One of the highlights of ABAI Fest 2006 was the line up of stalwarts from various sectors like IT, Entertainment and Technology that were invited as guests of honor to share their perspectives with the animation industry.
The Inaugural session had the keynote address by Nasscom’s Rajiv Vaishnav. This was followed by presentations and talks by Presenting Sponsor Intel’s Ashok Nair, Guests of Honor Infosys’ Mohandas Pai, Karnataka IT Secretary Dr Anup Poojary, and Chief Guest showman Subhash Ghai.
Even as the stalwarts took to the podium and shared their unique and interesting perspectives on animation, one realized that there is a lot of value and strength in working together with other related Industries’ to find solutions to similar problems, to gain from their experience and to emulate (after adapting) their best practices.
Giving his Keynote Address NASSCOM’s Rajiv Vaishnav shared, “While the Indian animation and gaming industry is still in a nascent stage, the sector is expected to show significant growth in the near future as global outsourcing within the market takes off. Globally the animation market is worth US$55Billion with production costs accounting for 45%, while gaming market is worth US$19Billion with production costs accounting for 30%”
“By 2009, the figures for the animation market will swell to US$75 Billion while gaming while rise to US$36 Billion”
“Currently however the Indian animation industry with revenues estimated around US$315 Million is less than 1% of the total global animation production work”
“The good news is that there are early signs of market evolution and that players are spreading their wings” shared Vaishnav.
– Following is taken from Vaishnav’s presentation
EARLY SIGNS OF MARKET EVOLUTION
– Changing business model
Indian companies are moving towards the in-house production model
Animation providers moving towards gaming development
With the increase in spending of gaming companies on animation, many animation companies are setting up game development centres
Training Programs
Increasing number of animation and gaming companies are providing in-house training to their employees. Also looking to set up training institutes to address the demand-supply gap of professionals
Captive centres
Foreign companies are setting up offshore centres (captive) in India for animation and game development
Development of similar games for different platforms
There is an increasing trend to develop versions of a game, for being played on different devices
Nearing the end of his presentation Vaishnav shared “Even as a great dawn approaches us, we must be prepared. We know that there is a lot of business that could come our way but we need to make our plans fool proof and be ready with the necessary processes, the production pipelines and the talent that would make the difference” and concluded his speech with an Urdu couplet “Subah hone ko hain, phir bhee shama jalaye rakhna”
Poetry coming from someone in the field of technology and processes was quite a surprise and just indicated that in India the possibilities of synergy between art, technology and its management are immense.
“The next 20 years are going to be all about HR”: Mohandas Pai
The HR & Financial Stalwart from Infosys, Mohandas Pai spoke next. He stressed that the next twenty years are going to be all about HR in every sector including animation.
Pointing out that India’s dense population is an advantage and it is people who are empowering the India story, Pai commented “We have the youngest population in the world and it is going to be a great advantage going forward” “Ironically,” he added “that in-spite of having a huge young population, there are more jobs than qualified people and there is a great mismatch in HR that needs to be solved”
“The Industry is taking away from the faculty. We need more people to teach in order to be able to create large talent pool of competent professionals”
“Next year IT industry will hire 170,000 people. Construction companies are not finding new engineers to hire these days. Retail Industry is targeting 10 standard 3 attempts failed. BPOs are having an attrition rate of 45%. There is an HR Challenge in your industry too”
To be prepared in the war for talent, Pai urged studios to focus on their HR strategies.
“Create excitement in the marketplace that the future lies with you. You have to build brand equity in your industry. At Infosys we work with 250 engineering colleges.
You have to invest as an industry, you have to go to art colleges, engineering colleges and design colleges and create awareness”
“Reach out to parents. Involve parents of your employees. Create an ecosystem. Create a profile of careers. Anyone who joins should be shared a career path and be shown where he/she would be five years down the line. HR is a pre dominant challenge. It will not be easy. Treat people with respect. Give them an ability to grow. Added Pai.
