To give a fillip to the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector, the State government on Wednesday unveiled its Karnataka Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics Policy that aspires to propel Bengaluru as a global AVGC hub.

Priyank Kharge, Minister for IT, BT & Tourism, said “Next Gen Karnataka Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics Policy ( Next Gen KAVGC Policy ) takes a holistic approach in addressing areas of skill development, infrastructure growth, ecosystem expansion, marketing support as well as financial concessions and incentives. Our goal is to promote exports by attracting global production, while at the same time providing impetus to indigenous productions - in terms of original IP & short films - and start-ups in areas such as game development, virtual reality, augmented reality and educational technology.”

“Given that talent is the mainstay for the creative sector of AVGC, the new policy focuses heavily on skill development with initiatives like industry-led finishing school, a proposed centre of excellence in partnership with a premier global institution.”

Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, and other senior officials were present at the interactive session hosted by the State government’s Information Technology, Biotechnology Department for industry captains of the AVGS sector. Prominent leaders at the session included Biren Gosh, Country Head, Technicolor India; Rajesh Rao, CEO, Dhruva Interactive, and Chairman, Nasscom Gaming Forum; Nandish, CEO, Xentrix Studios; Rakesh Mishra, VP-Marketing, Target India; Pradeep Nair, Managing Director, Autodesk –India &SAARC, and Easo Thampy Mathew, National Operations Head, Aptech.

Concessions

Adi Shayan, Honorary Secretary, ABAI, said, “The new policy offers unprecedented financial concessions and incentives, such as proof of concept grants for original IP and venture funds for start-ups and production grants aimed to support studios to invest back in manpower and technology resources to make them competitive on the global as well as domestic stage. These are landmark inclusions that will boost Karnataka AVGC sector’s position.” ABAI, a non-profit industry organisation, has helped draft the KAVGC policy.

To augment the successful Digital Arts Centre Program, initiated as part of the earlier policy, KAVGC Policy 2.0 aims to increase the number of digital arts centres in Karnataka from 7 to 50. The idea is to bring the fine arts colleges, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, into the mainstream by introducing industry-focused digital art training.

Global events

Further, the policy envisages hosting top global events in Bengaluru. An annual calendar comprising world-class flagship events like Bengaluru GAFX Conference, Elevate 100 and Bengaluru Tech Summit, together with micro events, will facilitate the creation of a vibrant ecosystem for knowledge sharing, business development, marketing and networking within the industry.

In terms of infrastructure, the policy envisions setting up world-class AVGC infrastructure with a Digital Media City that we will house the centre of excellence, AVCG post-production lab (comprising an incubator, game testing facilities, render farm, etc.,) and state-of-the-art equipment.

Karnataka is the only State in the country to continuously sponsor delegations to attend top global content markets, conferences and festivals. KAVGC Policy 2.0 will continue to extend that support to start-ups, small-and medium-size companies to provide them with global exposure in terms of business development, selling IP, finding co-production partners, networking and getting acquainted with the latest business models.

Details of the KAVGC Policy 2.0 will be available athttp://itbt.karnataka.gov.in/Pages/KBITS.aspx&www.abai.in