The once underserved village of Chandauli can now boast of 2,890 digitally literate persons, courtesy DEF’s implementation of the Minority Cyber Gram Yojana (MCGY). In late 2013, the Ministry of Minority Affairs of the government of India decided to launch MCGY. The objective was to provide basic digital infrastructure, Internet access, digital literacy and information…
A one-day workshop on Social Media for Empowerment was organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) and in collaboration with a local NGO, Hutto Welfare Society, on 6th October, 2015 at Hotel PYBSS, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. The workshop witnessed a good number of students, professionals in the private and Govt.…
DEF and Synergy, a Sikkim-based NGO which aims at promoting partnership between various groups, organised a one-day seminar for non-government organisations, self-help groups and entrepreneurs in Gangtok on April 2, 2016. During the workshop, the participants were enlightened about opportunities on e-Commerce, social media and crowd funding and corporate social responsibility. Following the welcome address…
One day Soochna Sevak Padam Bheel in Meriyakhedi Khurd, Madhya Pradesh, was approached by some villagers who came up to him and said, “Sir, the ration dealer will probably not distribute ration to us this time.” Surprised, Bheel enquired “But why, what happened?” As per the new rules, the ration dealer had refused to distribute…
PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In this showcase, we feature some of the social entrepreneurs and changemakers from the Northeast India Social Impact awards and expo!In the earlier 50 posts, we brought you a wide range of creative photographs from an art fair, world music festival, painting fair, telecom expo, art museum, mobile showcase, math museum, social hackathon, ….
We arrived in Bundi, Rajasthan, which is a historical town known for its forts, palaces and step-wells, to film with NGO Srijan, one of our winners in Mobile for Good (M4G) Awards, 2014. Farmers around Bundi were struggling from depleting yield. Srijan formed in 2008, began working with 50 farmers to start with and introduced…
During a recce for DigiKala, a project that DEF has recently initiated, in collaboration with Microsoft Corporate Citizenship, members of the organisation got a chance to meet Sarat Patra in Nuapatna, Odisha. A National Award winner Sarat is a talented handloom weaver who focuses on art and not the sale of his creations. Sarat’s wife…
This article was first published in the Mint newspaper on October 5, 2015. There is something wrong with our society. It seems that we are driven more by emotions, non-issues, violence and calls for destruction than reasoning, common sense, non-violence and trust. We are choosing politicians who are dividing us; we are allowing the administration…
Nonika Raj Kumar, Head CSR & Sustainability, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Social media has had a tremendous impact on all aspects of our lives — be it the way we communicate, we teach and learn, or we do business — well almost every aspect of our lives. The evolution of…
The world has come a long way since 1995, when the Internet was introduced in India, and since 2003, when the UN General Assembly held the first of the two World Summits on the Information Society (popularly known as WSIS) in Geneva.The second WSIS was held in Tunis in 2005. The call of the WSIS was pretty simple: to work towards making an information society where every person is part of the connected world,…
