Advocating the need for a National AVGC Skills Council, Biren Ghose, Vice-Chairman, CII National Committee on Media & Entertainment and Country Head, Technicolor India, emphasized that focus on education and skills will be a major pivot for the growth of the Indian AVGC sector.

Presenting curtain raiser for CII Summit FX 2021, Biren Ghose said policy sessions on the AVGC sector, with focus on games in emerging verticals, sessions on eSports, virtual production, content pipeline, AVGC startup ecosystem, interaction with global masters and talents on behind the scene presentations on how to win an Oscar and talent will be major talking points this year.

Biren Ghose explained the rationale behind this year’s Summit FX theme — The Reset. “A new era of a continuing growing opportunity has emerged. The AVGC sector had so far grown in India as a B2B industry, and revenue had come from global services. The last 18 months saw a major B2C agenda and consumers embraced entertainment (streaming platforms or games) and revenues have grown exponentially higher.”

“We have the ability to increase our business by 100 per cent. But we are constrained only by the fact that we cannot, across the board, get the skill sets,” said Biren Ghose. “I think with the new education policy, we’ve got now the ability to plant the seeds at an even earlier stage.”

Biren Ghose called for the need for industry participation in at least one or two international festivals of animation, visual effects, gaming and e-sports, on the lines of participation in international film festivals. “This is where we will get the opportunity for India to present what it’s doing and how things are shaping up. It is very important to us.”

Biren Ghose called for a stable climate to attract investments as the industry has a robust ability to absorb international investments. “I will not go into detail except to say hundreds of millions of dollars of venture money has come into India in the last 24 to 36 months, just fueling the new economy in AVGC. And I think those investors are looking for a more stable and more enabling climate, in the confluence between government, industry and academia in order to redouble those efforts, because this is like the startup round of what they put in. And I think it opens the door for a lot of enlightened conversation and a spotlight on what we can do even further.”