Foreword
Skilling is the spark that will ignite progress. Much has been said about India’s demographic dividend, but we need to equip our youth with the tools to build themselves a brighter future, and there is absolutely no time to be lost here.
Tech Mahindra Foundation has developed expertise in education and skilling over the past decade. Our flagship SMART (Skills for Market Training) programme has provided 50,000 young people with market-relevant job skills, as well as soft skills, computer literacy and English coaching since 2012. In May 2016, we made our foray into the healthcare sector, with the very first Tech Mahindra SMART Academy for Healthcare launched at the Gandhi Ashram in Kingsway Camp, New Delhi, in collaboration with the Harijan Sevak Sangh, and the second in Mohali, Chandigarh.
Tech Mahindra SMART Academy for Healthcare is the embodiment of our mission ‘Empowering through Education’. We want empowered, competent young men and women to participate in the rapidly growing healthcare sector in India. A government report published in 2012 stated that given its population, India needs an additional 64 lakh healthcare professionals. The Academy is possibly a neat solution, bridging the need for employable professionals with the necessity for healthcare.
To our students at our Academies across India, I would like to say that if you study hard, you can be assured that your work in the future will be more than just a job. You will be carrying out a service to society. People will be trusting you with the lives of their loved ones – their mothers and fathers, siblings and children. You might be the first person at the scene of an accident, or assisting a surgeon, or helping someone thanks to an early diagnosis of a life-threatening disease like cancer. From our side, we promise to assist you through your training not just with the best of infrastructure, laboratories and study material, but also giving you the soft skills and emotional skills to handle these situations. And I am sure, that should any of us ever need medical help we will be not just proud to call upon you, but confident in the care that you will be able to provide.
Wishing you all the very best!
Dr. Loveleen Kacker
Former CEO
Tech Mahindra Foundation