Kids, Animation & More (KAM) Summit and Ann Awards are back again with yet another insightful and exciting edition. The second edition of KAM Summit and Ann Awards 2021 will be held virtually on 15, 16 and 17 July 2021.
Back in 2019, AnimationXpress launched the first edition of KAM Summit and Ann Awards at The Lalit, Mumbai which saw a participation of about 700 delegates and 45 speakers. Since the last summit, the world and the industry have gone through a lot of changes and has been impacted heavily owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of the very few sectors that flourished tremendously during the lockdown period was Animation! A form of entertainment that is not reliant on production that presupposes physical gathering unlike live action content and yet entertains children and adults alike.
With the key theme of KAM Summit 2021 being ‘The Next Big Rise’, the event will explore with industry leaders across studios, broadcasters, OTT platforms, creators the options Indian animation has before itself and the direction it can take to propel it further. We’ll also focus the medium’s expansion into myriad genres and platforms.
The mission of KAM Summit is to celebrate the stupendously growing animation industry and to bring together the animation industries – both in India and internationally – to pause and reflect on trends and developments in every aspect of the business and technology associated with it.
With animation industry’s creme de la creme on the advisory board, the summit is set to be a definitive virtual gathering and a vantage point for the entire animation industry. The advisory members include Toonz Media Group CEO P Jayakumar, Vaibhav Studios founder and director Vaibhav Kumaresh, Zebu Animation CEO Adi Shayan, Green Gold Animations CEO Rajiv Chilaka, FICCI AVGC chairman and Punnaryug Artvision founder Ashish Kulkarni, Technicolor country head Biren Ghose, Assemblage Entertainment founder and CEO AK Madhavan, Walt Disney Animation Studios character technical director-simulation supervisor Avneet Kaur, Autodesk India technical solutions manager Samit Shetty, Joan Vogelesang Consultants president and CEO Joan Vogelesang and Srinivas Sribhakta who is the CEO of VedAtma Animation Studios, director & CEO at Arena Animation Malleswaram & Rajajinagar and secretary ABAI.
KAM Summit is receiving great response and participation from both the Indian and International industry. KAM Summit is presented by Nick and is co-powered by Cosmos-Maya, Unreal-Engine and Discovery Kids. YOTTA serves as the workstation and OTT service partner whereas Green Gold Animation is the summit partner. ABAI promoting Centre of Excellence – COE are the associate partners and the event is supported by IN10 Media (GUBBARE ) and HUION. Digicon6 Asia is the festival partner and ASIFA India serves as the community partner.
Commenting about the KAM summit Viacom18 Hindi and Kids TV Network head Nina Elavia Jaipuria said, “The kids entertainment space is ever evolving and at a very exciting stage. The content that is being created these days is local, cutting edge and truly tailor made to cater to this dynamic target group. With carefully curated IPs that are entertaining, engaging and transport kids into a world of escape, it is no wonder that the category is on a growth trajectory. Since kids influence almost all major household purchase decisions and co-viewing of the genre, it is no wonder that kids channels remain attractive to advertisers. An event like KAM brings all the relevant stakeholders together- be it content creators, platform owners or advertisers. It is collaborative forums such as this that will lead to greater storytelling and innovation in the sphere of kids entertainment.”
Unreal Engine Epic Games evangelist Arvind Neelakantan also expresses his excitement for the virtual summit and said, “Unreal Engine is reimagining storytelling and revolutionizing production pipelines for episodic, feature-length and short-form animations. We are excited to be at the summit to see how we can enable creators to transform their first idea into a final frame, all using Unreal.”
Looking forward to the summit with anticipation Cosmos-Maya added,“The KAM Summit is an effort to take the Indian animation industry global and also celebrate our landmark achievements as an industry. As a leading industry player Cosmos-Maya is happy to be part of an industry-wide initiative like this and we expect it to be a great event. An opportunity to make any new professional collaborations would be the cherry on the cake.”
“Technology has been powering content creators and digital platforms. At Yotta, we are democratizing technology by offering innovative solutions on a subscription model. This is the first time we are participating in the KAM Summit 2021, and looking forward to presenting our solutions for Creative content creators and OTT Players/Broadcasters,” shares Yotta Infrastructure.
Speaking about the upcoming summit Green Gold Animation said, “Animation as a medium has been evolving to accommodate the changes or rather the growth in reach and access along with the technology of the industry. The digital platforms have opened up the world of content across the world. With storytelling itself no longer bound by regions and language, animation is gaining acceptance across age groups with the myriad tales that appeal to human emotions and shared experiences that we all share during our lives. We look forward to sharing our bit of experience gained along our journey and be privy to the same from the various participants and speakers at KAM 2021.”
ABAI president Biren Ghose who has been supporting the initiative also as an advisory board member shares, “ABAI is delighted to present the “go-to-market” strategy and the traction it has achieved for the Center Of Excellence that has provided high end technology solutions; incubation and a subsidised set of infrastructure to the start-up community at Bengaluru. The finishing school is in the process of taking its talent development mission to high tech areas in virtual production and game engine technologies and also to act as a hub for the virtualisation of the digital arts education programme. No industry association has been able to show a multi- million dollar support to the community like ABAI has done thanks to the Government of Karnataka and the KAVGC Policy.”
Keeping the ongoing lockdowns and work from home stress in mind, this year’s KAM Summit will be held in two parts of the day; morning sessions will be from 10 am and evening sessions will be held from 5/6:00 pm.
We are excited to bring to you this massive extravaganza and information loaded KAM summit to make the animation industry to propel to new heights.
Click here for complete KAM SUMMIT 2021 Agenda
Click here for complete KAM SUMMIT 2021 Speaker list
Registration link for the Summit: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4ZXPAVOZQsyztGD5ojSLAQ