Education
4 Top Streaming Tips in 2021
With the Delta variant wreaking havoc, plenty of people across the nation are choosing to spend more time inside and socially distanced. And that means plenty of time spent watching streaming platforms.
With that in mind, here are four top ways to maximize your streaming experience in 2021.
1. Travel the globe via your screen
Many streaming platforms (including Netflix) use geo-blocking restrictions, which means certain content isn’t available in certain countries. If you’re fed up with your home screen’s suggestions, try traveling to a different country’s content catalog.
Here’s how it works: the content you see is based on your IP, a unique digital address that also indicates your device’s physical location. To skirt geo-blocking restrictions, you need to shield your IP address or change it to a country of your choice. You can do this by using a VPN.
Want Australian Disney Plus? Switch to an Australian server, then open up your account.
2. Change your subtitles
Love foreign films but hate straining to see the tiny subtitles? If so, join the growing number of people who are supersizing their subs. Both Disney Plus and Netflix allow you to change your subtitles’ size, language, and color, and the former even allows you to adjust the font.
Local favorites Hotstar and Zee 5 aren’t quite as generous, but there are several language options.
3. Add reviews to your Netflix
If you stream Netflix from a Chrome browser, you can take advantage of a nifty plug-in that displays ratings from both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes (two of the net’s most-trusted rating sites) right on your Netflix platform. Just hover your cursor over a title, and you can see a star rating from the sites. You can find the extension here.
It’s quick, easy, and it saves you from having to search for reviews separately. Win-win!
4. Enable parental controls
Do you share your streaming accounts with small people? If so, you can take advantage of your platforms’ parental control settings and make sure they’re not watching anything inappropriate for their age.
How you’ll do this exactly differs from platform to platform, but as a general rule, you’ll want to make each child their own account within your account and then set an age limit for what content each kid can view. You can even lock the adults’ accounts with a password on some platforms so that kids can’t leave their own home screen and enter yours.
We hope these tips help you get more from your streaming platforms in 2021. Happy viewing!
Education
Scaler appoints new heads for its online and offline businesses
Amar Srivastava becomes chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer; Vidit Jain takes charge of the offline schools
BENGALURU: Scaler is shuffling its top deck as the AI skilling race heats up. The Bengaluru-based tech education company has elevated two senior executives to lead its online and offline businesses, signalling a sharper push into an AI-driven market.
Amar Srivastava, previously senior vice president for product and business, has been appointed chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer. Vidit Jain has been elevated to senior vice president and head of Scaler School, taking charge of the company’s offline education units, the Scaler School of Business and the Scaler School of Technology.
The company has also recently appointed Ratnakar Reddy as head of enterprise for India and the Middle East and North Africa, with a brief to drive partnerships with governments and enterprises for AI-led skilling programmes.
Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler, said the promotions reflect the company’s confidence in both leaders and the direction it is heading. “Amar and Vidit have been central to Scaler’s journey, and their elevations reflect our conviction in their leadership and the direction we are shaping as a company,” he said. “With leadership now in place across the business, we remain focused on building engineers the world’s best companies want to hire. In an AI-first economy, that mission is more urgent and more achievable than ever. Our next chapter is centred on building an AI-native workforce from India, equipped to compete in a technology-driven global economy.”
Srivastava brings over a decade of experience building education-focused ventures. He previously founded Intellify and was part of the early team at Doubtnut. At Scaler, he will lead the online business with a focus on growth, profitability and expansion into new segments, while strengthening the product ecosystem across the group. He is blunt about what the AI economy actually needs. “The AI economy does not have a shortage of tools. It has a shortage of engineers who can think clearly, build reliably, and keep learning as the ground shifts. That is what we are building toward,” he said.
Jain brings more than 15 years of experience across startups and consulting, including stints at MPL and McKinsey and Company. He will oversee growth and profitability of Scaler’s offline business. His priorities are immediate and unambiguous. “The offline experience is where depth gets built, and that depth is critical in the AI era. Over the next 12 months, our focus will be on consistent growth, stronger unit economics, and delivering outcomes for students while building long-term employer partnerships,” he said.
Founded in 2019, Scaler is valued at $710 million and backed by Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global and Lightrock India. Its parent firm, InterviewBit, has featured on the Financial Times’ Asia Pacific High Growth Companies rankings every year from 2021 to 2025. On average, Scaler’s learners see a 4.5x return on investment and a salary increase of around 126 per cent.
With leadership locked in across every business unit, Scaler is betting that the next wave of global tech hiring will be won or lost on the quality of engineers coming out of India. It is a big bet. But the numbers, and the promotions, suggest the company is in no mood to hedge.
