Dear All: Apologies for cross-posting. Please forward to interested individuals and organisations. For more information and to register, contact Sonia Nazareth at +91.22.2382.1893 or +91.98199.39820 or write to sonia@cometmedia.org Best, S.K. _____ Comet Media Foundation presents CAREERS IN NEW MEDIA seminar and exhibition interactive presentations with the finest minds on the hottest topics in New Media DATES: FRIDAY 1st, SATURDAY 2nd and SUNDAY 3rd July 2005 TIME: 10.00 A.M. to 5.00 P.M. Daily VENUE: Bosco Hall St Andrews Church Compound, Hill Road Bandra West, Mumbai 400050 a COSMOS foundational event CAREERS IN NEW MEDIA is a festival composed of a seminar, an exhibition and scope for many interactions. It aims to create awareness among students about the new and viable professional options unleashed by emerging information and communication technologies. Friday 1 July 2005 NEW MEDIA FOR COMMUNICATIONS Seminar 10.00 A.M. to 5.00 P.M. Saturday 2 July 2005 NEW MEDIA FOR A NEW WORLD Seminar 10.00 A.M. to 5.00 P.M. Friday 1 July, Saturday 2 July and Sunday 3 July NEW MEDIA Exhibition 10.00 A.M. to 5.00 P.M. CAREERS IN NEW MEDIA will have an inter-disciplinary approach, with experts and established professionals from a wide variety of work areas sharing their experiences and visions of the future. This is an unique opportunity for students to interact with experts in order to make a strategic career choices. COSMOS is a recently-launched initiative of the Comet Media Foundation in Mumbai, exploring the complex and densely woven field in which science, technology and society overlap. The educational programme of COSMOS is scheduled to be operational by 2006. For more information on the Comet Media Foundation visit http://www.cometmedia.org The CAREERS IN NEW MEDIA festival is open to all. Entry to the exhibition is free. The seminar presentations require pre- registration, as seats are limited. The registration charges are Rs 200. For more information and to register, contact Sonia Nazareth at +91.22.2382.1893 or +91.98199.39820 or write to sonia@cometmedia.org FRIDAY 1 JULY 2005 NEW MEDIA FOR COMMUNICATIONS Seminar (25 minute presentation will be followed by 15 minute question and answer sessions) 10:00 to 10:15 Introduction CHANDITA MUKHERJEE Comet Media Foundation, Documentary Film-Maker 10:15 to 10.45 Keynote Address "the unfolding new media scenario " NINA SABNANI Head, Department of New Media Studies National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad 10.50 to 11:30 "Making it in the games industry" REENA GEORGE Human Resources Manager, Indiagames Ltd, Mumbai HRISHI OBEROI Head of 3D and Console Games, Indiagames Ltd, Mumbai 11:30 to 11.45 BREAK 11:50 to 12:30 "Animation as a career for the future" SHILPA RANADE Faculty Member, Industrial Design Centre (IDC), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai 12:35 to 1:15 "Can writing be a viable career? Exploring web-journalism" KIRAN JONNALAGADDA Blogger and Information Architect, Seacrow Labs, Bangalore 1.20 to 1.30 "The power of the portal: a case study" Z. ANSARI rediff.com 1:30 to 2:15 LUNCH 2:20 to 3:00 "Entrepreneurship in the age of new media: entertainment and commerce" TOBY MORNING Chairman, Urban Technology Ventures, Los Angeles, U.S.A. 3:05 to 3:20 BREAK 3:25 to 4:05 "Opportunities in audio-visual post-production" NEIL SADWELKAR Editor and Editing System Consultant, Technical Consultant to Pixion Studio 4:10 to 4:30 Concluding Remarks NIRMALENDU JAJODIA Software Developer, Board Member, Comet Media Foundation SATURDAY 2 JULY 2005 NEW MEDIA FOR A NEW WORLD Seminar (25 minute presentation will be followed by 15 minute question and answer sessions) 10:00 to 10:20 Introductory Note NIRMALENDU JAJODIA 10:25 to 11:05 "Emerging careers in the new information age" GURUNANDAN BHAT Chief Technologist, Synapse, Goa 11:10 to 11:50 "Future prospects for sound specialists" P. BALARAM Audio Engineer, Audeus Studios, Mukta Arts, Mumbai 11:55 to 12:10 BREAK 12:15 to 12:55 "Careers in e-learning" RUPESH GOEL Head, Simulations, Tata Interactive Systems 1:00 to 1:40 "GIS (Geographic Information Systems) applications" VINEET SHROFF Founder-Director, Biond Software, Mumbai 1:40 to 2:25 LUNCH 2:30 to 3:10 "New media as an area of research and training" NISHANT SHAH Research Scholar, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore 3:15 to 3:30 BREAK 3:35 to 4:15 "ICTs, social development and business models" JAYALAKSHMI CHITTOOR Editor, I4D Magazine, Centre for Science Development & Media Studies (CSDMS), New Delhi 4:20 to 4:30 Vote of Thanks INDRANIL CHAKRAVARTY Film-Maker and Project Director, COSMOS New Media Initiative, Comet Media Foundation, Mumbai ABOUT THE SPEAKERS NINA SABNANI teaches Communication Design at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. After a degree in Fine Arts from Baroda, she studied animation at NID and in the UK. Later, she did a post graduate programme in Television & Film from the USA on a Fulbright Fellowship. She has evolved with the times to embrace a wide range of subjects in her profile. At present she teaches courses in Visual Scripting for Animation, Interaction Design, Linear and non-linear story telling, Games design, Illustration and Multi-sensory Design. http://www.nid.edu REENA GEORGE currently Manager Human Resources at Indiagames, had extensive experience in the IT industry. A part of the dynamic industry of wireless gaming, Reena has taken Indiagames from an 80 member team to over 250 employees in the past one year. She is an active member of the HR Infotech Association, Mumbai. http://www.indiagames.com HRISHI OBEROI is currently Head of the 3D & Console games at Indiagames. He has specialised in computer graphics and animation and has designed and programmed 2D and 3D games for mobile phones. Hrishi is currently producing a console named "Ashoka". He is active in the International Game Developer's Association, Mumbai chapter, organises gaming events like WCG India and speaks in technical forums concerned with games development in India. http://www.indiagames.com SHILPA RANADE is a faculty member