Digital
upGrad’s latest digital-first campaign focuses on upskilling
Mumbai: Edtech firm, upGrad’s latest campaign focuses on the importance of upskilling across tech domains for working professionals. It is a digital-first, gender-specific micro-targeted campaign.
The campaign aims to encourage more women professionals to upskill and scale up their tech careers, across the industry. upGrad’s tech offerings like blockchain, full stack development (FSD), big data, devOps, cybersecurity and cloud computing are areas that learners are showing interest.
Aligning with the viewer’s needs, the campaign targets professionals using gender-specific ads and creatives, based on their area of interest.
With close to 10 different versions, the campaign aims to micro-target users who are seeking to upskill themselves, by showcasing creatives and ads that align with their gender and subject interest across technology programs.
The digital film for the campaign, which is conceptualised by The Womb, showcases the mayhem that ensues when there is a fire in the office, and who the team rescues. The campaign has been directed by Roopali Singhal of Chrome Pictures and is live on digital.
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Moreover, given the increased interest by women professionals in coding and software programs, upGrad’s campaign is reinforcing the importance of women coders by representing female protagonists in the ad films. The film showcases women learners upskilling with upGrad’s tech courses to become ‘very very important’ team members who drive organisational growth and success at their jobs, upon course completion.
Commenting on the tech campaign, upGrad head of marketing Ankit Khirwal said, “we can no longer pretend that skilling is not important, especially in the field of technology, where human-machine interactions, Web 3.0, brand building in Metaverse are happening as we speak. Following this trend, we have witnessed an increase in interest from women coders for our tech offerings across blockchain, fsd, devops, cybersecurity, and more.”
“Therefore, to encourage them further to upskill and fast forward their careers, our digital campaign will undertake a micro-targeting approach, to showcase the right offering to the right viewer based on their interest and profile, to help them navigate their upskilling solutions,” he added.
Till date, upGrad learners have received an average career hike of 51 percent while getting placed with top companies like Uber, Flipkart, Meesho and Razorpay, after completing tech courses with the edtech major.
“When there’s fire in the office, who will you save? Yourself, your boss or the most important employee in the office? That’s the premise Gunjan cracked when thinking of this campaign. The chaos added to the drama, the twist added to the fun and thus, we found a creative way of highlighting the importance of tech courses in today’s world,” added the Womb creative head Suyash Khabya.
Digital
Trump bans Anthropic’s Claude from US federal use after AI policy clash
A software standoff leaves the President seeing red over Anthropic’s lines
WASHINGTON: President Trump has issued an executive order mandating that all federal agencies immediately stop using technology from Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI models. The directive marks a total break between the administration and one of America’s leading artificial intelligence firms.
The decision follows a breakdown in contract negotiations between Anthropic and the Department of Defense. The central conflict involved Anthropic’s refusal to remove specific safety restrictions that would prevent its AI from being used for domestic mass surveillance or the operation of autonomous weapons systems.
While Anthropic maintained that these boundaries were essential for safety, the administration characterised them as a refusal to support national security requirements.
The order goes beyond a simple cancellation of services and introduces multiple layers of restrictions. Anthropic has been formally designated a “National Security Risk.” This classification effectively prevents any federal contractor or government partner from using the company’s software.
A six-month transition period has been established to allow agencies to migrate critical systems away from Claude and shift to alternative providers. During this time, departments are expected to review existing deployments and implement replacement solutions.
In addition, the General Services Administration has begun removing Anthropic from all approved federal vendor and procurement lists. This step ensures that no new federal contracts can be awarded to the company under current guidelines.
The vacuum created by the ban is already being filled by competitors. Shortly after the announcement, OpenAI reached a new agreement with the Pentagon to provide AI services. The administration has also indicated that it will expand its reliance on Elon Musk’s Grok AI platform for various government functions.
Anthropic has stated that it intends to challenge the order in court, arguing that the designation is legally unfounded for a domestic company.
It is important to note that the ban applies only to the United States federal government and its direct contractors. For individual users and private businesses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, Anthropic’s services remain fully available and unaffected by the executive order.
