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On a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a pitch for “i-ways for a Digital India” and asked industry captains to seize the initiative, the Hyderabad-born chief executive of Microsoft has offered a partnership to help accelerate the country’s growth. “We are keen to partner with the government and industry at large to help make this vision a reality,” said Satya Nadella in an exclusive interview to ET, ahead of his first visit to India next week.

Businesses and the government can look forward to partnerships with Microsoft, as India aims to accelerate economic growth. In an exclusive interview to ET, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “India has been an important part of Microsoft’s plans in the more than two decades that we’ve had a presence here. Every time I visit, I’m energized to see the advancements India has made and truly believe technology is a key enabler for India to thrive and create more opportunities for every individual and business in its economy.” Nadella is set to visit India next week for the first time after taking over as CEO.

In an initiative to bring more women into the Indian IT industry, Microsoft, along with partners, will train and mentor one million women in the next 12 months. Microsoft India launched its ‘Women in Tech’ initiative, which aims to double the number of women IT professionals in India over the next few years. The initiative will include girl school students, young women students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) colleges, women IT professionals and entrepreneurs.

Microsoft announced that its Office 365 applications will be available for free to students aged 13 years or older. The new scheme is available for US students and will soon be extended to students worldwide. With this, Microsoft will offer the latest versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access and Publisher. It will also offer installation on up to five PCs or Macs, and Office apps on other mobile devices including Windows tablets and iPad, one terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage, and access to Office online.

Within a day after the much-awaited launch of Microsoft’s gaming console Xbox One, Amazon said that it has delivered 200 units, which were booked pre-launch. Microsoft has exclusively tied up with Amazon for its delivery in India and the first console was delivered to a Mumbai customer. Midnight deliveries also happened in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Nagpur to customers who had pre-booked the console.

Now you can take MSN’s most popular apps – News, Weather, Sports, Money, Health & Fitness, and Food & Drink – with you anywhere, whether you’re on the Web, Windows, Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android Phone and Tablet, or your Amazon Kindle Fire and Amazon Fire Phone. The apps, available for download on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Windows and Windows Phone Stores, and the Amazon App Store, let users customize and organize information according to their interests.

Microsoft is all set to take the ‘Indian’ route, offering Bollywood movies and music on its latest Xbox One console. The company is also planning EMI schemes to aggressively market the gaming console, which will be launched in India this week exclusively via Amazon.in. Chakrapani Gollapali, Country General Manager for Consumer Channels Group at Microsoft India said, “The company will tie up with local content aggregators to provide Bollywood movies and music.”

To set up a new venture, an entrepreneur not only needs financial support, but also proper infrastructure, access to market and customers, and a good mentor. That’s where the role of a corporate venture arm, that can provide this, comes in. Mukund Mohan, Director, Microsoft Ventures said, “The model of Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) mostly focuses on investing in a company to help its products and platform to expand beyond the current state.” Microsoft Ventures, through their accelerator program, offers start-ups vital infrastructure support, tools, and training—along with a strong network of successful entrepreneurs, industry experts and advisors.

In 2010, Girish Mathrubootham read an article on how Zendesk’s customer support software has become expensive for smaller businesses. That set him thinking and soon enough, he founded Freshdesk—a virtual customer support software as a service. FreshDesk got lucky when it won the $40,000 Microsoft BizSpark startup award in January 2011. This acted as seed capital, and was used towards marketing adwords campaigns and for driving customer traction.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, will head an 11-member jury to choose the winners of the 2014 edition of the ET Awards. Nadella, who became only the third leader of the software company in February, will head a panel whose members include some of India’s top industrialists, bankers and lawyers. They include the elder statesman of Indian business KV Kamath, chairman of ICICI Bank and lead independent director of Infosys.