How can community & corporate participate in Inclusion? — Panel Discussion at IIS
Vijay Raghavan(NISH) leads the discussion with Sarv Saravanan (EMC2), Parvin Tatavarti (Allegis) and Mohammed Asif Iqbal(PwC) on the various stakeholders in inclusion of people with disabilities.
Setting the stage for the discussion Vijay Raghavan mentions the reluctance in Asian and Indian families to talk about people with disability. While the west has gone ahead and established institutions of higher education for such people like the Gallaudet University in US, we in India are seeing the first efforts towards this with initiatives like National Institute of Speech and Hearing. People with disabilities and their families which constitute about 24% of the population should make their voice heard so that government decision makers cannot ignore. Kerala state in India, has gone ahead and setup a working group for disability and the group came up with 5 recommendations in the areas of Prevention, Early detection, early intervention, rehabilitation and higher education. NISH which has been setup for higher education, infact, goes a step further and setup a reverse reservation quota under which normal people get admissions.
To this Sarv adds his learning from driving inclusion initiatives at EMC. His company is in Software technology business for the last 25 years and innovation is what helps them stay ahead in the business. Diverse culture and diverse perspectives among teams is what brings about this innovation. Even McKinsey and Delloitte surveys point out that diverse boards give more return on equity than otherwise. EMC in India has hired people with profound disabilities and it has been a learning period for them in the last 2 years. Now they are at the cusp of a tipping point to double their hiring efforts and also have a mission to hire 5% of their staffing requirements from this community.
Mohammed mentions that inclusion is not the only responsibility of the government. While the Indian government can emulate policies like in Canada that are proven to work, they should also have a mechanism to synchronise information between their own departments. NGO’s could collaborate with industry and learn from them to train and educate PwD with the skills required for them to join the job force. While people with disabilities should focus on acquiring the skills and working harder. Even the society should walk the extra mile to accommodate PwD’s.
Pravin adds his own learnings of hiring people with disabilities. Hiring people from this community has been a transformative experience for his company. Not only does it bring in a positive influence to the company culture but makes people and teams better. The results of these go beyond the tangible ROI’s and has to be counted in the blessings the company gets. Allegis has gone ahead and setup monthly job fairs for PwD’s. Pravin suggests to the audience that any organization should not think about what the organization can do to the community. Its rather what the community can do to us (by influencing positive culture and creating ROI for the company).
Watch this engaging conversation here.
About G Vijaya Raghavan:
G Vijayaraghavan, an expert in technology who paved a varied path in the technological development of Kerala. He is the first CEO of Technopark, State Planning Board member, honorary director of National Institute of Speech and Hearing.
About Sarv Saravanan:
Sarv is currently the Corporate Senior Vice President & General Manager, APJ Centres of Excellence for EMC2. He is responsible for EMC’s Global R&D, Product Development and service delivery from APJ for the global markets. Sarv has successfully transformed the COEs in APJ by adding new locations and creating global subject matter expertise in each location for EMC portfolio.
About Pravin Tatavarti:
Pravin Chand Tatavarti, Managing Director (since May 2006), Allegis Group, India comes with over 20 years of experience, responsible for establishing and implementing multiple business divisions in the Recruiting, Staffing and IT Services segments.
About Mohammed Asif Iqbal:
Asif has more than ten years of experience in Human Capital consulting and E-gov consulting. He designed and implemented social inclusion strategy enabling Aadhaar enrolment for marginalize groups such as disabled residents, leprosy affected residents, homeless, migrant labours in India for UIDAI. He is currently serving as board member National HRDN network Kolkata chapter, member of high level advisory committee for Universal Access department of electronics & IT, government of India.
Follow G Vijaya Raghavan: http://nish.ac.in/
Follow Sarv Saravanan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarv-saravanan-bba05a5
Follow Pravin Tatavarti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravin-chand-57b2392
Follow Mohammed Asif Iqbal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammed-asif-iqbal-02939017
