O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) has won the ‘Digital Innovation of the Year Award’ at the coveted Times Higher Education (THE) Asia Awards 2021.

JGU was the only Indian University to be shortlisted in this category along with some prestigious universities of Asia such as Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong; National University of Singapore, Singapore; National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Soochow University, China; and Yonsei University, South Korea.

THE has been one of the leading higher education ranking agencies in the world. THE Awards are recognised as the Oscars of higher education. THE Asia Awards, launched in 2019, are an international recognition of outstanding leadership and institutional performance, and a celebration of higher education excellence in all of its diversity, across Asia.

JGU’s win at the THE Awards is a recognition of the university’s successful digital transformation and impact over the last two years. This award is also a reflection of JGU’s commitment to ensure continued education for its students during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Having transformed the education experience at the University with technology during the pandemic, JGU decided to extend its technology capability and innovation to have a broader social impact. Having realised that when it comes to technology, the needs of schools and the University are very similar, JGU innovated the application Tou, which is an amalgamated version of the internal software tools that JGU uses to operate the University online, to be used at K-12 schools.

According to the article on the announcement of the award winners on the THE website: “Winner in the Technological or Digital Innovation of the Year category, India’s O.P. Jindal Global University, created a free, cloud-based application to help schools and universities manage data, especially useful given India’s digital divide.”

Tou, an out-of-the-box tool, comes with an array of modules and features that are carefully designed after extensive research to ensure that all the needs of schools are fulfilled. More importantly, the application is a social venture by JGU and is available to all schools at no cost. A school of 2,000 students would have to pay more than Rs 15 lakh per annum to get a similar solution from the market, which JGU is providing at no cost in the form of Tou.

Tou has enabled the digital transformation of educational institutions across 12 states of India, enabling over 20,000 assignments with nearly 3 lakh submissions, Rs 4 crore fee payments and 30,000 automated results. This digital innovation has enabled institutions to leverage technology to imbibe sustainable efficiency in institutional operations.

You can read more about Tou at: https://tou.jgu.edu.in