ABB India To Shape Future Women Leaders In Technology With Lila Poonawalla Foundation; Doubles The Number Of Scholarships

•     Extends scholarships to meritorious girls from economically challenged backgrounds pursuing Engineering degrees across the cities of Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad

•     The program offers 200 merit-cum-need-based scholarships to these girls for pursuing education and careers in STEM

•     ­Focuses on holistic development of these potential future leaders through up-skilling interventions to make them industry-ready

ABB India in partnership with Lila Poonawalla Foundation (LPF), strengthened its ongoing merit-cum-need based undergraduate engineering scholarship program. This holistic program supports the higher education of meritorious girls from economically challenged backgrounds, providing them with an opportunity to pursue their ambitions in the field of technology. The number of scholarships has been doubled from 100 to 200 over the last 3 years. Through these scholarships, the selected girls will complete BE or B. Tech degrees in the field of their choice.

Lila Poonawalla Foundation’s holistic merit-cum-need based scholarship and skill-building program is aimed at making these students future-ready by providing varied technical and soft skills training and mentorship which complements their academic learning. Towards this, ABB India employees volunteer to impart technical sessions covering topical subjects like Cyber Security, Data analytics, industry 4.0, leadership talk, design thinking, digital marketing et cetera. So far, over 1200 hours of virtual technical training have been imparted by ABB’s Subject Matter experts over the past year. A similar mentorship program too has been kicked off to handhold the girls for their future careers.

To award scholarships to this year’s students (2021-2022), a scholarship award function was organized by Lila Poonawalla Foundation in Bengaluru in the presence of Sanjeev Sharma, Country Head and Managing Director, ABB India.

“Education and skill enhancement remain one of the main focuses of our CSR projects locally. This collaboration with Lila Poonawalla Foundation is a step towards enabling young women to become future technology leaders. This is not only a reflection of our Sustainability 2030 goals but also helps take the culture of diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity beyond the organization. We’ve doubled the number of scholarships this year, looking at the overwhelming response; and we aim to scale this up even further going forward,” said Sanjeev Sharma, Country Head and Managing Director, ABB India.

"We are glad that we could support academically talented girls from economically challenged backgrounds in partnership with ABB. We thank ABB for supporting us throughout the last two years and extending this partnership. As a valued partner, ABB has not only financially supported these girls but also engaged holistically through the Employee Volunteering and mentoring program to enhance their employability and corporate readiness skills," said Lila Poonawalla, Chairperson, Lila Poonawalla Foundation and a Padma Shri awardee.

ABB India is making concerted efforts for more inclusive growth, both within the workplace and for the greater society, through a variety of community development activities in the fields of its operations. Globally, ABB also sponsors a scholarship programme called the Jürgen Dormann Scholarship, which aims to encourage students from underserved backgrounds to pursue careers in engineering by removing impediments that prohibit them from doing so.

ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a leading global technology company that energizes the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. By connecting software to its electrification, robotics, automation and motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of technology to drive performance to new levels. With a history of excellence stretching back more than 130 years, ABB’s success is driven by about 105,000 talented employees in over 100 countries. www.abb.com.

Lila Poonawalla Foundation is a non-profit organization Public Charitable Trust in India, established in 1995, accredited by the Credibility Alliance and headquartered in Pune with regional operations in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Wardha, Amravati and Nagpur. LPF works towards promoting ‘Girls Education and Women Empowerment’ by offering Merit-cum-Need based Scholarships and Personal & Professional Skill Building programs to carefully chosen academically bright but economically challenged girls, so that they can pursue their professional education and career of their choice. In its 26-year journey, LPF helped transform the lives of over 12,000 girls as well as their families in no small measure due to the sustained support of its partners and well-wishers.