Brands
Converse and Golf Wang slip into style with nature-inspired collection
MUMBAI: When fashion and skate culture collide, the result is anything but flat-footed. Converse and Golf Wang have dropped a fresh spin on their long-running collaboration with the debut of the one star CC slip pro, a slip-on skate silhouette that’s as textured as it is stylish.
It’s a first for the partnership, drawing on Converse’s 1960s Deck Star Gore and Sea Star Gore designs, while also nodding to the brand’s 1970s One Star heritage. Tyler, The Creator, known for raiding Converse’s archives, gives the One Star formula a Golf Wang twist turning history into something boldly irreverent and unmistakably current.
The collection is served up in three earthy iterations, each named and shaded after natural landscapes:
● Forget Me Not (Concrete), a muted blue suede recalling soft, cloudy skies.
● Forest Elf (Grass), lush green suede that feels like walking on a forest floor.
● Black Beauty (Dirt), rich, dark suede mirroring fertile soil.
Every pair features a two-tone hairy suede upper, egret foxing tape with a varnished finish, and a co-branded sock liner stamped with landscape-inspired artwork. Underfoot, skaters get practical perks: ConS traction rubber for grip and board feel, and CX foam cushioning for comfort that lasts from tricks to hangouts.
Priced at Rs 6,999, the Converse x Golf Wang one star CC slip pro is available now on converse.in and select retail partners. For sneakerheads and skaters alike, it’s a design that proves slipping on can still mean standing out.
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.
