Making the Internet work for Relief Work

One of the reasons why I chose to get back to working in Sify is the spirit the company has. You are encouraged to take intitiatives and the kind of freedom one gets is remarkable. Reasons why I love my company.

At this time of disaster, Sify has done what it does best… putting Internet to practical use.

Setting up IWay Internet booths : In Nagapattinam and Cuddalore, where telephone lines and telecommunication equipments have been ravaged, Sify has set up wireless Internet connectivity and established IWay Internet Cafes for people and officials to use for free. It wasn’t easy to set these up at quick notice but the folks at the IWay dept have managed to cross logistical hurdles and bureautcratic red tapism to set up these Internet booths.

The use of Company Intranet is another great way to raise funds. The HR dept and Finance depts have gotten together to let employees choose how many days salary they wish to donate to relief efforts. Now the employees only need to log-in to their page in Intranet and choose the number of days and the money gets automatically credited into the relief fund quota. Simple, yet very effective.

A team from the e-learning division has already set off to Nagapattinam in vans with relief materials. Willing to do relief work is one thing but giving permission and encouraging people to do so is completely another.

Sify has tied up with Red Cross to help people make online donations. Infact when the Red Cross page was initially launched, many people wrote in to point out that a company like Sify which is an Internet company, did not have a provision to make online donations. The company quickly swung into action, tied up with Citibank, to get an online payment ready. You can now make direct contributions to the India Red Cross Society.

Citibank now encourages all its patrons to make use of the Sify payment gateway to make online donations. That’s an encouraging sign of the amount of trust the bank has.