NASSCOM Foundation has undertaken an initiative to popularise the usage of ICT among the civil society bodies in India. The foundation has launched an online platform, BiG Tech to distribute software products to the non profit organisations. NASSCOM Foundation has tied up with the San Francisco-based TechSoup in order to provide software donated by the software companies to the NGOs.

According to Kiran Karnik, president, NASSCOM, “Information Technology has not yet been able to make its noticeable presence among non profit organisations. This initiative by NASSCOM Foundation will be able to increase the usage of IT among these organisations and its beneficiaries. This online platform will help them to get legal software at minimal cost. ”

TechSoup has a presence in 8 countries across the globe, including India. Microsoft is a partner of TechSoup and will also work with NASSCOM towards this project.

“In order to be a part of the IT growth in India, we want to extend our offerings through NASSCOM to Indian NGOs. We have collaboration with 25 major technology providers like Cisco, Adobe, Symantec and Microsoft to offer essential product donations worldwide. Through the technology product donations service, we have enabled potential savings of $628 million to the non profit sector since 2002, equalling savings of $11,400 per organisations served,” remarked Mike Yeaton, global director, TechSoup.

Microsoft donated its software solutions worth $210 million to 70,000 NGOs worldwide last year. Neelam Dhawan, managing director, Microsoft India, commented, “We are the first corporate partner of NASSCOM Foundation for this BiG Tech programme as we are already a global partner of TechSoup. We will donate the software to those non profit organisations recommended by NASSCOM.”

Though Microsoft is the only partner vendor in India, NASSCOM has started discussions with other vendors to get more software donation.