?We never ask about caste or creed?

Infosys Foundation was set up 12 years ago by Sudha Murthy as she says ?on the behest of my daughter?. The Foundation operates out of the Infosys Technologies Bangalore office where they have three rooms and two staff. In the area of education, the foundation?s vision is to provide the poor in urban and rural areas an opportunity to get an education. Self admittedly subjective about the topic, Sudha Murthy in a conversation with FE?s Malvika Chandan talks about the Foundation?s work in education.

What are some of the tenets on which Infosys Foundation bases its success?

In our application forms for scholarships we never ask about caste, creed or religion, we just don?t get into it. We base our decisions be it in selecting students for scholarships or even choosing a NGO partner on merit and on facts. Plus our employees are critical to the success of our programmes be it educational ones or providing disaster relief as we saw in Orissa, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Additionally, we don?t worry about what the government is doing or not doing, in the area of education, we have enough work on our plate which we try to do.

When the Infosys Foundation was established what was the over arching mission?

Our objective was to contribute towards the downtrodden specially in every state where Infosys Technologies has a presence in India such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab and so on. I joined the Foundation as a Trustee and was later made chairperson.

Has the Foundation been impacted by the downturn?

We have not been affected by the recession. We received Rs 20 crore this year which is the same we last year from Infosys Technologies.

One of the reasons we have been able to stay this lean is because we directly work with people.

What are some of the strides you have made in the field of education?

A lot of our focus is in Karnataka.This is the state I?ve beenborn and raised and would like to give back to. We have opened 15,000 libraries in Karnataka alone for school students. My father?s house in Hubli has also been converted into a library where students also get access to the Internet and career guidance books. Through our libraries we also offer summer camps and soft skill training.

We have also invested in book banks for college students and so far have invested Rs 1 crore in the book banks of which we have 30 to 40 across the state. The purpose of the book banks is that poor college students can borrow the books for the entire duration of the year they need it so they don?t need to keep reissuing the books as they would need to do with the college library. We make sure we keep the book banks updated whenever the syllabus changes and do charge students Rs 500 as deposit which prevents them from damaging the books and removing pages from the books.

We are working with the NGO Vidya Poshak to provide scholarships to students who are economically poor and academically bright. Through the foundation we spend Rs 2 crore every year and are able to give scholarships up to the first degree for poor but meritorious students. Each applicant has to fill a five-page form on the basis of which they are selected. The only exceptions we will make are to applicants from the sex workers community who avail scholarships irrespective of their earlier marks. We have innumerable stories from our programmes on how children of ?mistries?, poorer communities have got jobs at Infosys, Wipro and TCS.

What are some of the other initiatives you are doing in the area of education?

There are many. We have been the key financers for the past 4 to 5 years to the NGO Akshaya Patra which runs the Dharwar Kitchen and on last count had added 100,000 children who benefit from the programme.

Additionally we also provide assistance of Rs 25 to 30 lakh per year over and above the government?s to the Karnataka mid day meal programme which feeds one meal to students from primary school to Class 7 has increased the number of students who attend school. We need to face harsh realities, when you are extremely poor and get subsidized grain from the government that is not of good quality and maybe Rs 5 per day additionally, it is the love of food which is making you send your child to school and not the love for education. On days of prize distribution and other events I have eaten at the schools and never fallen sick in the last 13 years.