The December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, known in the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, spread throughout the Indian Ocean, killing a large number of people and devastating coastal communities in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, among others. The catastrophe was one of the deadliest disasters in modern history. There were about 2,29,866 affected, with figure of dead estimated at about 1,86,983 and 42,883 missing. In the Indian context, the human toll as per the figures provided by the Government of India showed 12,405 casualties, 5,640 missing and 6,47,599 displaced. About 75% of the fatalities were women and children; 787 women lost husbands, livelihood and 480 children lost parents and homes. An estimated 1,089 villages were affected in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. An estimated 2,35,377 houses were destroyed, 7,30,000 became homeless, 39,035 hectares of cropped area was damaged, 31,755 livestock got destroyed and 83,788 boats got totally damaged/destroyed.

NASSCOM responded to the Tsunami emergency by mandating NASSCOM Foundation to work on medium and long term rehabilitation initiatives in Tamil Nadu with alliance partners. Based on this decision, Chairman, NF and President, NASSCOM initiated a fund-raising drive from member companies. A corpus was established through donations from NASSCOM and member companies to support rehabilitation initiatives in tsunami-affected communities/areas of Tamil Nadu. NF decided to start an integrated program approach, linking ecological restoration, livelihoods and community initiatives with emphasis on training and life-skill capacity building. It initiated services to be provided to communities through Village Knowledge Centers (VKCs).