Ad Campaigns
apna.co & AICTE concludes Silicon Valley Immersion campaign
Mumbai: In a campaign aimed at connecting Indian talent with global opportunities, apna.co, jobs and professional networking platform, in partnership with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), has concluded the Silicon Valley Immersion campaign (SVIC). This campaign, created by apna.co, connects Indian youth with international tech giants and equips them with skills for global opportunities.
SVIC has selected Teena Chhatria, Aradhya Pitlawar, Kabir Arora, and Chaitanya Sai Krishna as winners. These individuals, from XLRI Jamshedpur, WCE Sangli, and PEC Chandigarh, will receive a fully funded trip to Silicon Valley, including meetings with leaders from Google, Apple, and Meta.
The four-month campaign saw 25,000 registrations from 6,000 colleges across India, with 40% female participation. Open to Indians aged 18 and above with at least a graduation degree or in progress, the campaign reached 20 million through social media, AICTE-registered colleges, training centers, SMS, and WhatsApp.
The campaign narrowed down to 20 finalists competing in teams of two after a rigorous selection process. This included an online MCQ assessment, a case study challenge in various fields, and an offline Grand Finale called Startup Garage. The final round featured a jury including apna.co CEO Nirmit Parikh, the AICTE chairman, senior tech professionals from Google, and other industry leaders.
The grand finale concluded at the AICTE HQ in New Delhi, determining the top two teams who won cash prizes worth four lacs and a fully funded trip to Silicon Valley, USA.
apna.co CEO & founder Nirmit Parikh commented “The Silicon Valley Immersion Campaign is a shining example of apna’s dedication to connecting dreamers with opportunities. By forging a bridge between Indian talent and Silicon Valley, we are giving young Indians the chance to learn from the best and bring their dreams to life. This is just the first step, with many more to come, in our mission to make India a global powerhouse in technology and innovation. At apna, we believe in opening doors for those who dare to dream, and this program is a chance for students to meet industry leaders and gain insights that will prepare them to lead and inspire on a global stage. Together, we are building a brighter future for India and its talented youth.”
AICTE chairman Prof. (Dr.) T. G. Sitharam added, “The Silicon Valley Immersion Program aligns with our mission to enhance the quality of technical education in India. This initiative, developed in collaboration with apna.co, exposes our students to cutting-edge practices and the innovative mindset of Silicon Valley. We aim to prepare them not just as job seekers, but as potential job creators and global innovators. Through such programs, we’re taking steps to make our students industry-ready and globally competitive.”
The Silicon Valley Immersion program enables Indian youth to connect with global technology leaders, encouraging them to be globally ready and dream big, emphasising the importance of creativity and problem-solving in achieving life’s opportunities.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
