WISE selected four Indian projects for their innovative and impactful approaches to today’s most urgent education challenges

New Delhi, June 11, 2021: AISECT, one of India’s leading Social Enterprise working towards an inclusive change in India’s semi-urban and rural parts, has been shortlisted as one of the 12 finalists for the 2021 WISE Awards with the projects – hailing from nine countries. AISECT has made to the finalists’ lists for its project titled “Entrepreneurship Development and Skilling initiatives for the Underprivileged Women”. The project was nominated because of the inclusive approach towards skilling and creating employment through both skill development as well as entrepreneurship development for underprivileged women. It has benefited more than 400,000 women beneficiaries through employment linked skill development training, as well as 2000 women beneficiaries through entrepreneurship development and by helping them in setting up their businesses in tribal, rural and semi-urban parts of India. 

AISECT, through its all-inclusive pro-women project, taken a two pronged approach in the project for making women independent. AISECT has been imparting vocational education through placement linked skilling especially for girls in trades more apt and flexible  for  them,  to  ensure  better  livelihood  options  aiming  at  financial independence. It also fosters Entrepreneurship among underprivileged Women by helping them set up multipurpose centres especially in service sector and continuously hand hold them till they are sustainable and financially sustainable. These services allow the centres to be economically viable, by involving the whole community.More than 2 thousand underprivileged women entrepreneurs have emerged from the program, accounting for the employment of 5 thousand people today. An inclusive ecosystem for women entrepreneurship has beenset up through accessible bank kiosks, online service centres, vocational training centres, CSCs which are inspired mainly by our Multipurpose ICT centres. The AISECT model has also trained more than 400 thousand marginalised girls in 400 districts in India.

Every year WISE, an initiative by the Qatar Foundation, promotes six successful innovative projects addressing global educational challenges. Since 2009, WISE has received more than 3300 applications from over 150 countries. The tentative date for announcing this year’s winners of the WISE awards is September 2021. It is because of the pandemic that the past year has proven innovation critical to education: many girls are out of school and women insufficiently empowered; millions of elementary students have poor literacy and numeracy skills; refugees struggle to access education; vulnerable communities don’t have access to the necessary social-emotional learning to thrive while the digital divide remains a learning barrier.

AISECT has been substantially contributing to the realms of Skill Development, Higher Education, Financial Inclusion, e-Governance and other ICT-based services for three decades now. Since its inception, women entrepreneurship and vocational education have been an organisational priority. The objective is achieved through digital literacy, a host of placement linked skill development programs, self-help group formation, and promoting ICT enabled service delivery solutions, especially in rural and semi-urban areas.