Brands
Saffola launches AI campaign urging consumers to have a ‘Heart to Heart Talk’
MUMBAI: Saffola, the health-focused FMCG brand from Marico Limited, has launched an AI-powered campaign this World Heart Day to help consumers gauge the true age of their hearts.
Titled ‘Heart to Heart Talk,’ the initiative encourages people to pause, reflect, and engage in a personal conversation with themselves about lifestyle habits that affect heart health. By scanning a QR code, uploading a selfie, and answering a few simple questions on Whatsapp, users receive a personalised AI-generated video revealing the gap between their real age and indicative heart age.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research- India Diabetes (ICMR-INDIAB), one in four Indians has high cholesterol, one in ten is diabetic, and one in three is hypertensive. Even active, young adults may unknowingly put their hearts at risk through daily stress and unhealthy choices.
Marico Limited, CEO – India core business, Ashish Goupal said, “Saffola has always aimed to inspire consumers to take charge of their heart health. ‘Heart to Heart Talk’ is a moment of truth, helping people reflect on how small lifestyle habits can impact well-being and empower them to take meaningful steps towards a healthier tomorrow.”
Conceptualised by team WPP, the campaign includes a digital film depicting a young man caught in unhealthy routines, from breakfast pakodas to late-night junk food. At each step, he is confronted by the reflection of his older self, demonstrating the long-term effects of poor habits. The film highlights ‘Saffola Total Heart Pro’, enriched with Oryzanol to help reduce cholesterol, and shows it being used in everyday cooking to promote healthier choices.
With this initiative, Saffola continues its long-standing mission to promote wholesome living and make heart health awareness both personal and engaging.
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.
