MUMBAI: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Wednesday launched a new product called Sangam in Mumbai. ‘Sangam’ will enable the vast pool of semi-skilled workers to get job opportunities. It is designed on the lines of LinkedIn, which is also owned by Microsoft.
Since bandwidth is a concern in India, Microsoft also launched the light versions of its video interaction platform Skype.
Making a strong case for digitisation the Nadella, said, “If digital technology is only the purview of the large businesses and the start-ups, I think that is not sufficient for an economy to make progress.”
On the Sangam platform to empower the semi-skilled workers, he said that sectors such as hospitality can benefit from it. Besides, it will help the workers learn more skills to find jobs for themselves. The platform, which is still in a private preview stage, is yet to go public.
Nadella said that finding the right job is a challenge for graduates in India. This is the reason LinkedIn offers ‘Placements’ to help Indian college graduates find job opportunities in a manner that suits their skill sets.
The light version of LinkedIn launched in September 2016 supports the existing 39 million members in India as it can work on 2G speeds. Skype’s light version, which is available in nine Indian languages, also has a built-in Aadhaar identity tool that can help companies and businesses in doing background checks of the applications.
Speaking about the improvements in the lives of the people in the first digital village of Harisal in the malnourished Melghat region of Maharashtra, the Microsoft CEO said the digital village concept should be scaled up to 100 villages.