'Gaming, animation should be part of school and college curriculums'

Steps should be taken by the authorities to ensure that animation and gaming are included in school and university curriculums, according to experts.

Ever since these animation industries started operations in the country, there has been a huge demand for these professionals, said P. Jayakumar, CEO of Toonz Animation, the premier animation production company in the country, to reporters here on Wednesday.

"The art of these new techniques has to be explored when the children are young and the best way is to include these topics in the school curriculum in a small way and then at the university level. These are good enough to be included in the Skill Development Programme also," Jayakumar added.

"Today, there are 250 companies in India and the potential is massive as Nasscom predicts the Indian Gaming market to be in excess of $1.1 billion in 2020. This is an industry where even education can be made simple if one adopts animation and gaming technologies, so as to make it child friendly," said Rajesh Rao, chairman of Nasscom Gaming Forum, a gaming industry which started with just one company in 1997 and reached 20 companies in 2010.

The Toonz Academy, since its launch in 2002, has seen 6,000 of its students joining the animation industry. To take full advantage of the gaming potential, Toonz on Wednesday tied up with San Francisco based Unity Technologies for the launch of the fifth Unity Authorised Training Centre in the country which trains students in the latest in gaming.

"See, we have limitations and we are doing our part by running courses in animation and gaming. To add to our efforts, it is the government who has to take this to the children, as there is a massive shortage of manpower in these skill sets. The only way is to equip more and more youngsters," Jayakumar said.

"The gaming industry is such that even one person can create a game and turn out to be a millionaire and Unity helps with the required software, with utilities downloaded for free," said Arvind Neelakantan, product evangelist with Unity.

--IANS

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