<center><b>ASSOCHAM Southern region presents webinar on  </b></center>
          <center><b>\&quot;UPSKILLING Girls IN STEM FIELDS FOR TECHNOLOGY LED INCLUSIVE GROWTH&quot;\ </b></center>
          <center><b> 10th February 2021 | 11:00 AM to 01:00PM</b></center>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Invited Speakers: </b></p>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Shri. Jayesh Ranjan,</b> IAS, Principal Secretary to IT E & C Department, Government of Telangana</p>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Smt. K. Ratna Prabha,</b> IAS (Retd), Chairperson, Karnataka Skill Development Authority, 
            Government of Karnataka <p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> • Dr. Sukanyya Misra,</b> Senior Vice President, India Technology Hub, Mastercard</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Akilur Rahman,</b> Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi ABB Power Grids India</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> • Sudeepta Banerjee, </b> Co-Founder- Raise to Pi.Org and Advisor Partnerships & ProgramsSikshana Foundation</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Rekha Kumari,</b> Head - Programs, Kaushalya Foundation, SOAS University of London</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> • Rumi Mallick Mitra,</b> Leader, Strategy & New Initiatives, IBM Corporate Social Responsibility, 
            IBM</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Annapoorna Swarup,</b> Founder and CEO - Emotionalytics and Co.
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Smitha Thumbikkat,</b> Associate Director, Delivery Excellence and Data Engineering, Brillio</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Abhishek Ranjan,</b> Chairperson - ASSOCHAM Karnataka CSR Committee</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>• Uma S Nair,</b> Regional Director - Southern region, ASSOCHAM</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>UPSKILLING GIRLS IN STEM FOR TECHNOLOGY LED INCLUSIVE GROWTH</b></p>
            <center><b>Post event report</b></center>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>ASSOCHAM in partnership with Brillio organized the webinar on Upskilling girls in STEM on Feb 10th, 
            2021 to discuss the policies, best practices, and challenges around STEM education for girls in India.</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Uma S Nair, Regional Director, Southern Region, ASSOCHAM,</b> welcomed the dignitaries and the 
            gathering. She highlighted that Government initiatives like Beti Bachao Beti Padao, Digital India, etc. 
            have positively impacted the Gender Parity Index and there are increased trends of girl children 
            enrolment in primary and secondary schools. Also, the Digital solutions consumers have increased and 
            girls are not enabled to embrace and pursue STEM Education. The core problem still exists 
            unaddressed.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Abhishek Ranjan, Global Head, Sustainability & D&I, Brillio,</b> spoke about the challenges faced and 
            the need for a road map in STEM for Girls. He said that there are cultural issues and infrastructure 
            issues at school levels.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>The first Panel discussion was on \&quot;Up-Skilling Girls in STEM -Tech bridge. A leadership perspective,&quot;\
            moderated by <b> Smitha Thumbikkat, Associate Director, Brillio.</b> Introducing the speakers, Smitha spoke 
            about the need for nurturing the mindset of girls to achieve more for the inclusive sustainable growth. 
