Celebrating Diversity: Embracing the Weak to Build a Strong India

Impressive in its very professional handling as usual, the highpoint of
this year's href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/2009/109120803.asp">
Nasscom Diversity and Inclusion Summit was
the interesting ensemble of panelists and the fact that the discussion
went beyond its focus on gender diversity and inclusion to highlight
all shades of diversity – some we don't even consider in the
context of our everyday work life.



There was the 16 year old CEO, Suhas Gopinath who regaled the audience
with tales of his daring and amazed them with his grit and
determination. Sunitha Krishnan, chief functionary and co-founder,
Prajwala, who has saved over 3,000 girls, victims of sexual abuse,
living a life of complete disrepute and humiliation, shared her
perspective. Vishal Talreja, co-founder and director, Dream A Dream,
always a meritorious student with a high-profile investment banking job
on his mind, now educates and empowers slum children.Other speakers
included Shukla Bose, CEO, Parikrama Foundation, who once won the title
of 'the highest paid employee in India' now works with under privileged
children, href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/2005/105062708.asp">Revathi
Kasturi, founder and CEO
Laksh,  href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/2005/105062712.asp">Mythili
Ramesh, CEO, Next Wealth
– both having held very high profile positions at Wipro - and
now train youth from tier-2, -3 and rural areas to make them employable.



Suhas Gopinath was one of the panelists in the session on 'Generational
Diversity', a subject of immense interest to the industry considering
the growing number of young people entering the workforce. Gopinath
started working when he was 12, but wasn't taken seriously by his
clients who were extremely apprehensive of his minor status. By 14 he
had tapped into the US and European markets, had got together a global
team, speaking whichever language the customers demanded. But age was
always a factor. Not to be deterred, he simply opened his own company:
“that was the only thing to do. If I am the CEO, I am not
answerable to anyone right?” Each rejection he faced made him
more and more determined to succeed – he found innovative
ways of reaching his goals, the most important thing that this form of
diversity brings to the table.



href="http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/q&a/2009/109022101.asp">Prithvi
Shergill, human resources lead,
Accenture India, spoke on how 'Generational Diversity' works within an
organization In a nutshell: Pay is directly related to prestige; they
need entertainment at work so you'd better have gyms and music and
other forms of relaxation – they will use it unlike the baby
boomers; they have a very strong value system, despite what we may
think, so only say what you mean – going back on your
promises is something that is unacceptable to this generation, you have
to demonstrate a culture of integrity; they believe in freedom and more
choices so it's a bad idea to throw rules and policies at them; they
are full of innovative ideas and work completely out of the box; it's a
always connected generation so barring the Internet for increasing
output will be a very bad idea; and it is essential that they feel
valued as individuals. How to handle this generation is giving Human
Resources sleepless nights – so this session was very well
received.



The keynote from Sunitha Krishnan shook the audience, to say the least.
A victim of gangrape herself and the following social rejection she
made it very clear that she knows what she's talking about. Having
saved thousands of girls from their heinous lives, what she's doing is
nurturing them by instilling in them self respect and confidence so
instead of being a burden on society they can become educated,
employable women. Krishnan's plea was to accept these girls and employ
these girls.



Vishal Talreja is only twenty some years old, who fought his family's
and friends' outrage at leaving the chance for an extremely fulfilling
and money-making career to work with slum children. Same with Shukla
Bose who has studied in some of the best universities in the world and
has had a very high profile career, but this was a cause she was
“willing to compromise her lifestyle” for. They are
educating these under privileged
children and youth, giving them skill-sets that will enable them to
work shoulder-to-shoulder with other employees in any industry. Some of
the IT services companies we spoke to said they would positively be
looking at embracing this diversity also in the near future.



While Mythili Ramesh is working with the rural youth, and Revathi
Kasturi with the tier-2 and -3, they are both running for profit
organizations training these youth to make them employable. The IT
industry will be happy at the prospect of this huge talent pool that is
in the making – especially because the women creating this
pool know the requirement better than anyone. So it's a win-win for
all. As is diversity.