MAM
PromaxBDA announces speakers for its 12th edition
MUMBAI: PromaxBDA, the association that represents more than 10,000 companies and promotion and marketing professionals at every major media organisation in broadcast media, has announced the 12th edition of its annual conference, PromaxBDA India 2015.
This year’s conference will witness participation of prominent visionaries discussing topics that contribute to the growth of digital and advertising space. Some of the key speakers and trainers include David Shing – Digital Prophet – AOL, Nicole Velik – Director/Founder – Ideas Bodega, Linda Button – Brand Personality Expert – Tooth+Nail, Rob Middleton – VP, Network Presentation Content Group – ASTRO, Liz Dunning – Co-founder – Dunning Penney Jones, Amanda Herbert – Marketing & Communications Director – Discovery Networks Asia Pacific and Glenn Urquhart – Group Creative Director – The LifeStyle Channel, Foxtel Networks Australia.
This year PromaxBDA India has introduced a brand new conference format, where they will be holding PromaxBDA Boot Camps and PromaxBDA Masterclass Conference. The inaugural PromaxBDA Boot Camps will bring in the latest creative techniques in promotion-creation while the Masterclass Conference is tailored to create a local and global overlook for senior-level producers, executives, leaders and decision makers. The Masterclass Conference will be opened with a keynote address by the renowned David Shing – Digital Prophet – AOL.
Along with this, PromaxBDA India has also introduced two new categories in its current bouquet of 41 award categories. The new categories are BEST DRAMA PROMO NOT IN HINDI OR ENGLISH and BEST ENTERTAINMENT PROMO NOT IN HINDI OR ENGLISH in the Regional Categories 2015.
Commenting on this year’s conference and the new additions, Rajika Mittra, Country Head (India), PromaxBDA said, “We are glad to announce the 12th PromaxBDA India Conference 2015. With media and entertainment industry evolving at an enormous speed and digital space dominating as a medium, this year we have introduced a fresher format, which aims at emphasizing on the importance of the digital medium. We have received encouraging response to the earlier summits and I am sure that this year too we will have an exciting time with everyone.”
Invited this year again to grace the PromaxBDA India 2015’s Conference Chair position is Raj Nayak, CEO, Colors. He shared, “For colleagues who have attended the previous editions of the PromaxBDA India Conference, we look forward to having you back with us. Get ready to be inspired by the unexpected and the eye-opening. Those new to this conference will find that the television industry goes beyond traditionally set boundaries. The future of television is speeding ahead and a multi-discipline outfit might be the way forward.”
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
