Ericsson Global India ltd. and Smile Foundation got into partnership in March 2015 for three years of project operations to implement the CSR programme across 7 cities of India. CSR Programme ‘The skill development programme for enhancing employability of 9000 underprivileged youth being implementing in Kolkata, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru & Chennai.

The skill development programme for enhancing employability of the underprivileged  Youth – Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) 

Objectives

• To equip the youth with basic computer skills (essential office applications) to make them technology friendly.
• To educate the underprivileged urban youth on basic retail management to make them adaptable and employable in the retail industry.
• To promote confidence and presentation skills by incorporating aspects of English speaking and Personality Development.
• To promote employment by identification and placement of these students in the respective corporate/ organizations.

Operations Plan

• Identification of grassroots community based NGO partners
• Establishment of STeP centres
• Community Mobilization
• Regular training on computer, English, soft skills & personality development and retail
• & basic management
• Career counselling
• Industrial exposure
• Placement assistance

Impacts –

• Trained over 5500 underprivileged youth of 30 STeP centres
• Placed approximately 3500 of 5500 underprivileged trained youth and few started their own small scale business
• Over 650 career counselling sessions conducted
• More than 180 industrial exposure organized for youth
• Currently over 1200 youths are under training across 30 STeP centres
• Introduced Connect to Learn platform where a connection to internet can change the world and open doors for various opportunities to grow, learn and earn. It enables the STeP centers located at various locations to be connected to the internet and inspire today's youth with opportunities through education
• Also introduced technology based P3 application for Data Handling