at the Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. A gold medallist from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, she did her Masters in Visual Communication from IDC, IIT, Mumbai and subsequently completed an M.Phil in Animation from the Royal College of Art, London. Her animation film Mani’s Dying won the critics award at the Bombay International Short Film Festival, 1996 and was nominated for the best British short film award at the British Short Film Festival, 1995. http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in KIRAN JONNALAGADDA is a writer and programmer who works at the crossing of media, technology and the web. Currently a consultant technologist at various organisations, he is also an Independent Research Fellow at Sarai, studying how the user interface affects online communities. He is also a collaborator on the Mumbai Free Map Project of CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust), Mumbai, a member of the Plone Foundation, and a trustee of the Tapovan School in rural Bangalore. An observer and participant in blogging, Kiran is also an occasional journalist and a keen photographer. http://www.seacrow.com http://www.freemap.in TOBY MORNING is an entrepreneur who heads Urban Technology Ventures, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. This group of internet-based companies aims to leverage technology and “serve as a catalyst for creating a more peaceful, healthy, prosperous planet for future generations”. Toby’s passion for music has taken him from event promotion to music distribution and concert promotion to the Internet radio portal djunion.com. Toby’s focus is on developing the company’s internet services, and he is in India investigating various fresh business opportunities with Indian partners. http://urbantechnologyventures.com NEIL SADWELKAR spends most of his waking hours as an editor and edit system consultant, currently at a large post production house called Pixion. Neil started out making sky shows in the Planetarium, moved to 16mm film and then followed video through its evolution as a professional medium. Neil has been associated with documentary and feature film-making in all the possible capacities—sound recordist, editor, camera person, director. He has been a contributing editor at Misenscene, and forum host at the DMN Forums’ Final Cut Pro forum. http://www.sadwelkar.com GURUNANDAN BHATT enjoys working on applications that allow people to organise, share and disseminate data and collaborate in useful, productive and innovative ways. Currently Chief Technologist at Synapse, Goa, a company that “partners with clients to solve their business problems through information-based initiatives” Gurunandan has worked extensively on designing and developing complex yet inexpensive information systems. An ardent proponent of Open Source software, he regularly speaks at events, has authored several books and writes for technology magazines. http://www.plusthought.org BALARAM PONDENKANDATH graduated from FTII Pune in sound recording and sound engineering. He has designed, installed and worked as a recordist at a number of leading sound studios such as Sargam Studio, Audio Bytes of Mumbai, VGP Digital Studios, ABM Digital Studio, Maryan Digital Studio of Chennai and Navodaya of Trivandrum, Jeevan TV satellite channel of Cochin and the dubbing and DTS mixing studios for Easwary Films, Banglore. Currently Balaram is the chief recording engineer at Audeus Studio for Mukta Arts. He consultants with the Music Archive at St. Paul's, Bangalore and does sound engineering for musical shows in India and abroad. http://www.muktaarts.com RUPESH GOEL is Head, Simulations, Tata Interactive Systems, a large developer of custom e-learning solutions. It has a multi-disciplinary team of over 700, including content developers, 3-D animators & modellers, software engineers and instructional designers. TIS e- learning programmes cater to the needs of diverse sectors in the corporate, educational and government arena. Its offerings include business and educational simulations, enterprise applications training, adaptive assessments, story-based learning objects, game- based learning, teacher tools and teaching aids and a host of other applications. http://www.tatainteractive.com VINEET SHROFF trained in aeronautical engineering at IIT Powai. He founded Biond Software in 1994 with Milind Dalvi. Biond is in the space of creating GIS datasets or digital maps for India. His expertise includes procurement and analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery, vectorisation and CAD work, physical field survey and application software development. Vineet is also the founder director of Newreka Chemicals and CEO of Standard Engineers. His special interests include growing exotic fruits. NISHANT SHAH is a researcher in contemporary culture and new digital media based at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore. His interests are in looking at the formation of online communities in the third world through blogging. The construction of identities online and the patterns of social structure that arise due to these activities are of immediate interest to him. Nishant has been designing and teaching courses in contemporary digital cultures for undergraduates at Christ College and St. Joseph's College, Bangalore. His work has been published in various poetry anthologies and he dreams of writing a novel some day. http://www.cscsban.org JAYALAKSHMI CHITTOOR has written extensively on gender, consumer issues, ICT4D, mountain issues and natural resources management and has experimented with new electronic media for community building and networking. Heading the i4d programme of the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, she brings out the monthly magazine “i4d” and coordinates two research studies. She also works as regional Asia advisor to Bellanet International, promoting ICT tools to provide opportunities to disadvantaged communities and for providing democratic space in the world of the Internet. http://www.i4d.csdms.in http://www.i4donline.net