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Bid to improve lives of children

Focusing on vast societal change, the Dell Foundation recently committed $1 billion as part of its worldwide philanthropic outreach.The foundation…

Bid to improve lives of children

(Photo: Getty Images)

Focusing on vast societal change, the Dell Foundation recently committed $1 billion as part of its worldwide philanthropic outreach.The foundation addressed a gathering here on Friday to discuss the findings of a study titled 'A Philanthropist’s Guide to the Future' which said the role of foundations is changing and the emphasis should be on inspiring and empowering a new generation of social impact leaders.

The foundation aims to improve the lives of children in India and generating livelihood by encouraging non-government organisations and pairing up with state governments. The foundation formed by Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, looks to strengthen education, empower microfinance institutions, ensure financial inclusion, provide economic benefits to school dropouts and create jobs for those who get education only till high school.

The group is already collaborating with schools irrespective of whether they are government or affordable private schools, in Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The majority of funds till now have been spent for educational linkages apart from spreading financial literacy and creating jobs.

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To ensure that funds are properly and transparently used, Dell Foundation has a robust scrutiny mechanism with proper accountability, internal review guidelines, according to country director Debasish Mitter. "Opportunities are tremendous in these areas. While continuing ambitiously to work to make government schools a school of choice in a bottom-up and top bottom approach, we are trying to address the whole system. We also plan to continue invest in developing innovations as it helps in delivering skills to a large country like ours," he said.

The foundation has supported entrepreneurs like Bhoola Meena who started a portal 'onlinetyari' which gives training for government jobs to students in Rajasthan. Then there is BlowHorn in southern India which is an Uber-like truck hiring online portal. A training institute in Kolkata has students from slums working with major companies.

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