Tata Steel announced the launch of QUEERious, a first-of-its-kind case study competition in India, which aims to enable undergraduate and postgraduate students from the LGBTQ+ community get included into the corporate world by sharing their ideas and engaging in a live internship with the company.

“QUEERious is a unique platform that offers opportunities to young minds from the LGBTQ+ community to add value and bring their best talent to work. It not only looks at acquainting youngsters with professional experiences, in an inclusive, diverse, and competitive setting but also provides them an opportunity to build a workplace that they would want to become future employees of,” a statement issued by Tata Steel spokesperson said.

“At Tata Steel, diversity and inclusion is not a choice, but a way of life! Acknowledging and valuing differences bring us together, fostering a thriving workplace. It is indeed fulfilling to be able to encourage young minds from the LGBTQ+ community and enable them to take part in the inclusion of LGBTQ+ to the corporate world. We are attempting to establish a new paradigm through QUEERious, which we believe will go a long way toward realising the tenets of diversity and inclusivity in the workplace,” said a company release quoting Tata Steel vice-president, human resource management, Atrayee Sanyal.

Registrations are currently underway for QUEERious, which will be conducted in two rounds. In the first round, a case study will be shared with the participants over mail, in which they will be required to share responses in a presentation format.

In the second round, the selected candidates from the first round will be invited to give a detailed presentation on the problem statement. Details for the second round will be communicated post the first-round result declaration.

“The competition is open only to the students from the LGBTQ+ community, in the pre-final year, final year, and of the batch of 2021. Interested candidates pursuing graduation and post-graduation (of any stream) can apply,” the company spokesperson added.

“Registration link of the competition: https://xathon.mettl.com/event/QueeriousHackathon and it can be done till July 15,” said the spokesperson.

Tata Steel, which has manufacturing facilities at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Kalinganagar and Dhenkanal (both Odisha), Sahibabad (Uttar Pradesh) and Khopoli (Maharashtra), has made conscious efforts to build an equitable environment and a diverse leadership team.

Tata Steel has been named a Top Employer for LGBT+ inclusion by India Workplace Equality Index (IWEI), the country’s first comprehensive benchmarking study to measure and enable efforts for LGBT+ inclusion.