the potential they all possess.

Oracle Giving is the CSR initiative of Oracle – a leading global software firm – that aims to improve the quality of life in the communities where it does business.

Redwood City, California headquartered Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and platform services. For more information, visit www.oracle.com/in.