DATAMATION FOUNDATION

Datamation Foundation is a non-profit, apolitical, non-partisan registered Charitable Trust (Trust Deed # 3258 dated March 8, 2001) with its head office at Delhi. The Foundation has been actively engaged in advocating, designing and implementing innovative Information and Communication   Technology enabled initiatives to help meet Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) defined by the United Nations as below :

•  Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger

•  Achieving universal primary education 

•  Achieving universal primary education

•  Promoting gender equality and empowerment of women

•  Reducing child mortality

•  Improving maternal health

•  Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other health disorders

•  Ensuring environmental sustainability

•  Developing a global partnership for development

The Foundation targets women, economically and socially disadvantaged communities and youth in India and other developing countries. Gender equality, youth empowerment and poverty alleviation dovetailed with the MDGs are the main goals of the Trust.

KEY OBJECTIVES

·         To render all possible help and facilities to the underprivileged and ‘unreached’ by enabling them to realize their potential.

·         To generate employment opportunities in the rural areas for the ‘unreached’ and economically and socially ‘disfranchised’ by providing technological, social and administrative solutions for sustainable deployment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)  via Community Multi-Media Centers (CMCs) and Information Kiosks (IKs) in  innovative ways.

·         To partner with various international development agencies and donors apart from private sector and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) for the deployment of innovative, ‘pro-poor’ ICT solutions.

·       To relentlessly pursue path-breaking objectives and programs targeted towards gender and youth  in the areas of :

·  Violence against women including trafficking, bonded labor and dowry     

·  Selective sex abortions and Female Foeticide

·  Poverty alleviation by ensuring livelihoods

·  Empowerment of women

Inspiration AND HOMAGE

The Foundation owes its formation to the inspirational life and struggles of the late Mrs. Vimla Sharma. Her deep concern and commitment towards the economically and socially disadvantaged people especially women and youth led to the formation of the Trust by her son, Chetan.

 Chetan Sharma, as founder of Datamation, one of India’s respected and reputed Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES), has contributed significantly to the ICT4Development Sector in India and in a large number of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Datamation’s contribution towards mass-scale employment opportunities creation in India’s ICT sector has been recognized by a large number of international organizations viz. the World Technology Network, Harvard Business School, UN ICT Task Force, Global Junior Challenger, Commonwealth of Learning, infoDev-IICD International Stories Competition and the Global Knowledge Partnership.

The innovative public-private partnership program deployed by Datamation provides advanced ICT training and mentoring for extending job opportunities to women from socially or economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This case study may be viewed at :

http://www.digitaldividend.org/knwldge_bank/knwldge_bank_01_data.htm

Chetan Sharma serves on the National Apex Committee set up by the Government of India on E-governance mandated to examine E-readiness and E-assessment of government departments and the public infrastructure for E-governance. He also serves on various Civil Society Groups under the aegis of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and UN ICT Task Force.