Google ties up with Bharti Foundation

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Google and Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises, today jointly announced an initiative to support the Satya Bharti schools, run by the Bharti Foundation.

As part of the agreement, Google will provide financial support of $5 million to upgrade and support 50 elementary schools run by the Bharti Foundation in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. These schools will be named as Satya Elementary schools, said a press release.

Bharti Foundation provides education to underprivileged children in rural areas. Its flagship initiative, the Satya Bharti School Program, reaches out to over 30,000 children, with particular focus on the girl child, from socially and economically challenged backgrounds.

The Foundation offers them access to free education through 236 village primary schools and one senior secondary school. Going forward an additional 15 primary and 4 senior secondary schools are scheduled to be opened in the next academic year.

It will provide financial support to set up middle schools (classes VI -VIII) as well as help meet operational expenses to upgrade primary schools to elementary level.

Once completed, this initiative will help upgrade 50 primary schools to elementary levels and will reach over 15,000 children.  In addition, at full capacity this will provide employment and skill training to over 500 teachers.

Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing director — Bharti Enterprises said, “Bharti Foundation has a vision of ‘empowering rural India’ through the educational initiatives of the Bharti Foundation. The financial support received from Google will further allow the Foundation to scale up the existing Satya Bharti School program from primary to elementary level and take education in rural India to the next level.”

He added that they are confident that this partnership will help ready the underprivileged children of today as employable and responsible citizens of tomorrow.

Nikesh Arora, chief business officer, Google added, “Google is committed to doing good. We have a strong presence in India and have benefited from the enormous talent in engineering and science in this country.  We are delighted to support Bharti Foundation’s initiative to spread education and empower India’s next generation.”

Google’s grant to Bharti Foundation is part of its global philanthropic outreach. Google provided more than $145 million to non-profits and academic institutions in 2010, and more than $184 million in total giving when including Google Grants, Google.org technology projects and product support for non-profits.

Google has four centres in India: Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. India forms a key part of Google’s strategy of operating as a globally integrated company, the release added.