What does SEDS have in
common with a 25-billion dollar petroleum giant, the largest Indian private
insurance company, a pharmaceutical multi-national, and the third biggest steel
company in the country?
They are all winners of
the Silver EDGE award at Interop, a renowned information
technology conference and exhibition held at several global locations every
year. Past awards have been given to the likes of Hindustan Petroleum,
ICICI-Prudential, Allergan, and Jindal Steel. SEDS is the
first NGO, and Manil is the first woman to win this award which recognizes
enterprises that use IT effectively to drive growth.
SEDS collaborated with
Wolf Frameworks to put a Census Information Management System in place. The
system that took just 120 hours to implement, maintains details of thousands of
people from the 250 villages that SEDS helps. Using this system, SEDS can track
and effectively direct development effort in each of these villages. The
technology used also makes it easier for supporting organizations all over the
World to contribute to the various development projects in Anantapur.
While Silver EDGE winners
usually harness the power of IT to drive their capital inflow, SEDS uses it to
nurture a far more valuable resource, human capital.
[The article originally
written by Amit Manikoth, for SEDS's 30 years celebration. This is simply a
reproduction.]
