India Cash Grant Program

Anudip: Aligned with the IndiaAI Mission’s FutureSkills pillar, the “Equity in AI: Youth Empowerment program” equips youth with specialized training in AI-assisted data analysis and AI powered web design. By bridging critical skills gaps, the program is building a future-ready workforce and fostering long-term professional resilience.

Bhartuya Yuva Shakti Trust: The Digital Grampreneur Program empowers youth with entrepreneurial guidance and digital training to create businesses and generate sustainable local employment opportunities.

Centre for Microfinance: The initiative enables women in Rajasthan to pursue entrepreneurship and employment opportunities through integrated skilling, enterprise development, mentorship, and financial support. By helping women start or strengthen farm and non-farm businesses and building job-ready skills, the initiative aims to increase women’s incomes, create livelihoods and generate local employment.

CII Foundation: The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Networking equips youth with industry relevant skills in cybersecurity and technology to strengthen their employability and digital transformation. Learn more about our work here.

Digital Green Trust: Farmer.Chat uses AI to deliver climate-smart, personalized agricultural advisories to smallholder farmers, helping them make informed decisions on crop management, pest and disease control, and farming practices. The initiative aims to strengthen farm productivity, build climate resilience, and support more sustainable and profitable agricultural livelihoods. 

Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII): The Rurban Womenpreneur project drives economic inclusion in tribal and aspirational regions by equipping women with essential digital and financial literacy. The project fosters sustainable, group-led enterprises that create lasting community impact and financial self-reliance.

FIND: Project Saksham leverages an integrated, artificial intelligence-driven approach for tuberculosis screening, early detection, and case tracking. By using technology to identify individuals at risk and strengthen follow-up, the initiative aims to improve timely diagnosis and linkage to appropriate care. 

Foundation for MSME Clusters: Digitalisation to Employment (D2E) initiative empowers women artisans with digital tools, training, and design support to expand market access, improve productivity, and strengthen livelihoods. The initiative also helps build more resilient local economies through innovation-led growth. Learn more about our work here.

Gyan Prakash Foundation: Via a multiyear partnership, “Navigator Disha” was created to contextualize the Learning Navigator Platform and its various apps with offline features in India to support all learners in technologically challenged environments, especially those with intermittent or poor connectivity. The tool provides navigation ability to achieve learning outcomes for learners through relevant applications with offline features. While there are several products and solutions aimed to help children learn, there are very few that help track the journey of a learner in a calibrated manner to provide the most appropriate data driven insights in situations with low connectivity. The tool currently registers over 17000 teachers.

Indian Institute of Science: The Centre for Networked Intelligence leverages advanced research in next-gen networking solutions that support AI/ML and Cybersecurity use cases with a societal benefit. Learn more about our work here.

Indus Action: Project Shram Saarthi simplifies access to government welfare schemes for construction workers by using technology and policy redesign to remove administrative bottlenecks.

Jagriti Seva Sansthan: The Tech Shakti Shri Program equips rural women in Uttar Pradesh with digital literacy and entrepreneurship training to lead technology driven enterprises and foster grassroots economic transformation. Learn more about our work here.

Learning Links Foundation: Empowers women through financial and digital literacy training alongside seed grants to establish viable enterprises that improve their economic independence. Learn more about our work here.

Magic Bus India Foundation: “AI Tools Adoption - Connect with Work” program empowers first-time job seekers with essential AI proficiency and professional development. By bridging the gap between emerging talent and industry needs, the project ensures individuals are equipped to secure meaningful roles across a diverse range of sectors.

Medha Learning Foundation: The project aims to transform Industrial Training Institute (ITI) education in Uttar Pradesh by strengthening industry partnerships, enhancing trainer and learner capabilities, and integrating emerging technologies such as AI into vocational training. By aligning curricula and skills with evolving industry needs, the initiative seeks to improve employability, strengthen job readiness, and enable young people to access better and more sustainable career opportunities.

nasscom foundation: thingQbator is a hybrid makerspace that equips students from tier II, III, & IV engineering institutions with learning, mentorship, and seed funding support to turn their ideas into social ventures. The initiative nurtures future-ready innovators building solutions to address pressing societal and global challenges. Learn more about our work here.

nasscom foundation Foundation: Support vulnerable tribal groups by guiding them through government schemes and essential services to improve their access and quality of life.

NIIT Foundation: The Cyber Suraksha Plus initiative builds cyber resilience by equipping individuals with cybersecurity and AI skills to identify online threats and navigate the digital world safely. It also builds workforce readiness amongst youth enabling them to pursue careers in the growing cybersecurity and technology sector. Learn more about our work here.

Piramal Swasthya: The Niramay Program utilizes digital technology to support the creation and tracking of unique medical records of citizens with a goal to strengthen healthcare delivery and improve health outcomes in Assam. 

Quest Alliance: The Future Right Skills Network collaborates with government institutions to provide young people with essential employability skills and artificial intelligence training for future careers across the vocational training ecosystem in the country. Learn more about our work here.

Social Alpha: Krishi Mangal, a start-up accelerator initiative, supports deep-tech Agri-startups to drive sustainable, regenerative farming. By scaling deep-tech, revenue-generating solutions, the initiative improves efficiency and productivity, directly contributing to the income increase of small and marginal farmers. Learn more about our work here.

