This text is sponsored by nasscom basis

With a world imaginative and prescient to foster peace and progress all over the world, in 2015, all of the United Nations member states embraced the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth. With its 17 Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs), the agenda units forth crucial duties that demand collaborative efforts to deal with the world’s challenges. Inside these targets lie not solely vital challenges but in addition unprecedented alternatives for companies, governments, and communities on a world scale.

Emphasising the common nature of the difficulty, it’s pivotal to acknowledge that addressing the decline in SDG progress necessitates collective consideration and motion.

“Until we act now, the 2030 Agenda will turn into an epitaph for a world that may have been,” stated UN Secretary-Common António Guterres.

Aligning with the UN’s 2030 SDG Agenda, the NASSCOM Basis not too long ago organised the TechForGood India Conclave 2024 in New Delhi. Targeted on the theme ‘Accelerating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth by means of Know-how’, the occasion introduced collectively civil society, social innovators, entrepreneurs, authorities representatives, and know-how and improvement leaders to collaborate on accelerating India’s SDG targets.

It lined important matters resembling sustainable dwelling, local weather motion, healthcare, schooling, and empowering ladies entrepreneurs. The occasion included partaking masterclasses, fireplace chats, and dynamic panel discussions, bringing collectively various stakeholders.

“If we don’t take motion as we speak, there received’t be a future. The TechForGood India Conclave 2024 goals at uniting changemakers to speed up India’s progress in direction of the SDGs, sparking daring motion on crucial points like sustainability, digital fairness and social innovation. The conclave is a platform for corporates, civil society, final mile enablers, social innovators and the social funding group to return collectively to take pressing brave and daring motion to deal with the crucial points with know-how as an enabler,” stated Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, Nasscom Basis.

Challenges to reaching SDGs in India

Agreeing that reaching the SDGs in India and globally is a posh job, right here’s the breakdown of the important thing challenges that got here up through the conclave, hindering significant change in India.

Infrastructural and institutional boundaries: Speedy urbanisation and digitalisation have widened the digital divide, emphasising the necessity to handle gaps in infrastructure and digital accessibility. Moreover, the Nationwide Household Well being Survey (2019-21) reveals that girls in India face digital exclusion, with just one in three having ever used the web in comparison with greater than half of males. Rural areas exhibit even larger disparities.

Absence of collaboration: The absence of strong networks and collaboration amongst stakeholders is a major impediment to reaching SDGs. This hampers the sharing of greatest practices, progressive options, and classes realized.

Useful resource and competency gaps: A latest NSSO survey highlights a digital ability hole amongst Indian youth, with solely 27.5% categorized as ‘digitally expert’. This deficiency hampers the applying of progressive options essential for sustainable improvement. Moreover, scarce competencies and sources impede the use, adoption, and creation of recent data and know-how.

Persistent Points: Regardless of vital progress, entrenched points like gender inequality, the digital divide, poverty, and insufficient healthcare entry stay substantial hurdles.

Addressing these challenges is feasible by means of the ability of know-how, which acts as a drive multiplier and holds the potential for progress. In India, the digitalisation wave has led to a transformative shift — empowering people, bettering knowledge accessibility, and fostering inclusivity.

With the following seven years being essential, it’s more and more simple that know-how performs a key position in figuring out whether or not the UN SDGs are achieved. A World Financial Discussion board report means that current know-how purposes may facilitate over 70% of the SDG’s 136 targets.

Facilitating know-how and innovation for SDGs

To unlock this potential, the next pillars have been identified as being essential for harnessing technological innovation within the TechForGood India Conclave.

Sustainability: Know-how, pushed by initiatives like Digital India and Aadhaar, has reshaped companies and day by day life in India. This digital revolution has had a transformational affect, spurring e-commerce, monetary inclusion, and entry to data. In consequence, new alternatives have emerged, accelerating financial exercise.

In aspirational districts, leveraging know-how turns into a method to bridge infrastructure gaps, improve digital literacy, and contribute to sustainable improvement, thereby fostering financial progress.

Digital fairness: Overcoming socio-economic boundaries, particularly in rural and tier 2 and three cities, is essential for SDG achievement. Know-how performs an important position on this endeavour by facilitating schooling by means of on-line platforms, connecting distant communities, selling financial progress, and offering alternatives for ability improvement and employment. 

Embracing inclusive design rules ensures accessibility for people with disabilities, thereby contributing to making a extra equitable society.

Social innovation: Social innovation affords ingenious technological options to societal points, empowering native communities and addressing various wants. Prioritising sustainability and scalability, these improvements goal for enduring impacts adaptable to varied conditions, considerably contributing to a number of SDGs.

Collaborative partnerships amongst non-public entities, NGOs, and governments drive fairness and prolong improvement initiatives to marginalised teams, offering a lift within the race in direction of SDGs.

Collaboration: Collaborative efforts, pushed by a shared purpose of leveraging know-how for optimistic change, are essential for SDG achievement. Bringing collectively experience from governments, companies, NGOs, academia, and communities permits for complete problem-solving.

A collective perspective on utilizing digital innovation, data-driven options, and connectivity instruments amplifies efforts to advance the SDGs, making collaboration the binding agent for fulfillment.

“One of many issues that basically struck me whereas constructing tech startups was the concept of how one may construct an internet-based firm to drive large-scale social change. Residents need to be impressed. The must be impressed is a common want. It’s not nearly storytelling. It’s about the way you make a narrative relatable to the common citizen,” stated Dhimant Parekh, Founder and CEO, The Higher India — one among the many over 80 notable audio system and delegates current on the occasion.

The important thing message from the conclave is that combining know-how with collaborative efforts can velocity up progress in schooling, local weather motion, poverty discount, and reaching no less than 70% of the 169 SDG targets utilizing knowledge and digital applied sciences. This wants pressing motion and a united effort from stakeholders like authorities, organisations, communities, and people. Efficient methods, insurance policies, and initiatives are important to speed up the 2030 agenda for sustainable improvement.

“India as a rustic is extraordinarily dedicated to utilizing know-how and leveraging DPIs to fast-track the SDGs, and in addition to share our experiences and experience with the worldwide group,” stated Abhishek Singh, Ministry of Electronics and Info Know-how.

Edited by Padmashree Pande