Nandan Nilekani’s EkStep Foundation to guide students find jobs, skills, scholarships

Hyderabad: EkStep Foundation today announced the go-live of the nation’s first Open Network for Education and Skilling Transformation (ONEST) – incubated by EkStep and backed by the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). With partners including the likes of the Open Network for Digital Commerce, Protean, the Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy, ONEST hopes to facilitate the lives of millions of students, professionals and job seekers from situation to solution.

Of note is the fact that ONEST already counts among its network participants, the likes of Protean Vidyasaarathi, Buddy4Study, BetterPlace, and Namma Yatri, with others such as Infosys Springboard, the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure, the FICCI, S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, and the UNICEF among more than a hundred similar organisations having expressed interest in joining the network.

One million people turn 18 in India every month, with five million graduates joining the Indian workforce per annum. With the denizens of the country counting amongst them 600 million people aged between 18 and 35, human capability development becomes key to achieving our national and global aspirations.

It is here that ONEST aims to multiply the opportunities available to students and professionals by 5-10x and reduce frictions in processes over the next five years.

Speaking at the launch, Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, EkStep Foundation and Founding Chairman, UIDAI opined, “Digital Public Infrastructure has fundamentally changed the way samaaj, sarkaar and bajaar are interacting with each other. We need to combine the power of digital capital with human capital to create the people + advantage. Harnessing talent and getting people ready is a challenge we must focus on. ONEST is our endeavour to bring digital public infrastructure to society for the purposes of facilitating the skilling and education of hundreds of millions of Indians”.

Suresh Sethi, MD & CEO - Protean eGov Technologies said, “ONEST is solving for a fundamental right - the right to education by enabling universal access. We are thrilled to be a part of the historical golden transaction with Protean Vidyasaarathi as a Lighthouse Network Participant enabling the Financial Support facet of ONEST”.

Shan MS, Chief Growth Officer, Namma Yatri said, “Namma Yatri is a community-led initiative with the vision to empower drivers. By providing scholarships to the drivers' children through the ONEST network, we bring new hope to their future. We are very happy to be a part of the first transaction in ONEST. In the future, we aim to empower more drivers with training, and financial aid through ONEST.”

Gaurav Gupta, Chief Growth Officer, EkStep Foundation, said: "ONEST will be the UPI of education & skilling by reducing frictions and bringing together the combinatorial power of 100s of platforms to enable learning & livelihood opportunities in every nook & corner of the country".

Ved Antani, Chief Product & Technology Officer, BetterPlace added, “At Betterplace, we touch the lives of millions of frontline workers every day. We are excited to be part of ONEST's mission to democratise education for everyone. The scale and reach of a network like ONEST will be a gamechanger for the education landscape in India - I am sure we will be talking about ONEST's global success in the next 5 years just like we are talking about UPI today”.