Click on common good

Microsoft's guide to turkey farming and Madhubani painting as it touches the lives of the underprivileged.

Recently, Akhtar A Badshah, senior director, global community affairs, Microsoft, was in New Delhi to address a press conference. It was not a new software initiative.

Instead, it was about the nearly 15 million people that Microsoft had reached out to via some 600 NGOs in 98 countries over the last four years.

In 2004, the software company had launched Project Jyoti in India. Its mission: to make IT empowerment as deep as possible. "We want to make a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities in rural India," says Badshah.

Microsoft has already pumped in almost Rs 30 crore, and will invest another Rs 2 crore on the project. "From cradle to career, that's the way we want IT to penetrate the lives of people," he continues.

Microsoft runs partnerships with nine NGOs in India, including Mahila SEWA Trust, Drishti, NASSCOM Foundation, Udayan and M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF).

"The impact of the company's efforts," pitches in Vikas Goswami, lead, CSR, Indian subcontinent, Microsoft, "have reached different parts of India, including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, New Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal..."

What's interesting is that Microsoft's efforts are not the usual handouts that end up doing corporate consciences more good than their intended beneficiaries.

For instance, it has tied up with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to provide a variety of designs to chikankaari workers in Lucknow. "They use MS Paint software deftly for their work and designs now," smiles Goswami.

There's more. In Tamil Nadu, self-help groups have been encouraged to use software in such unusual projects as turkey farming. Then there are others who are using Microsoft software in henna designs, stitching, and even Madhubani paintings.

"Why," adds Goswami, "we have even managed to open our community technology learning centres (CTLCs) in traditional madrassas."

It makes long-term strategic sense too, in ensuring that as more and more people adopt computers, the standard software in operation remains the stuff turned out by Microsoft.

Such is the motivation among company employees that many of them travel using their own money to Bhutan, Poland, South Africa and many other far-flung places to help people learn the use of modern software.

"Since its inception," says Badshah, "Microsoft has encouraged employees to be sensitised towards issues that concern deprived communities."

The payoff, in terms of goodwill or otherwise (in a business of software standard ownership, every user habituated to your stuff counts), could come many decades later. But that's not the objective Badshah is talking about.

The social gains of empowerment are far more immediate. So, for now, everytime a young woman clicks a mouse or punches a QWERTY keyboard at a Seelampur madrassa, Microsoft counts it as a success.