Sabre believes giving back to the community is an amalgamation of two kinds of contribution – people and capital. Depending on the requirement, we, at Sabre Bengaluru Global Capability Center, contribute by either funding a project or volunteering our team members’ time. In 2021, keeping with our CSR objectives, we partnered with The/Nudge Foundation and The Apprentice Project (TAP) to focus on a community initiative that promotes education and capacity building for future generations. We decided to incubate this early-stage nonprofit, leveraging technology to solve complex social challenges together. Our contribution includes, both non-financial and financial support, in the form of trainings, bootcamps, grants and leadership engagement.
Over 250 million students from low-income communities in India lack the socio-emotional learning (SEL) skills, opportunities, and exposure to thrive in the 21st century. TAP is one such initiative that is working towards building SEL skills and knowledge in these children through self-learning videos delivered via WhatsApp chatbot- TAP BUDDY. Sabre, being a technology solutions expert, is now helping TAP turn this around into a technically scalable and sustainable system. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), Sabre is helping train their system to respond to students at moments when flow editor alone cannot.
By mid-2022, Sabre leadership was already supporting and scaling up this effort through direct interactions during planning and implementation. They have been mentoring the program and making a noticeable difference through their experience and expertise. Jacksy Verghese, with over 24 years of strategic IT and hospitality leadership experience; Vinod Kesvan, a Global Product & Technology leader; Prasad Parigi, with more than 23 years of experience leading Enterprise software products spanning across several domains and Sanjeeb Patel – Director, Software Engineering, form this incredible group of mentors.
From exchanging ideas to giving advice at every step in the lifecycle of Sabre/Nudge program, the mentors have helped in achieving significant milestones. First, Natural Language Processing (NLP) went live with testing across 2400 government school students. Later, the NLP integration was completed with the support of Glific, TAP and The/Nudge.
In line with the vision to empower low-income children to become leaders of today and tomorrow, TAP worked with around 10,000 children in 2022-23. Their intention is to scale up to 100,000 children in the coming years. We are geared up in helping TAP achieve this goal and bring transformation at the ground level.