Another bit of advice that Pai had for the Animation Entrepreneurs was to be process driven as far as deliveries was concerned. “Be a process driven corporation. Be entrepreneurial but not when it comes to delivery. Keep your entrepreneurial passion for taking the company forward”
He also pointed out that “As society becomes affluent people spend more on entertainment and their attention spans are getting shorter. The variety of content has to be very large”
“This Industry is going to make India proud” concluded Pai.
We need to nurture the creativity that we are born with”: Ghai
Bollywood rules and how!
More than 800 people in the audience, several distinguished dignitaries on stage, people from Nasscom, people from the government, people from Infosys…. But as the lights dimmed and a 5 minute montage from Subhash Ghai’s movies played, the crowd actually burst out with applause, cheer whistles and cat calls as if one were in a movie hall. That’s the power of Cinema, the pull of Bollywood!
It took a while before the thunder of claps softened, amidst the cheer and applause Ghai began and almost as a return token of the adulation he had just received he shared, “All these movies I have made. I have written the stories for these in Bangalore & Ooty. This place is very inspirational for me. My association with Bangalore has been very emotional”
Talking about how visual story telling influenced him, while still a schoolboy, Ghai reminisced, “As a school boy I loved reading Chandamama and Amar Chitra Katha. It was through this that I acquired a skill for story telling through visuals. It was amazing how an illustration could make you sensitive to the character”
Begging to disagree with an earlier speaker who had mentioned about creative people and technical people separately, Ghai offered his perspective that “I personally feel that God has given birth to a child as a creative person. What we do is as he grows we don’t encourage his creativity. It is not nurtured, instead we curb it. We are the ones who condition him with don’ts. The best technicians are highly creative people. The frustrations that I had working with non creative technical people in my career have resulted in my opening Whistling Woods”
“One can learn how to operate equipment in three days time, one can become a technician in 6 months time but to become a creative technician it takes three to six years of learning. There is a lot of difference between a thinker and a doer. The institute that I have started will focus on creating thinkers”
Displaying his high regard for art Ghai also added that India had always had a memory based education system and that it needed to modify into something where art could be appreciated and skills imbibed.
Karnataka Government is with you : Dr Anup Poojary
Karnataka Governent Secreatry for IT Dr Anup Poojary spoke about the advantages of Brand Bangalore and how the state government was taking animation seriously.
“This year’s IT Awards will have a separate category for animation” he declared.
Dr Poojary also shared with the audience that the annual Bangalore IT.in would have a specific focus on the gaming and animation sectors. “We will work together with the Industry and bodies like ABAI and make sure that this sector shines too”
Giving various positive meanings to ABAI, Poojary said that “For me ABAI is Aspire to Be an Icon and every animation player from Bangalore must shine in his field. For ABAI Bangalore means Abhay – Without fear. Go ahead, the Karnataka government is with you”
“We are no longer following content, content is following us” – Intel’s Ashok Nair
Intel National Sales Head Ashok Nair made some very interesting observations on the changing landscape in the Entertainment business where everyday advances in technology are changing the way entertainment is made, distributed and consumed.
“This is a new era of the digital entertainment industry” shared Nair. He explained about the four verticals Technology, Content, Distribution and Exhibition which constitute the value chain. “Any change in any of these 4 vectors effects the whole” he added.
Citing an example of how technology is creating new patterns of consumption resulting in new business streams, Nair shared “Who would have thought that ring tones would become a multi billion dollar industry?”
“Most important is that we are no longer following content. Content is following us. Drastic changes in technology are transforming the way the content and entertainment business is run” he added.
Sharing information about Intel’s focus areas:-
-Digital Enterprise
-Digital Home
-Mobility
-Channel Platforms
“The new Intel architecture is called core micro architecture. We have transformed our product line spanning across all key segments we look at”
Further elaborating on technological advances Nair shared, “Change is no longer incremental but exponential. Last year we had single core, this year we have dual core and soon we will be talking of performance gains in the range of 10x. We continue to strive to be at the forefront of technology advancement. Performance gains of 40 to 80 %. Performance per energy consumption has gone up too”
And keeping up the tradition of the mornings speakers, each of whom had ended their presentations in unique and interesting manner, Nair shared, “If earlier the question was What do we make, Today the question is what do we make possible?”
A truly enlightening session enriched with perspectives of the experienced achievers.