CII Summit FX 2022 wrapped up their two-days conference held on 29 and 30 August at The Lalit in New Delhi. The key highlight of this year’s edition which will help in charting the Indian AVGC engine steadily towards its destination, is the attendance of officials from Indian ministries.
During the summit’s panel discussions, the officials from ministries dealing with AVGC mentioned that the AVGC Task Force will come out with it’s report in next two months after which policies will be framed. CII National Committee on Media and Entertainment vice-chairman and Technicolor India country head Biren Ghose highlighted the government’s interest while delivering his concluding speech for Summit FX 2022.
“We had the opportunity of having the government representing all five ministries involving AVGC. We saw the industry talk about innovations and what will happen next,” he said.
Day two began with a presentation by PwC media and entertainment partner and lead Rajib Basu. Touching upon important points like AVGC employment opportunities, re-skilling, he stressed upon the need to work upon various interfaces of AVGC like EdTech, otherwise “we would not be able to give the supply side enough boost.” Yotta CEO Sunil Gupta explained the importance of data centers in his presentation.
Moving ahead, CII Summit FX 2022 connected with some of the gaming industry leaders including Hungama Digital Entertainment MD Neeraj Roy, Polygon Technology co-founder Jayanti Kanani and Lumikai Fund Salone Sehgal to understand Web3, NFTs and Metaverse. The session was moderated by Jetsynthesys Pvt. Ltd chief strategy officer Girish Menon.
“We are more of Web 2.0 and 2.5 and not really Web 3.0 today. Gaming has always been at the forefront and gaming and gamers always tend to be early adopters to new technologies,” Menon said. He further said that sports like cricket and others can be an entry point into the metaverse.
Talking about the need of the hour Kanani said, “We need more developers in Web 3 for sure. What we need is more and more Web 3 developing companies. For Web 3 in particular, India is in a great position.”
Sehgal mentioned three important tenets for NFTs which are utility, accessibility and eventually value. Roy said that he believes that brands will be one of the catalysts for the potential adoption of NFTs.
Further, there was a panel on esports which had Federation of esports Association of India founding member Abhishek Isser, Skyesports chief marketing officer Gnana Shekhar, Revenant Esports CEO and founder Rohit Jagasia and again Menon as moderator. The panelists emphasised on diversification, importance of having a clear roadmap and building a sustainable gaming ecosystem.
The post lunch panel deliberated, if content creation in the sector is more of a technology story today than a creative play. They pointed out the importance of low latency networks.
“You need instant gratification whether it is content creation or content consumption,” Lightstorm CEO Rajiv Nayyar said.
With the gradual progress of the web, the question of security arrives. “We will have to focus on security which is less talked about,” said Accenture India communications, media and tech MD Neeraj Sharma.
Also, HP Enterprise sales director Kavit Gupta spoke about double level security.
Gamitronics founder and CEO Rajat Ojha, Holosuit founder and CEO Harshavardhana Kikkeri, Citrus Ink Studio CEO Vrinda Sood and Verbolabs founder CEO Prithvi Jain showcased their amazing body of work on metaverse, motion capture, CGI advertisements and so on. According to them, Web3 is all about participation.
Mikros Animation creative director Manoj A Menon and operations creative head Leon Christian presented the Mikros Animation showreel. While speaking about the challenges in taking care of the minute details, they gave a sneak peek of the characters from their upcoming feature Ozi, the voice of the forest.
For the final panel discussion of Summit FX 2022 on ‘Indian IP for World Stage’ some of the AVGC leaders got together to understand the way ahead. The discussion moderated by Punnaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni, had Tavrohi Animation founder and CEO Rohit Kataria, Paperboat Design Studios co-founder and director Aashish Mall, British High Commission Internal Trade department senior sector manager Shivangi Ambani and Toonz Media Group Distribution and Syndication – India country head Murtuza Kutianawalla.
“When it comes to the audience, there’s a huge role of education. Arts is taught extensively at school and college level in the U.K. Kids in Mumbai and Delhi don’t do that on a regular basis,” Ambani explained while talking about encouraging arts training in the country.
“We have to believe in our stories and our capabilities. We can and we will take Indian stories abroad,” Kataria said.
According to Mall, this is a really challenging time for India and time to think how we can save creative minds from going outside India.
“The problem starts from the fact that we need to go to broadcasters, we actually don’t think about other sources. There are so many influencers, why can’t we find other avenues and collaborate with them for our content,” Kutianawalla added.
The convergence of the government, industry and the academic community during summits is a much needed boost for the AVGC sector. The third edition of CII Summit FX 2022 witnessed the participation of officials and a good turnout of other stakeholders from the industry and the event concluded successfully raising the bar of expectations. The key takeaway of this year’s edition was that the Indian AVGC sector has already embarked on it’s journey towards success and the upcoming policies will ensure a smooth ride for all.
By Dhruvi Joshi and Binita Das