The third edition of CII SummitFX 2022 that raised it’s curtains on 29 August 2022 at The Lalit in New Delhi witnessed Ministry of Information and Broadcasting officials, AVGC Industry veterans and other thought leaders deliver panel discussion that sets a way forward, emphasising on upskilling and imparting content creation training and so on. This event for the AVGC sector is organised in partnership with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Software Technology Park of India (STPI) and several companies in the AVGC industry.
Being held in a physical format after more than two years, during the inaugural ceremony, the summit witnessed the release of the ‘AVGC State of the Industry’ paper, outlining the industry’s wish list.
“AVGC has been a priority sector for the government. This task force has been represented by many many ministers. The AVGC per se is on a very high growth path and the Indian AVGC sector has done very well abroad, it has won Oscar, BAFTA and other awards. Gaming in India is still in a regulatory flux, some ministry should take up the ownership of regulation of gaming,” said Government of India Ministry of Information and Broadcasting secretary Apurva Chandra.
While talking about the industry policies, Chandra further said, “The AVGC Task Force has been constituted under my chairmanship, and we have been working with the industry (including CII) for over six months. We should be coming out with a report within a month or so. Once the report is submitted to the government, the government will take a view of it and will go to various ministries and finally to the Cabinet before we can finally announce its content or the policies.”
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting additional secretary Neerja Shekhar outlining the broad contours of a National AVGC policy said that the government is looking to take the aspirations to implementation stage.
“We are looking at an ecosystem where the AVGC component is integrated with the school level education system and the focus will be not only providing services to the world but creation of our own IPs,” she said.
Ministry of Commerce and Industry joint secretary Darpan Jain said that India’s share in the global AVGC industry needs to be pushed further by utilising India’s co-production treaties and free trade agreements with several countries around the world. He said that India’s gaming industry, which is growing at the fastest pace among the AVGC sector, needs regulatory stability to bring in more global investments. He asked the industry to approach the Ministry of Commerce and Industry if they face difficulty in accessing markets in ASEAN, Australia and UAE, with whom India has trade agreements.
He also pointed out the emerging trends in the audio visual (AV) market saying that there is intense digitalisation, leveraging the use of data by AV sector, aggregators are delivering more AV content, regulations and there’s globalisation and localisation of content.
“Summits like these are a celebration. It lets us share what has happened in the industry in the past one year. There’s a huge advantage when it comes to technology. Three things are going to change the industry: A – artificial intelligence, B – Biotech and C – Crypto. We want to talk about India, so we need to make sure that we tell stories about India,” said CII National Committee on Media and Entertainment vice-chairman and Technicolor India country head Biren Ghose.
The AVGC industry’s share has grown from merely one to two per cent to 18-19 per cent in the media and entertainment sector in the past 10-15 years. According to Ghose, today the industry is in reality the digital engine room of the world in animation, visual effects and games. To reach the next level of growth, he said that turbocharged training is the key.
CII India@75 chairman and India Digital Gaming Society president Rajan Navani mentioned that India is a country that celebrates thousands of years of culture and through the AVGC sector we need to position India as the leading creative hub of the world. Highlighting the potential of the gaming sector, he said, “Gaming and gamification will soon cut across sectors.”
In one mega panel consisting of discussions on skilling India and education for AVGC, stalwarts like AICTE chairman Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Punnaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni, Media and Entertainment Skill Council CEO and chairman Mohit Soni, DNEG RPM global head Puja Parikh, Association of Bangalore Animation Industry secretary S Srinivas, Technicolor Creative Studios Academy, India academies head Sandeep Sharma, Whistling Woods International VP and business head Chaitanya Chinchlikar, Davinci Media college founder Arul Moorthy Marappan and Technicolor Creative Studios talent acquisition global head Vishwas Deep spoke about re-skilling and upskilling the talent pool, taking the advantage of the booming industry.
For the sustainable gaming legacy panel of CII SummitFX, MPL co-founder and CEO Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Dream 11 co-founder and CEO Harsh Jain joined for a virtual chat with Biren Ghose and Rajan Navani.
Last session for the day was on the making of a global VFX block-buster. This session was conducted by DNEG head of VFX Jigesh Gajjar, The Mill senior artist Manideep Sanisetty and MPC supervisor compositing Devrishi Chaterjee. They all showcased presentations on VFX story on Dune, making of award winning advertisement and breakdown of the Last Duel, respectively.
By Dhruvi Joshi and Binita Das