First Indian channel on skill development launched in Pune

Education content provider using technology Millionlights, launched the first and only Indian TV Channel focused on higher education and skill development in partnership with DEN Manoranjan Satellite in Pune. Millionlights aims to create a landscape of content, delivery platforms and certifications leading to higher employability. The company already runs a website, which provides certification courses.

Partners of the initiative include universities, teachers, technology companies, and certification companies. For the TV channel initiative, the company has Microsoft as a partner. Microsoft provides course segments from its existing library, which the team at Millionlights customises for the Indian audiences.

"In the first phase, we have selected Pune as the city to launch the channel. With Den Manoranjan as the cable partner, we hope to reach 200,000 households in and around the city. Over the next six to eight months, we shall identify other towns and want to scale up to the whole country," said Akshat Shrivastava, chief executive and founder, Millionlights.

"We chose to have a cable channel for two reasons. One, it saves the hassle to satellite licenses etc and cable networks are experimenting with new content on their network channels to compete with DTH. Secondly, this is still an experiment, so we had to start small to be able to scale up eventually," he adds.

The launch of the TV channel brings a disruption to the current education and skill landscape since currently, the existing channels do not offer this combination of content. The company has set itself a goal to provide open access to education and real-world skills to at least 50 million learners in the next 5 years across all three screens.

Shrivastava said that for now, he has personally invested around a million dollars in the venture, and will look at funding by next year, if all goes to plan and he can start new channels.