Akshara Foundation wins Gold at the 2008 “Excellence in Information Integrity” (EII) Awards
Bangalore, October 20, 2008

The Information Integrity Coalition (IIC) is a not-for-profit organization that promotes awareness and understanding of Information Integrity and honours organizations that have made exceptional progress to provide accurate, consistent and reliable information to their customers, suppliers and partners. At the thirteenth annual Excellence in Information Integrity (EII) Awards Program held at Chicago, USA on October 20, 2008, Akshara Foundation was jointly awarded the gold in the not-for-profit category for its work in building a comprehensive database of information on all government primary schools in Bangalore as part of the Karnataka Learning Partnership initiative . The database captured data on a child-by-child basis and that data was used to bring in remedial interventions early in the academic progression of the child and accelerate the learning outcomes of children .

There were a record number of applications received from across the globe and Akshara Foundation was jointly chosen as the best in its category for addressing an Information Integrity opportunity using innovative technological methods. Ashok Kamath, Chairman, Akshara Foundation was delighted to receive the award and said “We have utilized information technology to deliver the right service to the right quarter and track progress. In 2006, we were able to plan a city-wide Reading programme implemented by government school teachers in over 1400 schools in Bangalore, which helped nearly 70,000 children build their reading skills. In 2007, we did the same in 834 schools for math skills and this year we are continuing the math programme in over 500 schools and have also added on a library programme.”

Vandita Sharma, Secretary, Education Department (Primary & Secondary Education), Government of Karnataka said, “We are delighted to be part of this innovation in the education sector of using technology to help us get accurate information to identify problem areas and address the issues in a comprehensive way”.