Villgro: The Tvaran accelerator empowers women-led startups by providing market access and digital solutions to drive climate change mitigation and sustainable economic growth.

Indus Action: In partnership with Cisco, Indus Action is working to improve access to welfare schemes under the Building and Other Construction Workers (BoCW) Act. Despite the government’s efforts and significant cess funds collected, many construction workers struggle to access their entitlements due to complex processes, low awareness, and administrative bottlenecks. The project leverages technology, policy redesign and community engagement to simplify registrations, claims, and benefit disbursal. Key interventions include developing digital public goods like eligibility engines and dashboards, streamlining processes and building capacity to sustain impact.

ActionAid India: Championing health equity, this initiative administered 260,000 vaccine doses and fortified local healthcare systems to ensure long-term resilience for vulnerable communities during COVID. Learn more about our work here.

Akshaya Patra Foundation: Digitizing operations and providing a critical safety net of millions of meals and grocery kits during crises, this collaboration supported numerous families during a difficult period. Read more about our work here.

Bal Raksha Bharat: Project Pratiraksha secures health for all, fortifying immunization coverage through community-led outreach and infrastructure development to reach the most vulnerable. Learn more about our work here.

Bhumi: The Skill-Ed Program ignites potential by equipping underprivileged youth with market-ready technical and soft skills, successfully bridging the opportunity gap for over 5,800 students. Learn more about our work here.

Cisco Agri Challenge: Announced in December 2020 in partnership with the Principal Scientific Advisors Office, the Government of India, and The Nudge, this challenge was designed to identify solutions that have the potential to create impact at scale for small and marginalized farmers. The challenge mobilized agriculture startups working towards income generation and sustainable livelihoods for underserved farmers, while delivering positive economic, social, and environmental value. S4S Technologies was selected as the winner, and Bioprime Agrisolutions emerged as the runner-up. More than 800 applicants were reviewed for the challenge.

CMGGA—Ashoka Fellowship: The CMGGA Ashoka Fellowship cultivates young changemakers who partner with the government to drive transparency, accountability, and systemic improvements in public service delivery. Learn more about our work here.

Cyber Peace Foundation: The Cyber Keepers Project protects the next generation by providing 5,000 students with digital safety certifications and real-time guidance to practise responsible behavior online. Learn more about our work here.

Cyber Suraksha: In its commitment to building a safer digital ecosystem, Cisco’s Cyber Suraksha initiative equipped organizations and individuals with essential cybersecurity skills and awareness. The project targeted underserved communities, small businesses, and local institutions, fostering resilience against cyber threats. Cyber Suraksha provided training in identifying risks, implementing robust security practices, and navigating the digital world with confidence. By collaborating with key stakeholders, Cisco created a culture of cybersecurity that safeguarded critical information and empowered users to thrive in an increasingly connected world.

Gyan Prakash Foundation: Navigator Disha provides offline learning tools and data driven insights to support students and teachers in areas with limited or poor internet connectivity. Learn more about our work here.

Indus Action: Developed an Education-Management Information System (EdMIS), an innovative technology platform designed to streamline the RTE admissions process. Learn more about our work here.

Leadership For Equity: The LEAD program drives systemic change in education by empowering government officers with the leadership skills needed to transform policy into meaningful on-ground impact. Learn more about our work here.

The Nudge: Cisco Agri Challenge initiative transforms livelihoods by scaling innovative agritech solutions that empower smallholder farmers, driving economic prosperity and sustainable growth. Learn more about the work here.

Pratham Books: Sparking the joy of reading, this collaboration provides children with 90+ multilingual STEAM storybooks and 2,000+ libraries, ensuring every child has the tools to explore and learn. Learn more about our work here.

Bal Raksha Bharat: Through “Project Pratiraksha,” Cisco and Save the Children fortified COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the districts of Balrampur and Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh. This initiative focused on the most vulnerable populations and enhanced local healthcare capacities through training and infrastructure development. Community health outreach programs and vaccination camps played a crucial role in addressing vaccine hesitancy and ensuring equitable access to life-saving immunizations. Learn more about our work here.

Sikshana Foundation: "Prerana 2.0" unlocks foundational brilliance by bringing personalized, experiential learning to 1.8 million students, ensuring they build the arithmetic skills needed to succeed. Learn more about our work here.

Swasti: Leveraging the power of data, the DICEflow tool provides grassroots organizations with the digital agility to serve people with greater efficiency and compassion. Learn more about our work here.

CMGGA—Ashoka Fellowship: The CMGGA (Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates) program is a strategic collaboration between the Government of Haryana and Ashoka University to improve governance in the state and driving a mass impact on ground. The program provides a platform to 25 young individuals, placed across 22 districts in Haryana, to work closely with the Chief Minister's Office for bringing transparency, accountability and efficiency in public service delivery in the state. These associates delivered impactful projects across livelihood, health, education, agriculture and governance resulting in poverty alleviation, improved education systems and environmental restoration. Since FY2019-20, Cisco supported 6 CMGGA associates each year to ensure smooth implementation of state government's flagship schemes. The program concluded in 2024 leaving behind a legacy of systemic improvements and meaningful community impact.