Jamshedpur, August 31, 2024: Tata Steel announces the winners of the third edition of QUEERious, a one-of-its-kind competition for LGBTQIA+ students. This competition offers opportunities to young minds from the LGBTQIA+ community to add value and bring their best talent to the corporate world.
QUEERious 3.0 received more than 2,300 registrations, recording a 44% jump over the previous edition. Nearly 50% of the participants were from technical schools, 36% from business schools, and the balance from other specialisations.
As a pioneer in introducing some of the most progressive HR standards in India, Tata Steel designed and rolled out QUEERious in 2022 with the aim of reaching out to graduate and post-graduate students from the LGBTQIA+ community.
The three-round competition that kicked off in the last week of July this year, culminated in the Grand Finale held in Jamshedpur on August 30, 2024, in the presence of senior leadership of Tata Steel, including Chaitanya Bhanu, Vice President, Operations, Tata Steel Jamshedpur, Atrayee Sanyal, Vice President, Human Resource Management and Jaya Singh Panda, Chief, Learning & Development and Chief Diversity Officer.
Atrayee Sanyal, Vice President, Human Resource Management, Tata Steel, said: “The growing number of student registrations and their enthusiastic participation in QUEERious is a testament to the success of this unique programme we have created for students from the LGBTQIA+ community. This also keeps all of us in Tata Steel motivated to do more and work harder to build a workplace that thrives on diversity, equity and inclusion. Finally, a big shout-out and congratulations to the winners, participants, and the organising team at Tata Steel.”
Team participation was introduced in this edition, and the teams were given the option to choose case studies from three tracks – Business, Technical, and General domains. The top 11 teams, selected after rigorous evaluation, presented their ideas during the Grand Finale. The top 3 teams received cash prizes of ₹50,000, ₹30,000, and ₹20,000, respectively, and were also offered paid internships and pre-placement offers depending on eligibility.
QUEERious programme has been recognised at the Tata Steel Innovista Awards 2024 in the ‘Social Innovations’ category.
In 2024, Tata Steel became the first company in India to integrate transgender employees in mines. So far, around 130 transgender individuals have been onboarded and posted at various locations, including manufacturing, operations and maintenance, mining, and services.
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