Readying students for a digital era
Enterprise software maker Salesforce has joined hands with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to provide educators and students with digital skills and make them future-ready. This collaboration aims to upskill up to 200,000 students over the next five years. Sanket Atal, senior vice-president and MD – Sites, Salesforce India, said, “As digital skills become as important as reading and writing, we have an opportunity and responsibility to help close the digital divide in our society and economy.” Students will be introduced to Trailhead, Salesforce’s free learning platform, gaining access to the firm’s resources and modules. Through this collaboration, educators will be trained to leverage Trailhead and use Salesforce modules across AICTE-affiliated universities.

Students above the age of 18 years will have the opportunity to improve digital fluency, re-skill and upskill to become a Salesforce developer or Salesforce administrator. Salesforce will also provide networking opportunities to participants and offer virtual internships to students as per AICTE’s framework for internships.

Atlassian doubles down on VC funding for SaaS startups
Atlassian, a leading provider of team collaboration and productivity software, has deployed over $110 million in VC funding and supports over 30 entities, just shy of 18 months since it launched Atlassian Ventures. The funding provides an opportunity for SaaS startups to work with Atlassian’s cloud products and platform. The firm is also looking to tap into India’s growing SaaS startup ecosystem and its talent pool. Globally, it considers India a key market for innovation, having grown its office in Bengaluru into a full-fledged R&D centre employing over 1,000 people across segments. “Our goal for Atlassian Ventures is to build a world-class venture capital fund, not just a great corporate venture programme. We measure our success by how well we help founders grow their companies, and we’re excited about supporting awesome companies that are driving collaboration for teams on the cloud,” said Matt Sonefeldt, head of Atlassian Ventures. “This year we’ve built a dedicated team inside Atlassian to support Ventures and our portfolio founders as we set our sights on a much bigger goal, several times larger than the $110 million invested today,” he added.