Minister Kapil Sibal awards scholarships to top SSN Students

Updated on: Thursday, November 05, 2009

Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal presented the the prestigious annual SSN scholarships worth four crore rupees to meritorious scholars at a ceremony held at the SSN Institutions, Chennai on November 4.The scholarships are an SSN Institutions endeavour to make world class education accessible to students from economically weak strata.

Shri K Ponmudy, Minister for Higher Education, Government of Tamil Nadu was the guest of honor at the function, attended by several Government officials, industry and academia. R Srinivasan, Chairman, SSN Institutions (Founder and CEO, Redington and globally renowned entrepreneur), Shiv Nadar, Founder HCL, and Chairman, The Shiv Nadar Foundation and Kala Vijayakumar, President, SSN Institutions were also present.

The SSN Institutions (www.ssn.edu.in) are a landmark initiative of The Shiv Nadar Foundation (http://www.shivnadarfoundation.com/). They have done exceptional work in their 14 years of existence and SSN is today an India top 10 private engineering college, and the number one private engineering college in Tamil Nadu.

A little known fact about SSN is the significant scholarship support that it provides to over 450 students totaling Rupees four crore every year. Since its inception 30 crore rupees worth of scholarships have been disbursed to 3000 deserving students, many from extremely challenged backgrounds. It is the largest scholarship given to the students by any private institute in an attempt to fill real need gaps for deserving students, taking the positive impact of education to where it can truly transform and uplift lives. SSN institution aims to induct and transform meritorious rural students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, providing them not just free, world class education, but also mentoring and nurturance - allowing them to transcend the disadvantages they face and compete with their urban counterparts.

The institutions, in a professional effort to scale up and make the SSN Scholarships more inclusive, had recently reached out to like minded corporate and individual donors, many of whom have already committed to providing endowment support to SSN Institutions to the tune of several Crore. These include several global majors that are institutions of excellence in their own right - CA, Redington, Oracle, HCL, Kotak, Reliance Capital, PWC, a leading aircraft manufacturer and last but not least the faculty and Alumni of SSN who are now giving back to the institution. The not for profit Vamasundari Scholarship Trust has been specifically created to receive these endowments which will be professionally managed to scale up the scholarship benefits and make education accessible for more deserving aspirants.

Speaking on the occasion R Srinivasan said, “I hardly know how to thank our donors enough on behalf of students whose lives they will alter. More than the contribution alone is the weight and credibility they have added by vesting their belief in our vision.

Minister Kapil Sibal awards scholarships to top SSN Students

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