Parliamentarians partner NGOs, firms to strengthen fight against Covid-19

Fourteen parliamentarians have decided to partner with top venture capital funds, public health and policy organisations, and experts to strengthen the fight against Covid-19.
 

The action group will be known as Parliamentarians with Innovators for India (PIIndia.org), which aims to spur innovators to solve challenges in areas such as public health, economy, and livelihood.
 

While the 14 Parliamentarians come from different states and across party lines, the group has organisations like Population Foundation of India, Centre for Policy Research, Omnicuris, apart from top experts in public health and policy.
 

MPs Agatha Sangma of NPP, Karti Chidambaram, and Rajeev Gowda from the Congress; GVL Narasimha Rao, Varun Gandhi, and Sudhanshu Trivedi from the BJP; Mahua Moitra from the Trinamool Congress; Sujeet Kumar from the Rashtriya Janata Dal; and K Danish Ali from Janata Dal (Secular) are among the 14. There are others from smaller parties.
 

The goals of the Action Group are to mobilise capable teams across the country to build concrete and scalable solutions to address various challenges.
 

A call for proposals with public health as the prime focus will open on Tuesday. Ghanshyam Tiwari from the Samajwadi Party, involved in the education and online learning business, is the coordinator of the effort.
 

Starting April 15, the action group will meet every Wednesday via video conferencing for two hours, to select the most impactful solutions that come from innovators across the country.
 

The MPs will help innovators take the solution to their respective state governments and constituencies. The VC firms and impact funds part of the action group will consider the most effective and scalable solutions for funding.
 

The public health and policy organisations, as well as experts, will guide the entire selection process, and help organise knowledge workshops and webinars for the group as well as for people in general.
 

The mission of the action group is to build momentum among the professionally capable in India, and enable advanced and executable projects focused on immediate public health response to Covid-19.