This NGO teams up with Cisco for kitchen digitisation to feed 5 Mn children

In order to support non-profit organisation (NGO) that help meet human needs, global technology company Cisco teamed up with Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF) to accelerate digitisation of their kitchens across seven locations in India.

This will help realize significant gains in productivity, scalability, and cost-efficiency and accelerate Akshaya Patra’s goal to reach 5 Million children by 2020, the company said.

APF is reported to be world’s largest (non-profit) mid-day meal programme serving wholesome food to over 1.66 million children from 13,958 schools across 12 states in India.

According to the agreement, Cisco will put in an enterprise-grade network and collaboration suite connecting their kitchens and their offices by enabling end to end IT & process digitization.

Shridhar Venkat, Chief Executive Officer, the Akshaya Patra Foundation said, "The network platform we are putting in place today will help us in our digitisation journey by enabling real-time data collection, streamline kitchen production, distribution, and supply chain. All of this will help us in our mission to reach more children.”

The upgraded network will connect their offices on a single network which will enable them to efficiently track their kitchen production, distribution, supply chain and logistics. It will enable to have faster and better connectivity in their field offices, which are critical to the kitchen’s operational performance, and necessary to support virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing.

In addition, Akshaya Patra can now analyze, and operationalize disparate sets of data in near real-time helping them to improve the overall speed, security and responsiveness of the programme.

“Technology connects people in meaningful ways and has the power to create new opportunities and boost economic growth and well-being. Cisco is committed to supporting scalable and self-sustaining programs that use technology to address some of society's biggest challenges. For the past 20 years, we have applied our technology and expertise to accelerate global problem solving and positively affect people, society, and the planet,” said Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Cisco.

Cisco has been connected with Akshaya Patra Foundation since past 10 years providing them employment, volunteering and disaster relief assistance. After the Chennai flood, Cisco sponsored Akshaya Patra's first kitchen-on-wheels.

This kitchen provided around 2000 meals every two hours whenever it has to stationed at any place post-disaster without any uninterrupted power supply. Post Gorakhpur flood, this kitchen generated about 100,000 meals.