The much awaited project of DB Tech in collaboration with the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) was successfully launched on 20^th March, 2010 with the inauguration of Bosco Academy for Skills and Employment (BASE) at the Don Bosco Provincial House, New Delhi by Mr. B.K. Sinha IAS, Secretary, MoRD, Govt of India. Other eminent dignitaries present on this occasion were Dr. Vimal Kishore DGM –  NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) and Mr. Rajan Kohli, Advisor,  Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). Rev. Fr. Maria Arokia Kanaga, South Asian Regional Head and Fr. Michael Peedikayil, Provincial of Don Bosco represented the Salesian Family to grace this auspicious moment in the history of Don Bosco. 

Fr. Michael, on behalf of the Don Bosco family, welcomed all the dignitaries as well as the members present for this inaugural function. This was followed by an inspiring and motivating speech by Rev. Fr. Arokia praising and blessing the DB Tech Team for its wonderful efforts to this herculean venture. Fr. A.M. Jose, Executive Director, DB Tech in his introductory speech, expressed his heartfelt gratitude towards the MoRD, FICCI and NABCON for their support.  

Mr. B. K. Sinha, in his address, emphasized the urgent need for different government bodies to collaborate with non government organizations like ours towards achieving the common goal of making India a developed and independent nation. With the kind of infrastructure that Don Bosco has, it can easily achieve the set target of training and placing 60,000 youth by 2012 and he also said that very soon Don Bosco would come up with the proposal of training 100,000 youth. Mr. Rajan Kohli reaffirmed the credibility of Don Bosco by stating that MoRD has made a good selection in partnering their mission of Rural Empowerment. He, on behalf of FICCI offered Don Bosco the support of its wide network for better placement and better exposure required by the beneficiaries of this project. Ms. Minu Thommen, Project Director presented the statics on the Youth Survey for the first phase of the project conducted on the rural youth of North and Central locations.

On this occasion, the website of ‘Don Bosco Skills Bank’ – a web based application to connect our institutions, job seekers and employers across the country was also launched. Besides that, a documentary film ‘Meri Zindagi, Meri Zimmedari’ – for awareness building among the targeted youth was also released. ‘Freedom with five’, a programme for contributing donation both in terms of money as well as time in multiples of five was launched. In this, anybody who is willing to contribute towards this noble cause can do so by either paying in multiples of Rs 5 or volunteering their services for 5 hours or multiples of 5 or so.

Fr. Adolph Furtado, Director DBIT, Kurla thanked all the eminent members of the Govt and public sectors for being present for this inaugural function. He highly appreciated and thanked the DB Tech National team for the hard work put in towards the successful launch of this project.