TCS embodies Tata group’s philosophy of building sustainable businesses that are firmly rooted in the community and demonstrate care for the environment. Our organization leverages the best of TCS – Intellectual, Technology, Human and Financial capital to significantly move the needle and fulfil our potential as nation builders of a digital world. TCS CSR’s Vision Mission and Values are detailed below.
To achieve the goals of growing our responsibility in Singapore’s community, TCS partners with key government bodies and local academic institutes for deployment of its community, volunteering and education initiatives; in an effort to transforming Singapore through technology.
Singapore faces the shortfall of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) professionals due to the inability to attract students to study and work in this area. This is a national priority in which we are keen to play our part towards solving this challenge. To build the STEM education pipeline, we have partnered with various secondary schools in past to provide online course modules in upcoming programming languages such as Python and C++ reaching 200 students so far.
As the next step, we are partnering with Institute of Technical Education College (ITE) - West to host our impactful and next generation goIT Program to drive students’ interest in STEM industry. goIT introduces students to design thinking, digital technologies, and agile methodology, and gets them to develop and prototype solutions that improve their own communities and support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. goIT engages students to design human centred solutions that harness technologies for innovation and social good. Through a standard aligned engaging curriculum, students are introduced to the innovation lifecycle, product prototyping and industry relevant entrepreneurial skills. The program is free of cost to all students.
In addition to goIT, TCS Singapore continues to explore how we can give back to Singapore’s community through long-term partnership with key government bodies and local academic institutions to create and deliver sustainable value to our stakeholders and community via our core competencies: People and IT.
TCS has a long-term partnership with PA, focused on Skilling & Community Initiatives, that is led by TCS APAC President Mr. Girish Ramachandran, launched in 2016 at the Istana Garden Party.
Since 2017, TCS has been the dedicated IT corporate partner for PA’s Project We Care Enrich (PWCE) program which aims to reach 10,000 residents from the lesser privileged sections of society through skill enrichment programmes. Utilising our core competencies in IT, TCS conducts monthly skills sessions at PA’s nation-wide network of Resident Committees (RCs) and Community Centres (CCs). Skills session such as Basic Smartphone Usage for Seniors allows seniors to stay connected with the community, as well as be aware of internet security and helps improve their life quality. For children sessions are held on basic coding, poster design, canva and PowerPoint. These sessions help in building confidence among young children as they showcase their posters and presentation and become familiar with basic IT skills. Mr. Girish and Dr. Koh Poh Koon, Adviser to Ang Mo Kio GRC Grassroots Organisations, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of National Development; joined the first skills session.
To streamline and automate the PWCE booking process for skills sessions between RCs and Corporate Partners, TCS developed a web application on a pro-bono basis. A sneak preview of the website was showcased during the PA Marketplace event to over 1000 grassroot and community leaders. The initial development was started by a team of like-minded volunteers who put in extra hours after work and committed 608 man days at the initial phase. As the website advanced on a larger scale, CSR team managed to turnaround the difficulties faced on developing and maintaining the website with support from Mr. Girish as illustrated in the chart below:
TCS participated in PA Chingay Parade – In 2020 and in 2021 (Virtual) and won the best contingent display (Travelling) in 2020. The Chingay Parade started in 1973 as a street parade to celebrate the Lunar New Year and since has evolved into an annual iconic event that showcases Singapore’s rich and unique multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan culture.
When the world was hit by the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020, TCS held a fund-raising drive where employees’ contributions were matched by TCS. The drive raised SGD 70,000 towards the TCS-PA Empowerment Fund, that was set up with our CSR partner the People’s Association (PA) in August 2020. The funds will be used to alleviate Covid-19’s impact on vulnerable communities in Singapore and provide affected individuals with education, upskilling and reskilling opportunities during these challenging times.
TCS has also signed a multiyear MoU with PA to foster close working relationship on their future community initiatives as well that will leverage our IT and manpower capabilities.
This robust partnership with PA was recognised when Mr. Girish was awarded with Project We Care Special Recognition (Individual) for his sterling contributions towards the community. This recognized Mr. Girish as individual partners who leads by example, actively participating and supporting Project We Care initiatives and rallying his employees and peers from other organisations to contribute. TCS Singapore also won the Merit Award for The People’s Association Community Spirit (PACS) Awards in 2018 and subsequently the highest category PACS Excellence Award in 2019, which recognizes TCS’ commendable contributions towards the community.
TCS’ strategic partnership with IMDA consists of a Company Led Training (CLT) program to build the pipeline of IT professionals in Singapore and participation in IMDA volunteer programs such as recruiting volunteers for Silver IT Festival, which aims to promote digital literacy amongst seniors aged 50 and above. Seniors are taught smartphone and computer skills. The Company Led Training program which is a collaboration between TCS Singapore and IMDA to employ and train fresh graduates with latest IT programming skills and knowledge.
Digizen is an initiative by TCS supporting the Stay Healthy, Go Digital movement by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in the spirit of #SGUnited. TCS built a super app, a community engagement platform for people to continue to enjoy their daily activities anytime, anywhere. The App is designed to help people and families stay active and engaged; with resources on health, fitness, learning & entertainment needs. The app aggregates resources from credible sources, including Gov.sg, IMDA and SG United onto a single platform, enabling people to access these resources at their fingertips, without the need to leave the app.
As part of our efforts to alleviating the challenges posed by COVID-19, in April 2020, TCS Singapore donated over $40,000 worth of laptops to IMDA for 58 students and Mobile broadband connection for 14 students from low-income families that helped ensure that they could continue their education via home-based learning.
TCS Singapore has set up a CSR ‘incubation centre’ called Digital Garage where multitude of Social innovation projects are being developed around the areas of senior care, sustainability, and engaging employees and members of the public through health & wellness.
The social Innovation projects include:
TCS runs an employee volunteering program called Purpose4Life (P4l), which helps employees contribute towards societal well-being. Each associate is encouraged to commit 10 hours of volunteer activity every year towards community projects. Since 2017, 705 TCSers in Singapore have volunteered 1885 hours of their time towards various CSR initiatives – no task is too small, and they have volunteered in all sorts of activities such as teaching seniors how to use smart phones, encouraging members of the public to donate their blood, sorting recyclables at Singapore Environment Council's monthly recycle drive, and even measured horseshoe crabs at Mandai Mudflats. Through these initiatives they have reached 7994 people and touched 23701 lives.
These volunteering programs help improve employee engagement level, foster a caring culture, as well as contributes to giving employee a sense of purpose and more positive outlook toward themselves.
Our CSR initiatives also allows fostering of teamwork and networking amongst volunteers who have never met from different accounts and projects. Camaraderie within the team builds a learning culture amongst volunteers where they share their IT knowledge with one another.
The management of Singapore’s CSR programs has been strategized by leveraging on an ecosystem of talents from cross-functional teams. Regular review cadence internally as well as with top management helps ensure rigour and alignment of programs with business objective and overall CSR strategy.
With the successful implementation of CSR programs via strategic partnerships, the CSR team continues to grow TCS responsibility in Singapore in areas of STEM, Sustainability and Health by exploring new partnerships and initiatives.
Potential and existing partnerships are reviewed by the CSR team with long-term roadmap of the partnerships being planned out. An example of such a review is illustrated here:
Using the partnership networks we have set up, TCS leverages on their ecosystem and existing initiatives for business and CSR objectives, thereby, reaping potential return of investments from our CSR strategies.