            <b>Smt. Rathna Prabha, IAS (Retd.) Chairperson Karnataka Skill Development Authority</b> shared that 
            during her school days, only one girl in her class took science and now she sees a lot of doctors and 
            engineers. 30% reservation in the state, 25% of reservation in IITs and IIMs has helped girls to place 
            themselves in science fields.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'> She spoke about the need for the safety of women and girl children and the importance of developing 
            a conducive environment for girls. She emphasized the need for sensitizing the parents, train the 
            teachers for STEM Education. There must be a convergence of programs both by Govt and corporates 
            should work together and there is a need of evaluating what has been done and what needs to be 
            done. </p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal secretary of ITE&C, Govt. of Telangana</b> said we need to have a Life 
            cycle approach to encourage girl child in all walks of life without discrimination. He mentioned that 
            the girl child ratio drops in science, post-high school. In Telangana, the Girls in Tech program is 
            introduced in the early stage- 9
            th and 10th. Career guidance intervention is provided to girls and new 
            generational skills like AI, Big data, Machine learning short courses have been provided and 
            encouraged girls. Next is to support women by creating a community of women under It umbrella- a 
            forum has been created called &apos;Cyberabad security council&apos;. Free shuttle -women exclusive busses are 
            provided. Women entrepreneurs are provided support through &apos;WeHub&apos;- an exclusive incubator for 
            women startups. He shared that the initial results of the initiatives are good and they want to scale 
            the model. We have to keep track of numbers and also the qualitative indicators have to be 
            methodically tracked. </p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Akilur Rahman, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi ABB Power Grids-</b> shared examples of what 
            Hitachi ABB Power grids are doing through CSR for women in engineering and manufacturing 
            programs for the community and for the employees to guide how they can enter heavy engineering 
            field. They also follow a life cycle approach to support the girl child to develop the interest and see 
            how she can enter heavy engineering.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> Dr. Sukanyya Misra, Senior Vice president, India Technology Hub, MasterCard</b> spoke about 
            Mastercard&apos;s investments in STEM education. Mastercard has introduced critical topics like Digital 
            convergence, Cryptology, False detection, cybersecurity, AI, Big data Analytics, ML, coding to be 
            future-ready. 8 to 12yrs age girl children interact with employees who are the mentors and 
            understand how technology is applied in the payment industry. She mentioned that partnership with 
            global and national level non-profit agencies is needed to scale the programs to reach millions of girl 
            children and train the teachers. Employee volunteering is critical to the application of STEM- develop 
            curriculum and interact with the girl child.</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'> The second Panel discussion was on \&quot;Enabling Holistic Growth in Upskilling Girls in STEM - Post 
            Pandemic.&quot;\ This session was moderated by <b>Sudeepta Banerjee, co-founder RaisetpPi.org & Advisor,
            Shikshana Foundation</b> said it is even though things are improving it is no closer to equality so needs a 
            lot more to be done. </p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Rekha Kumari, Head Programs, Kaushalya Foundation-</b> shared the challenges faced in the field 
            and access to education has been a very big differentiator, lack of role models, workplace gender 
            norms & issues, migrations, etc. Due to these factors, female labor participation is going down and we
            need to work with a collaborative approach with necessary structural and policy changes.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> Annapurna Swarup, CEO & Founder, Emotionanalytics & Co.</b> Most of the classes are onlinemobile/TV. Shared the reasons for the low female ratio in STEM -there is no infrastructure and children 
            go for domestic help. As we go up the careers, they get married and enter parenthood and hence they 
            drop out for family care. We need an ecosystem to support girls continuously. Should have the nearby 
            role models and need the change of mindset through emotional intelligence skills.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Rumi Mallick Mitra, leader- Strategy & CSR, IBM</b> shared that being pioneers in gender equality, 
            DEI is not a stand-alone agenda at IBM but it is inbuilt in the day to day business with strong policies 
            backup.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'> To conclude, the webinar was attended by100 + participants. There is a need for the consolidation of 
            efforts and have the lifecycle approach to support the girls and replicate across states. Create interest 
            and awareness, encourage people to participate more. A lot of girls are not able to migrate to cities 
            for the Tech job in cities. We need to enhance communication and employability skills for girls. Socialemotional learnings should be brought into the curriculum and policy level changes are required to 
            retain women on the job.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b>Dr. Meghana Shashidhar, Brillio</b> rendered the vote of thanks to the gathering. </p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> KEY FINDINGS, KEY INSIGHTS OF THIS PROGRAM</b></p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>Covid & online learning mode has made access to education even more difficult for girls from 
            the underprivileged segments of the society. There are not enough devices available with the 
            families and the male child is prioritized when it comes to sharing the devices. So, there is an 
            immediate need to address this challenge. Unless girls get access to education first, they 
            won't be able to venture into STEM.</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>Career awareness about STEM fields and showing off role models through community 
            outreach is extremely important. Now, these role models need to be someone whom these 
            girls can relate to not someone like Kalpana Chawla. They need to be the ones from similar 
            families or communities that these girls belong to.</p> 
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>empower women by also changing the mindset of men in the community. Spread awareness 
            in young boys about how life changes for good when the women of the community work and 
            get paid well.</p>
            <p style='text-align:justify;'>Corporates need to create robust follow-up mechanisms to track how the girls are doing after 
            the intervention and provide an end-to-end support to the ones already in the program and 
            ensure their journey is complete rather than running behind numbers.</p>