Chandigarh, September 2, 2022: Tata Steel announced the winners of the inaugural edition of QUEERious, a first-of-its-kind case study competition in India, which aims to enable students from the LGBTQIA+ community in the country to participate in the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ in the corporate world, by sharing a plethora of ideas and bringing new perspectives of inclusion at workplace. The grand finale was held on August 30, 2022, in the presence of the esteemed Jury, which included senior executives of the Company including D. B. Sundara Ramam, Vice President, Raw Materials; Atrayee Sanyal, Vice President, Human Resource Management; and Jaya Singh Panda, Chief Learning & Development & Chief Diversity Officer.
QUEERious is a one-of-its-kind platform that offers opportunities to the youth from the LGBTQ+ community to realise their potential and showcase their best talent. It not only aims at acquainting youngsters with professional experiences in an inclusive, diverse, and competitive setting but also provides them with an opportunity to build a workplace that they would want to become future employees of. The top 3 winners of the competition received cash prizes of ₹50000, ₹30000, and ₹20000 respectively. In addition to the cash prizes, all the winners were also given the opportunity to pursue a potential career at Tata Steel through paid internship.
Atrayee Sanyal, Vice President, Human Resource Management, Tata Steel, said: “Congratulations to all the winners to have put so much of thought and efforts in sharing the knowledge about this subject. We have focussed on hiring employees from the LGBTQIA+ community and have a long way to go. We have implemented various pioneering policies to provide a comfortable and secure space to welcome employees from this community; however, we need to explore more opportunities in this area as a leading employer. We also have a huge responsibility to sensitise the stakeholders of different sections such as schools, colleges and communities on this subject and our endeavour continues to collaborate with them.”
The competition was launched on June 30, 2022. The inaugural edition witnessed ~500 registrations from around 100 colleges pan India, with significant participation from both T-Schools and B-Schools. A staggering 55% of the entries came from Engineering courses, followed by 19% from Management courses, and the remaining 26% from other courses such as Arts and Finance.
QUEERious competition was conducted in two rounds. In Round 1, a case study was shared with the candidates over mail, on which they shared their entries via a short presentation. In Round 2, the selected candidates from Round 1 were invited to give a detailed presentation on the problem statement. Out of the 74 case study submissions that were received, 16 participants were narrowed down for Round 2, and the top 10 presented their case studies in the grand finale.
The competition was open only to the students from the LGBTQ+ community, in the pre-final year, final year, and the batch of 2021 and 2022. Interested candidates pursuing graduation and post-graduation (of any stream) were eligible to participate in this contest.
The Tata Steel workplace is built on merit and diversity. The Company has made conscious efforts to build an environment of inclusivity and acceptance. Tata Steel’s workforce across the world have a healthy mix of not just gender and age, but also culture and ethnicity. As part of its Diversity & Inclusion initiative ‘MOSAIC’, established in 2015, the Company actively works against stereotypical biases to achieve its vision of becoming an employer of choice.
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