Businessmen and businesswomen are often noted for their philanthropy, but Accenture LLP’s business is philanthropy. As a result, it consistently seeks to drive beneficence and to help others improve conditions for society as a whole.

“We invest one percent of our pre-tax dollars in philanthropic-related initiatives,” said Annette Rippert (pictured), senior managing director, North America, at Accenture Technology.

Rippert spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Executive Summit in Las Vegas. They discussed various philanthropic ventures and how to use technology to drive them. (* Disclosure below.)

Helping people one venture at a time

As part of its dedication to philanthropy, Accenture runs regular competitions. The rules are fairly straightforward: Accenture announces the competitions, but the participating teams are entirely self-formed and can consist of one person or several people.

“They do this on their own time. They spend time really thinking about how to apply new concepts, so for us, it’s an opportunity to learn,” Rippert explained.

One such contest is called Tech4Good, in which teams around the world think of ways to use technology to solve a societal issue. The winners are funded to develop and apply their idea. One team used natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things to improve home care and elder care. The innovation was built around an Amazon Echo show and the Amazon platform and enables homebound people to interface with family and caregivers.

Another Accenture offering is the Skills to Succeed initiative, which aims to extend technology skills to individuals from lesser means. “It’s a way of extending skills and capability and coaching to provide them the ability to really re-enter the workforce,” Rippert stated.

Hacking interpersonal relationships without hacking

Accenture sponsored a hackathon at this month’s Amazon Web Services re:Invent with organizations such as Girls Who Code, GameChanger, Compassion and Goodwill in order to help charities solve problems that they wished to solve.

“They had really interesting problems that they brought to the table,” Rippert stated.

One of the proposed projects was to create a one-to-one relationship between sponsors and underprivileged children using natural language processing. The objective was to simulate a real-time interaction in a manner that transcends the boundaries of language and simultaneously protects the child’s privacy.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Executive Summit event. Neither Accenture LLP, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE