Tech, education, community and climate: Understanding the Tim Cook philosophy

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited a Mumbai school to highlight the company's commitment to education, which he said was "deep in our DNA."

To reach the Sitaram Mill Mumbai Public School, the drive is through lanes and by-lanes barely wide enough for a car. The school itself is in a nondescript building, and inside, when the cackle of children is muted during classes, there is a constant reminder of something quintessentially Mumbai: the rumble of the local train. Inside are also many sights that are not typical of a school located in one of Mumbai’s slums: children learn mostly on iPads instead of thick text books, their work is projected onto a smart screen instead of the blackboard; and what the students pen – or type – is code.

Tim Cook (HT Photo)

And an even unlikelier sight was on the morning of April 19, when the school welcome a rather well-known visitor from California: Apple boss Tim Cook.

“Education is the great equalizer. We want everyone to learn with technology because we see that it accelerates the cycles of learning,” Cook told HT, moments after interacting with students.

Cook’s visit was part of a high-profile tour of the country where the world’s most valuable company looks to tap the world’s fastest growing economy not just for sales and profit, but for the vast production capacity it could bring.

But the visit to the school was neither about sales, nor about supply chains. It was about investing in local communities, as the 62-year-old executive would later put it. And education, he told HT, was at the core of it.

“Since the founding of the company, we’ve been very focused on education. It’s very deep in our DNA,” he said.

The school is one of the projects that Apple funds with financial support and tech, such as the iPads, in collaboration with a non-profit called Akanksha Foundation, which works with 26 schools in Maharashtra. “Programs like this really make my heart sing,” Cook said, before indicating the company will take on more such initiatives: “I think more of those projects will develop and we want to support all of them”.

The company also has a $50 million supplier employee development fund, which works to provide new educational resources for people in its supply chain and the local communities, and works with the non-profit Enable India for a digital literacy program for people with disabilities.

Apple’s involvement with communities also includes deeper engagement with content creators and app developers.

Cook, during what was his first visit of India as chief executive, met the developer community, and said India’s coders were poised to make a bigger, global impact by taking the next steps in quality and relevance of their apps.

“I think some have already taken it [the next step] and I think the match is lit and now you’ve got so many proof points where there’s been great success,” Cook said. “You see these proof points and know that many more of these are possible.”

Among the developers he met were those who created the learning app Kiddopia, for children between the ages of two and seven who can use it for core subjects like math and science. “I visited with Kiddopia earlier in the week. They’re one of the best preschool apps anywhere in the world. And they’re exclusively in India, but they’re selling to the world and their largest market is actually not in India. It’s the US,” Cook said, illustrating why he believes the Indian developer community has arrived on the global scene.

In Delhi, Cook met with developers for cricket strategy app Hitwicket, the Prayoga yoga app that integrates augmented reality (AR), and an English dictionary app called LookUp.

Cook also met was also filmmaker Arati Kadav, who walked him through how she shot and edited her 2022 sci-fi short film The Astronaut and his Parrot, which was filmed on an iPhone and edited on a MacBook Pro.

From people to environment

Apple’s focus on people and communities, Cook said, also included diversity. In its high-profile retail outlets, the company employs artists and musicians, and its members come from 18 different states (at its Delhi store) and can speak 15 languages.

But at the centre of Apple’s focus, outside of its business, is the environment. “We think climate change is the biggest issue of the century. We want to put all of ourselves into solving a part that we can solve, and running our company on renewable energy is a part of that,” Cook told HT, while at an interaction with developers and creators in Delhi.

The company has set a target to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing, supply chain, and product life cycle, by the year 2030. Its own operations became carbon neutral, including Apple Stores globally, in 2020.

This continues to the new Apple Stores in India as well. Apple BKC in Mumbai and Apple Saket in Delhi use completely renewable energy from dedicated solar arrays, making them carbon neutral operations.

“Of course, the bigger challenge is to being that carbon neutrality across all of the supply chain and also the product usage with the customers,” Cook said, adding that the company regards the 2030 target as a hard deadline.

Among the biggest challenges, Cook said, was how it sources minerals and precious metals that are integral to today’s digital devices. Cook has in the past said that Apple wants to one day create products “without taking any minerals from the earth”.

Earlier this month, the company announced a switch to fully recycled cobalt for batteries by 2025 and set a similar target to use entirely recycled rare earth elements for magnets in its devices. All Apple-designed circuit boards will also use fully recycled tin soldering and gold plating, the company has planned.

“We’re greening the supply chain, and almost all of our suppliers in India are signed up to run their operations on renewable energy by 2030,” Cook said.

Part of its net-zero pledge includes its work with efforts to protect mangroves in Maharashtra. The company, citing research, estimates mangroves can store up to 10 times more carbon per acre than terrestrial forests.

India’s tipping point

Cook said that he believes India is at a “tipping point”, and that its culture and attitude are its biggest strengths. “There’s an energy and a vibrancy here that is palpable. And it does feel like anything can be done,” he said, praising what he saw as a “can do attitude”. “I can’t stress enough how important it is. I feel like India is at a tipping point. And I’m so excited to be a part of it,” he said.

In Mumbai and Delhi, Cook met with business leaders, including Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, and Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises. Both companies are important partners for Apple in India.

The lighter side of his visit got him his first taste of the Mumbai specialty, the Vada Pav, in company with actor Madhuri Dixit. Then came a tryst with cricket, an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket match between Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders.

“Talking to people on the streets, people in the stores, people doing creative work, developers designing apps and government officials and how they’re leading and setting the course” are all reasons Cook said he was bullish on India.