Greenply Foundation, the CSR arm of Greenply Industries Ltd., conducted 5-days Workshop on Modern Material and Carpentry for the students of Industrial Training Institutes of Delhi NCR region. In December 2017 and January 2018, 3 such workshops were held at H.J. Bhabha ITI, Mayur Vihar, C.V. Raman ITI, Dheerpur and Govt. ITI, Gurgaon for the students of the trades- Carpentry, Interior Designing and Draughtsman (Civil). With the changing trends and preferences of consumers in Furniture markets, there has been a rapid change in the woodwork technology to cater the rising demand. Furthermore, with modern materials being majorly consumed in furniture manufacturing and modular fittings internationally, these trends are now also being reflected in Indian markets. Moreover, furniture giants like IKEA are ready to step in Indian markets and thus, there is a huge scope for our young generation of craftsmen to avail this opportunity. Therefore, skill development in this sector is critical. Greenply Industries Ltd. believes in leveraging upon its internal capacities developed through years of research and analysis on material development and market trends to extend the benefit to the next generation of learners. Greenply Foundation has been dedicated to the cause of developing and delivering unique programs for the overall development of Carpenters. Under the Skill Development Program, in the FY16-17, they have delivered training sessions to more than 4000 carpenters at New Delhi, Bhopal and Kolkata through their in-house Trainers. Greenply Foundation is now engaging with the formal institutions like ITIs to deliver Workshops. These workshops ideally last for 5 days, 2 hours a day in which students learn about Evolution of Carpentry, Project execution in Carpentry, Modern Materials and Modern Joineries and Smart Carpentry. After carefully studying the needs of the students and demand in the industry, the training curriculum of workshops is designed to include topics on hard-skills as well as soft-skills, delivered through lecture based as well as peer-to-peer group discussion activities. Under Smart Carpentry, students are taught about the flagship initiative of Greenply Foundation, the Carpenter Guru Android App. This App is a first-of-its-kind social initiative for carpenters. It acts as a knowledge provider with the aim to train and upgrade the skills of carpenters so as to improve their employability. It also offers tools to help carpenters become more efficient and professional at their job. Also, the App aims to work towards the emotional wellbeing of carpenters by providing them a social platform to connect with their peers from across the country and a sense of identification or inspiration from each other’s stories. Till date, 131 students of trades Carpentry, Interior Designing and Draughtsman (Civil) has benefitted from this workshop program among which 20% of the students i.e. (27 students) were girls. A bright participant of the workshop, Pushpa of Draughtsman (Civil) trade of C.V. Raman ITI, Dheepur (New Delhi) shared her views, “at the workshop, we learned about different types of modern wood panels and its application based on its feasibility and cost. This knowledge will help us a lot because until we understand the material well, we cannot take any project forward and guide our teams in future…”. Greenply Foundation is planning to scale the program to ITIs and other technical Institutes across Delhi NCR region, Kolkata, Bhopal and Hyderabad.