Techies nudged to work on societal issues

The Nudge Foundation, a non-profit backed by Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani, has invited technologists to work with various state governments to address societal problems.Under the programme — called Indian Administrative Fellowship (IAF) — technologists would be trained by bureaucrats and mentored by people such as Nilekani, and RedBus founder and former CIO of the Telangana government, Phaninder Sharma.The 18-month programme targets to provide a platform for professionals to partner with the administration for extensively strategising and implementing current and envisaged initiatives for attaining sustained progress across state-level indicators. “I hope the best technologists sign up for this exciting opportunity to shape India's future,” said Nilekani, chairman of Infosys, tweeted.“The programme offers an opportunity to work within the government to create digital infrastructure for public good,” Nilekani added.“They (bureaucrats) perennially struggle with bandwidth and support. We thought of bringing senior people from corporates and development sector professionals who genuinely want to make a big impact,” said Atul Satija, founder, The Nudge Foundation.Satija added that the non-profit has received 800 applications in one day for the programme and a large number of professionals from the technology and startup sectors are expected to participate. “It is a new initiative for social innovation. Our mission is to nudge and nurture India’s top talent to solve the country’s most meaningful problems,” he said.Participants in the fellowship would receive a stipend of up to 20 lakh per year and would go through a three-month orientation including training by senior bureaucrats.The foundation would announce some specific state-level partnerships when the participants or technologists are shortlisted to work with respective government secretaries. Analysts said this was a good move and could encourage passionate technology professionals to work with the government.“If one has the capability and interest to be part of the change, this is a good initiative and a typical public-private partnership for individual technologists,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief executive, Greyhound Research.“The programme offers an opportunity to work within the government to create digital infrastructure for public good”.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/33m7G76