Blog post written by Nienke Schütte. Nienke is a former blogger on Blogpodium and Corporate Citizenship Lead Accenture Netherlands till January 2012.

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Sharing our skills and knowledge with NGO’s, foundations and donor organizations to increase their impact on society is the heart of Accenture’s Corporate Citizenship program. By investing time and skills for one day up to a year as a part of their career, our employees get the chance to broaden their horizon while contributing to society. For this project 2 Accenture consultants and 180 Dutch students invested their time in supporting Plan with a challenge in their daily operations in Zambia.

The combination of Accenture’s challenge to recruit Beta students and invest time and skills to support Plan to reach their target is a great example of how Corporate Citizenship becomes part of our DNA. The principles of corporate social responsibility are fundamental to our character and the way we run our business. With this approach we help charities and non-profit organizations reach their goals, in the same manner as we help regular clients in achieving high performance.

Battle of the Best Beta

At the end of last year Accenture and Plan organized the recruiting event “The Battle of the Best Beta”, challenging the best Beta students in the Netherlands and helping Plan in enhancing their child registration processes in Zambia. After 4 preliminary round and a thrilling final, Team Katai from Delft University of Technology won the battle and got the opportunity to travel to Zambia (together with two Accenture consultants and a representative of Plan) to implement their winning solution. During the following two weeks, the real life case they had been working very hard on finally became reality. While visiting Plan in Zambia, Team Katai also spoke with local Plan volunteers and met children who are enrolled in the Child Sponsorship Program.

Besides the battle, Accenture supports Plan Nederland in various other projects around the world –which are aligned from Skills to Succeed to Environmental Stewardship– to make a sustainable difference in the long-term vibrancy and vitality of people and communities. These efforts have been recognized by ICT business magazine Computable, who have shortlisted Accenture in the category ‘Corporate Social Responsibility ICT organization’ of 2011.

For more information about the latest developments on this project and Team Katai in Zambia, visit their blog.