TCS Sustainathon Enables Inclusive Education Solutions in ASEAN

Tata Consultancy Services’ Purpose-Driven Initiative Aims to Inspire Bright Young Minds to Rethink Today’s Education Through the Lens of Technology

SINGAPORE, October 13, 2021: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization, announced the launch of TCS Sustainathon ASEAN 2021, a problem-solving competition that empowers and inspires young minds to address urgent environmental challenges using new digital technologies.

With an expanded format in its second year, TCS Sustainathon is open to high-school and university students in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines to collaborate with government, private, academic and non-profit entities and collectively generate ideas that will create innovative sustainability-focused solutions. This year’s theme is ‘Reimagining Education’, calling on students to reimagine, rethink and reinvent learning experiences.

In 2020, the inaugural TCS Sustainathon in Singapore brought together nearly 200 students from 15 educational institutions in a case-challenge competition to address the issue of local food waste. This year, in addition to Singapore, TCS is extending the initiative to Malaysia and the Philippines to encourage the local talent to join forces and co-create innovative solutions to achieve inclusive education. In the first quarter of 2022, the top two teams or individual entrants from each country will qualify for a spot in the TCS Sustainathon ASEAN 2021 finals, with the overall winner receiving a grand prize of USD $10,000.

“With our deep roots in Asia and extensive resources across the globe, we have a higher purpose; we are dedicated to addressing pressing environmental issues and challenges facing the region,” said Girish Ramachandran, President, TCS Asia Pacific. “Through TCS Sustainathon, we help to connect young talent and like-minded partners to ensure their ideation and innovation have a real and lasting impact and create the “best-in-class” innovation capacity in ASEAN.”

TCS Sustainathon ASEAN 2021 has strong support from four like-minded partners as Strategic and Challenge Partners – The Association of Southeast Asian Teacher Education Network (AsTEN), Health Innovation Exchange (HIEx), SolveEducation and TCS iON™. Challenge Partners from the respective country editions have issued challenge statements depicting real-world sustainability challenges in education and learning landscape. Entrants then have up to eight weeks to develop and submit a technology-based solution to the respective challenge statement. The top two finalists from each country will participate in the finale.

“Inclusive education is one of our top concerns in the ASEAN region. We are always looking for different approaches to changing teacher education programs and practices to benefit the region. We strongly believe a good education is the key to nurturing young people to develop a keen sense of responsibility to themselves and the community. Through this partnership with TCS, we are taking education to another level,” said Assoc. Prof. Dr Pattamavadi Lehmongkol, Chairperson, Association of Southeast Asian Teacher Education Network.

“Behind our commitment to leave no one behind in the journey towards the sustainable development goals, we work to ensure that investments are used in the most impactful way to address health-specific challenges in a cross-sectoral manner. With our partnership with TCS Sustainathon, we hope to inspire more like-minded public and private sector partners to support and encourage our young minds in pursuing a more sustainable and innovative education for the future,” said Pradeep Kakkattil, Director, Health Innovation Exchange.

“We aim to work with education and technology experts to create educational resources which aim to develop students’ hunger for learning and prepare them for the workforce of the future. We look forward to working with TCS to engage and unleash these young minds to realize their potential to solve real work sustainability problems in the education sector for TCS Sustainathon 2021,” said Janine Teo, Chief Executive Officer, SolveEducation!

“We were seeing increasing adoption of digital learning even before COVID. The pandemic has only accelerated the trend. Majority of educators and students are embracing the use of technology in the classroom and beyond. TCS iON is partnering with education institutions to transit to a phygital model for enhanced learning outcomes. By participating in the TCS Sustainathon, we are hoping to inspire all participants and stakeholders to play their part to make the education transformation a success,” said Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON.

To enter TCS Sustainathon in Singapore, Malaysia or the Philippines, student teams must register their interest and apply for the challenge statement(s). There participants can view all essential information for their respective country session of TCS Sustainathon ASEAN. Up to six ideas will be shortlisted for each country finals round, happening in January 2022.

From its beginning in Singapore in 2020, TCS Sustainathon is quickly expanding globally as TCS’ platform for sustainability ideation for students and communities. In addition to the four events in the ASEAN region in 2021, TCS Sustainathon has also been successfully staged in September in Pune, India, a UK edition is launching on 11 October, and others locations are set to follow in Asia Pacific and worldwide.

About Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for over 50 years. TCS offers a consulting-led, cognitive powered, integrated portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions. This is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile™ delivery model, recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development.

A part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business group, TCS has over 528,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $22.2 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021 and is listed on the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and the NSE (National Stock Exchange) in India. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index. For more information, visit www.tcs.com.