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At the centre, TCS will look for ways to reduce the number of school dropouts, improve soil and water health, and ease parking woes in the city, among other social problems of the locality. The innovative solutions to these problems can be offered by students, early-stage start-ups and even individual entrepreneurs.
TCS had also launched the physical and online initiative Digital Impact Square (DIS) on March 1, and as of now, 40 innovators are working on 11 projects under DIS.
Hasit Kaji, who heads special initiatives at TCS, told ET that the number of innovators working under different projects would go up to 100 by June. "We have selected seven social themes based on interactions with local community and administration and crafted a set of challenges," he added.
These seven themes are: health and hygiene, food and agriculture, citizen empowerment and transparency, transport and housing, education and skills, energy, water and environment, and financial and personal security.
It was during TCS’s involvement in Kumbhathon, a project that was aimed at ensuring an incident-free Kumbh Mela in Nashik in August 2015, that the officials thought of DIS.
"Most companies have innovation centres within the boundaries of the organisation or in partnership with academic institutes or other organisations but we wanted to create an open innovation platform, which is why we set up the DIS in the heart of Nashik," said Kaji.
For the projects, the first cycle will run for six months, after which the successful prototypes will get another six months to mature their solution. Within another year, the innovations will be deployed to the first set of users within the city.
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