Investing in the future: Our educational efforts in India
On paper alone, the scholarship candidate was strong. He had good grades and met the financial criteria. But when his evaluators found out about the data analysis project he launched on his own time, he was a lock.
“One recipient was already working on a project that would help farmers in the area by creating a financial predictor model that forecasts available land for farming in the following year,” said Santosh Alaghari, a data science engineer at the India Engineering Center (IEC) who conducted several candidate interviews. “While he fit the requirements both academically and financially, it was this student’s passion and work outside of the boundaries of traditional academics that really drew us to him.”
The candidate was among 42 first-year engineering students from Sai Vidya Institute of Technology and Brindavan College of Engineering who received scholarships from Pratt & Whitney, an RTX business. Each scholarship covers one year of tuition and includes an informal employee mentoring program.
“Pratt & Whitney has always been committed to the society and actively supports students pursuing STEM programs. This initiative is just a step in the right direction, and we hope a lot of students will get to benefit from this program in the future as well,” said Venkata Subbaiah G, assistant manager, global supply management.
Thirty nine Pratt & Whitney employees across the Commercial Engines, India Engineering Center and India Capability Center in Delhi and Bengaluru, India participated in the process to interview and evaluate the scholarship candidates on several criteria, including not only their financial and academic backgrounds, but also their motivation for pursuing further education in engineering.
“This scholarship program gives Pratt & Whitney an opportunity to really contribute to society. All the recipients were so driven and passionate, so through this program hopefully they’ll get to do everything that they want to do,” said Mahaveer Padmarajaiah, Senior Manager , EPLM (Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management) India Operations and a candidate interviewer.
Further efforts in India
Pratt & Whitney is committing to the community in Bengaluru, and the scholarship program is only the beginning. Both Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace -- a fellow business unit of RTX – continue to ramp up corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts in India to grow interest in STEM fields and ensure basic needs are met.
For example, Pratt & Whitney has been working with the India branch of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). To date, Pratt & Whitney has supported the opening of 119 eLearning Centers that provide access to computers and STEM-based educational programming for students in underprivileged areas. The company also provided financial support to EWB to support Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV), a residential school for more than 230 girls, to ensure access to clean water.
At Collins Aerospace, CSR efforts in India have focused on initiatives in education, rural development, skill development and environmental conservation. By setting up 32 STEM laboratories, constructing two school buildings, and providing computer literacy and STEM skills training to economically disadvantaged community members, Collins Aerospace has transformed the lives of thousands of people in India.
“I feel super privileged to be a part of the community efforts here in India,” said Trivedi. “We’re investing not only in the future of the students, but the future of RTX as well.”