Mumbai, Aug 01, 2017: WNS (Holdings) Limited, a leading provider of global Business Process Management (BPM) services, through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm, WNS Cares Foundation (WCF) distributed MIKO, India’s first companion robot to the winners of its digital global essay writing competition, The Golden Pen contest. MIKO is being distributed to nine schools across Mumbai, Pune, Vizag, Nasik and Chennai. Students at these schools will be able to interact with MIKO, an emotionally-intelligent, companion robot, capable of engaging, educating and entertaining a child. MIKO will be placed in the school computer learning centre where it would respond to general knowledge questions, answer queries on basic mathematics, tell stories and sing a song.
Keshav.R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS and Member, WCF Board, said, “At WCF, we aim to revolutionise the concept of holistic learning for children. With MIKO distribution, we would like to create avenues of modern methods of learning and access to digital education for children. MIKO has been developed by a team of three IITians with an in-depth background in robotics. Being emotionally intelligent, it is a perfect addition to a child’s existing social framework imagined by, and for Indians. Interacting with MIKO enhances a child’s learning and engagement much more than a television, a computer, a smartphone, or a tablet. MIKO will demystify the various misconceptions associated with robots and would aid faster digital adoption for children.”
WCF organised a global digital essay writing competition, The Golden Pen contest that combined a physical event in Mumbai, digitally connecting children from six other countries including Costa Rica, The Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Poland and Romania. Over 1,34,000 students from 196 schools across the globe participated in the event. In India, States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana took part in this contest. Following a month long, rigorous contest that saw school, regional and country level rounds, nine students from India emerged as global winners in the respective categories. The Golden Pen contest is a part of WCF’s annual flagship programme, Global Impact Day, that takes up a single theme for a global competition every year. With education for the less privileged as its core theme in India, it organises unique, impact driven programmes such as Mobile Library, Computer Literacy, e-mentoring, Dictionary Learning, Self-Defence Workshops and so on.