TCS, HDFC to fund sports education!
Be it at the grass-root level in schools, semi-professional coaching academies or elite clubs for the top level, efforts are being made to promote sports. In fact, sports personalities, coaching centres and leading companies are making their own contributions to the field of sports.
Recently, Sweden’s five-time table tennis world champion Peter Karlsson imparted valuable lessons in Faridabad. In this three-day clinic, he shared his knowledge and expertise with around 35 youngsters from all over the country who took part in the clinic to hone their skills.
The player along with elucidating the technicalities of the game and briefing entrants about real life pressures, advised them to instill the qualities needed to emerge as a good sportsperson. (Read more)
In a latest news, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and HDFC have collaborated to invest in a sports education start-up. More than a decade ago, both the organizations had developed a joint venture called Intelenet for business process outsourcing. The idea behind producing Kids Out Of Home (KOOH) was proposed by Susir Kumar and the Intelenet team of executives who made Intelenet one of India's most prominent BPOs.
“Basically, what we are doing is asking schools to outsource their sports education to us. It is a commercial venture with a cause; philanthropy for profit. Otherwise it won't work,” Susir Kumar, the chief executive officer of Serco Global Services, the post-acquisition version of Intelenet, told The Economic Times.
He added that having thought of the big things India would need in the next 10 years they came up with three areas: food, primary health and education. Again, in education, they thought about the challenges children face and one of them was sports.
Promoting sports education in schools, KOOH is expected to equip schools with a blend of structured curriculum, technology and infrastructure to motivate kids to come out and play.
The co-founders from the Intelenet team who are on the board of the new venture will continue their services with Serco, while a new independent team will manage this new venture. Renowned cricket personality Ajit Wadekar and former Delhi cricket player Sanjeev Sharma have joined in an advisory role.
As far as the coaching is concerned, KOOH will extract lessons from the BPO industry to train coaches in areas such as voice accents and child psychology. Lausanne, Switzerland-based Centre for Sports Education, founded by the International Olympic Committee will host training for the coaches. (Read more)
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