Schools from Northeast India felicitated at Wipro earthian Awards 2024 

Wipro Limited, a leading technology services and consulting company, held the 14th edition of the Wipro earthian Awards for the year 2024 on February 22nd at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. The awards mark the conclusion of an annual program designed to foster integrated sustainability education and recognize Indian schools and colleges that actively promote sustainable action and thinking.

Winners from the region included:
· North Guwahati Girls High School, Assam: The team presented projects on biodiversity and waste. They found that while the Northeast is conducive to biodiversity, urbanization and infrastructure growth are harming it. This imbalance could affect future generations. Regarding waste, they noted the lack of awareness in disposal habits and initiated a paper recycling project to improve their environment.

· Global Valley School, Roing, Arunachal Pradesh: The team examined how development in their valley impacts solid waste management. They found that modern waste from commercialization isn’t absorbed by natural environments and highlighted the absence of local recycling industries, leading to waste burning and environmental degradation.

Anurag Behar, Chief Executive Officer of Azim Premji Foundation, and Narayan PS., Global Head of Sustainability and Social Initiatives at Wipro Limited and Managing Trustee of Wipro Foundation, felicitated the winning teams with certificates and cash prizes.

Narayan P.S. said, “The annual Wipro earthian Awards mark the culmination of the 14th edition of Wipro’s long-running program, which seeks to ignite interest and foster learning in young minds about humanity’s unique relationship with nature. Bringing students and teachers together from schools across the country, the Wipro earthian program is designed to generate action-based learning that celebrates the underlying connectedness of the individual with the larger fabric of community and nature. We continue to be inspired by the resilience and optimism we see in our young citizens as they prepare to face the multiple challenges of sustainable development the world is encountering.”

The Wipro earthian program is one of India’s largest sustainability education programs for schools and colleges. The 2024 edition of this program received over 1,500 project submissions, of which 23 winning and 43 shortlisted entries were selected by an independent jury. The teams from the winning schools demonstrated a deep understanding of biodiversity, waste, and water through a combination of activity-based learning programs and written essays.

Since 2011, Wipro earthian has engaged with over 50,000 schools, 4,000 colleges, 200,000 students, and 40,000 teachers. This year, participation remained high with more than 1,500 submissions from schools and over 700 from colleges. Support from Wipro’s education partners, including CEE, CPREEC, Wild Ecologues, IIT Madras, IIM Bangalore, state governments, and educators in the SEN, has expanded the program’s reach.

MT