Digital Conqueror - Logo
Search
Close this search box.

WPP Foundation Inaugurates Its First Community Tinkering Lab in Mumbai With Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director – Atal Innovation Mission

 


Mumbai, Maharashtra, India:
 Working towards a strategic partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, WPP Foundation, the CSR entity of WPP in India, is launching a Community Tinkering Lab at Vidya Varidhi Vidyalaya and Junior College, a school supported by WPP Foundation in Nalasopara, Mumbai. Community Tinkering Lab, a creative innovation workspace was inaugurated by Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director – Atal Innovation Mission, Additional Secretary – Government of India; CVL Srinivas, Country Manager – WPP in India; Rama Iyer, Director General – WPP India CSR Foundation; along with Mr. Santosh Singh, School Principal – Vidya Varidhi Vidyalaya and Junior College and teachers and students.
 
Realizing the need to create scientific orientation and cultivate a spirit of curiosity and innovation among young minds, the Community Tinkering Lab is aimed at fostering entrepreneurship and skill development amongst the underserved youth. In its first phase, the Community Tinkering Lab will reach out to 4000 children from under-served communities to enable them to pursue their passion to solve social problems leveraging innovative technology solutions
 
Speaking on the launch of Community Tinkering Lab, CVL Srinivas, Country Manager – WPP in India, said, “At WPP, we believe that innovation is a key driver for human progress and a catalyst for change. We are delighted to inaugurate our first ever Atal Tinkering Lab, aimed at providing holistic learning ecosystem to nurture future innovators and entrepreneurs. This launch marks a special milestone for WPP Foundation, envisioning to benefit children from under-served segments of society spurring ‘out of the box’ thinking and fuelling their aspirations. In our efforts to strengthen our strategic partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, we are thankful to Mr. Ramanathan Ramanan for taking out time to unveil/launch the Community Tinkering Lab with the children of Vidya Varidhi Vidyalaya.”
 
Mr. Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director – Atal Innovation Mission: Additional Secretary, Government of India said, “I would like to compliment WPP Foundation for spearheading this initiative, setting up a world class Tinkering Lab facility in one of Mumbai’s remotest suburban areas. We are proud to partner with WPP Foundation, collaborating with them for this innovative workspace targeted at young minds who often deprived of such opportunities. The dedication of the Foundation and its partners towards this program has been commendable. We wish the Foundation and school success.”
 
“India has 1.5 million schools and 150 million students who will be entering workplaces. Unless we stimulate innovative thinking, entrepreneurial mindset, problem solving capabilities amongst our young students, we will not be able to achieve the potential that India can truly achieve. It is this young generation of 150 million people that are going to be carrying India into the future. We strongly believe that implementation of these initiatives will make a tremendous difference to the growth of our young generation,” he further added.
 
Commenting on the new innovation workspace, Mr Santosh Singh, Principal – Vidya Varidhi Vidyalaya and Junior College said, “We are really thankful to Mr. Ramanan and Rama Iyer from WPP Foundation for their incredible support in envisioning and bringing world class education facilities. For the school and its students, the launch of the Community Tinkering Lab is a moment of pride, enabling increased access to digital and technology education to make the children future ready.”
 
Bringing digital transformation at the forefront, WPP Foundation strives to make the children future ready. As part of the Digital Education program, WPP Foundation has introduced experiential digital interventions enabling children to hone vast technical capabilities including building computers and understanding KANO, robotics and code and design 3D models and much more. With its flagship programme, Education to Livelihood (E2L), WPP Foundation has seen several successes bringing behavioural change, improving learning outcomes and strengthen employability of children to drive long term positive impact in society.

About the WPP India CSR Foundation:

WPP is a creative transformation company that builds better futures for its clients through the integrated services of communications, experience, commerce and technology. WPP in India launched WPP India CSR Foundation in 2015. The vision is to help 20,000 under-served children and youth in achieving their true potential in their education and careers. WPP Foundation is committed to a common CSR vision of opening doors for every child and youth from vulnerable and marginalised communities through our holistic child development programmes that focuses on education, life skills and job-readiness training. For more information, visit www.wppindiafoundation.com
 
Journey of the WPP India CSR Foundation

WPP India CSR Foundation strives to bring about a social change through its flagship Education to Livelihood programme (E2L). Addressing key focus areas—retention in school, poor learning outcomes, work skilling and deep-rooted social norms, the E2L programme has been providing interventions and resources to approx. 20,000 first-generation learners from 11- 18 years. Currently, the programme is running successfully in 10 underserved schools across the Mumbai and Delhi-NCR region. Through strategic partnerships with best-of-breed social organizations, the E2L programme takes an evidence-based approach in developing frameworks to facilitate successful implementation.
 
WPP Foundation’s key initiatives include improving educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy, with a focus on opening young minds to the world of digital innovation. WPP Foundation also inculcates in youth a sense of confidence and gender equality as well as train their mindsets and habits for future livelihoods, through counselling, sport, dance and music.

To ensure retention among the youth they support, they provide access to health education and health services.
 
In a remarkably short span, the E2L program has been able to:

  • Help over 70% children secure their future through employment or higher education
  • Reduce dropout rates to less than 3%
  • Initiate better health standards
  • Double the ability of coding
  • Reduce gender discrimination
  • Increase literacy & numeracy
  • Increase confidence levels

 
As testimony to its sustained efforts to drive positive social impact, WPP Foundation has been recognized with 23 ​Global, APAC and India awards including the International CSR Excellence Awards, London, 2020 as World CSR Leader, the Best CSR practice, Innovative CSR practice and the CSR Leadership award at Asia’s Excellence Award, Singapore and Golden Globe Tigers Awards, Malaysia, 2019. The WPP Foundation has also won awards like Special Commendation at the Golden Peacock Awards for CSR at an India level.

Click here for Media Contact Details

Submit your press release

Share:

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn