The 11th Edition of India Game Developer Conference Kickstarts;Telangana to Help UK Universities to Set Up Off-Camp Sites

• Plan to help UK universities build their off-campus sites in Telangana to educate more people about gaming, IT Secretary for Telangana, Jayesh Ranjan says


• Nearly 30 top gaming companies across the world make their presence felt at the event

The 11th edition of the India Game Developer Conference took off with great zest at HICC, Novotel in the city with the gamer community across several countries, developers and global companies in impressive attendance. Held as part of Indiajoy 2019, the country’s premier gaming, media and entertainment event hosted by industry volunteers with support from Government of Telangana, IGDC is set to redefine the way gaming is perceived in the country and nurture a community without barriers. With several talks, workshops, panel discussions, esports tournaments, the two-day conference has everything to ensure an adrenaline rush to its attendees.

Expressing his happiness to witness a great turnout for the event from various parts of the globe, Rajesh Rao, Chairman of IGDC, had said, “This is a conference that has been put together by the gaming industry- for the people, by the people. Over 25-30 top gaming companies, who have changed the face of the industry, have made this event one-of-a-kind. This is a not-for-profit event and we’re glad to be receiving great support from sponsors and gaming enthusiasts from various corners of the globe. "

Discussing the initiatives by the Telangana government to cater to the interests of the gaming industry, IT Secretary for the State, Jayesh Ranjan at the keynote session had added, “The Indian Game Developer Conference has enriched the appeal of Indiajoy 2019. The edition has grown bigger from time to time and the Telangana government has been making concentrated efforts to promote the gaming sector consistently. The Image Tower, that we plan to construct by the end of 2020, promises to redefine the gaming industry in the country, where we provide excellent infrastructure and a welcoming business-friendly environment that would encourage investment."

In an attempt to widen the horizons of the industry and gaming enthusiasts in the State, he had mentioned that the Government is in talks with a few top universities in the UK to setup their off-campus sites in the city. “There is a great need to come up with world-class educational institutions in the State to foster budding gaming enthusiasts. A Centre of Excellence for the gaming, animation and VFX is in the offing. We plan to make IGDC an annual series in the city and hope to provide a rewarding and a rich experience for everyone who’s part of it - gamers, developers, companies.”

Unreal Engine ahead of its launch in the country hoped to educate more people about gaming. The brain behind one of the biggest success stories in the gaming space in recent times, Tencent Games too made its presence felt at the event. Sharing insights into their journey in the country, Anish Aravind, General Manager of Tencent Games India stated, “Setting shop in India was a big moment for us. From winning Google Play’s Golden Joystick Awards, witnessing 400 million downloads, 50 million daily active users to being in the top 10 downloaded apps on Google and Apple store for long, we have become India’s favourite game.”

The balance of right marketing, effective localising of a game that has a global appeal, teaming with Bollywood and enabling partnerships with the likes of Oppo, Vivo, Hotstar, Sony LIV, Voot and Flipkart have taken us forward, he had added. “Gaming tournaments, esports initiatives have helped the gaming culture grow at a rapid pace. This is the right time to create games and be a gamer,” he had mentioned.

Driving the message of Innovation for All, Villgro set to Host 10th Edition of Unconvention

• The annual conference will witness the culmination of iPitch – Villgro’s annual deal discovery platform, with investments of over INR 4 Crores being announced


• Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Villgro to launch ‘Powering Livelihoods’, a multi-million dollar programme to support large-scale commercial deployment of clean energy-based livelihood solutions


• ‘Farming Futures: Emerging Social Enterprises in India’ to be released at the event


• Invite-only donor roundtable comprising foundations, CSR and other funders to be hosted

Villgro, India's oldest and one of the world’s largest social enterprise incubators, is set to launch its annual Unconvention conference. Slated to be held at Taj Yeshwantpur, Bangalore on 6th-7th December 2019, the event will witness the confluence of over 700 delegates comprising social entrepreneurs, CSR professionals, impact investors, policymakers, and academia, to discuss the present and future of social entrepreneurship in India and globally. Themed ‘Innovation for All’, this year’s event will highlight the power of low cost innovations and making them accessible to the next billion. The two day conference’s second day is focused on parallel sector tracks of Education & Employability, Agribusiness, Healthcare, and Energy & Cleantech and deep dive into innovations in technology, partnerships, financing and policy for start-ups across agribusiness, health, education and energy domains. 

This year, the Unconvention conference will be an eventful gathering that will witness some major developments that will reshape India’s social sector. It will provide the backdrop for the launch of the joint initiative of Villgro and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW)  – ‘Powering Livelihoods’. The multi-million dollar programme will focus on bridging the commercial valley of death by providing financial, capacity-building, and sectoral growth support to enterprises deploying clean energy-based livelihood solutions. . The unique, paradigm-shifting program will be launched by Arunabha Ghosh, Chief Executive Officer, Council on Energy, Environment and Water. 

Numerous innovative and interactive sessions including Investor Speed Dating, Mentoring Forum, Innovation Hallway, and masterclasses on Being Compliance Ready by SpiceRoute Business & Data Protection Law by Gamechanger Law Advisors will make Unconvention a hard-to-miss opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to connect, network and grow. More than 20 groundbreaking innovations will also be displayed at the venue.

The conference will also mark the culmination of Villgro’s iPitch – a unique investment discovery platform that identifies and invests in for-profit social enterprises across sectors of medtech, edtech, employability, cleantech, and agritech. Upto 10 investments, to be announced at the event, will receive a total of over INR 4 crores in investment along with capacity-building support. 

Speaking on the event, Mr. Srinivas Ramanujam, COO, Villgro Innovations Foundation, said, “We are thrilled to unveil the 10th edition of Unconvention, which is arguably one of India’s largest gatherings of social sector entrepreneurs, mentors, investors and other key stakeholders of the industry. Villgro has been championing social innovations for 20 years now, and the theme of this year’s conference, therefore, came from our approach and will focuses on insightful conversations about the need for holistic innovation – technological, financial, value chain and policy – to help promising start-ups across sectors thrive in the competitive Indian and subsequent global markets. With continuous support of Unconvention’s Knowledge Partner Accenture, we have several interesting sessions lined up through the two days, and are anticipating the conference to be an interesting iteration of the much sought after event."

Unconvention will also feature insightful keynote sessions by Dr. Devi Shetty, (Founder - Narayana Health), NK Chaudhary (Chairman & MD, Jaipur Rugs), Bindu Ananth (Chairperson, Dvara Trust), Shobhini Mukerji (Executive Director, J-PAL), Varun Jhaveri (Officer on Special Duty to CEO, Ayushman Bharat - PMJAY, Government of India), Sridhar Venkat (CEO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation), Sharad Sharma (Co-Founder, iSPIRT), Reshma Anand (CEO, Hindustan Unilever Foundation)  and Joe Madith (Chairman & Founder, Gram Vikas), among 80+ other key names. It will also witness a book launch - Farming Futures: Emerging Social Enterprises in India – by Ajit Kanitkar and C. Shambu Prasad. The event will present a unique opportunity for new and established entrepreneurs to catalyse the ecosystem through exhibiting and networking with potential partners, investors, mentors or even customers. 

About Villgro

Founded in 2001 by Paul Basil, Villgro was initiated with the mission of incubating early‐stage, innovative businesses.  The organisation proposed to move away from the traditional form of charity to a more sustainable approach where the poor and marginalised can be stakeholders in their own growth.

Since then, the establishment has been growing an ecosystem that supports social entrepreneurs and businesses that place impact at the centre of their mission. In 2016, it launched its own VC fund Menterra, which takes innovations to the market and enables creation of impactful, innovative, successful, scalable businesses. Apart from India, Villgro also operates in Kenya, the Philippines, Vietnam & the US.

Catering primarily to social entrepreneurs, impact investors, corporates, policymakers and the government, Villgro has successfully incubated over 300 companies since inception, which have secured $1.79 billion follow on funding to create more than 3,500 jobs and impact 20 million lives. Some of the innovative Villgro supported social enterprises that are creating a difference in the country’s rural demographics are Skymet, BookMyBai, Under The Mango Tree, Farm Harvest, 5C Network, Biosense, Vahan, Blackboard Radio, CoolCrop, GARV Toilets to name a few.

IIIT Hyderabad to Host Leading Human-Computer Interaction Research Conference, India HCI 2019

International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-Hyderabad) will be hosting the 10th edition of Human-Computer Interaction conference, India HCI 2019, from 1-3 November, 2019.

This year's theme is 'Agents and Agency: HCI in the age of Machine Intelligence'. The conference will focus and examine the interplay of human and machine agency in an increasingly complex world resulting from AI.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a wide and multidisciplinary field that focuses on the interface of humans and computers. The humans are understood to be in a wider sense that includes not only the physical but also the social, cultural, economic and political dimensions. Computers include all types of digital artefacts that work on a large number of devices-PC, mobile phones, ATM and hole in the wall kiosks. The conference looks at the problems and challenges specific to India where social contexts of computing are different and more complex than those of the developed nations. Over the last decade, India HCI has focused on diverse areas and has successfully strived to invite and publish high-quality research papers to discuss HCI in the Indian context.

The conference will feature renowned scholars from around the world as well as include workshops, paper presentations and start-up showcases.

General Chairs, Profs Nimmi Rangaswamy & Ramesh Loganathan, say, "We believe this conference in collaboration with Association of Computing Machinery, ACM, will put Hyderabad firmly on the Global map of Human computer Interaction and Design research."

More details at https://www.indiahci.org/2019/

First National Conference on Technology in Interiors of Maharashtra

Maulana Mukhtar Ahmed Nadvi Technical Campus (MMANTC) to organize and host their 1st National Conference on Technology (official website) to promote the innovation, entrepreneurship, and awareness especially amongst female students and rural students at MMANTC, Mansoora Malegaon on 23rd & 24th Feb 2019. The conference aims to bring together researchers, scientists, industry experts, academicians and policy makers to promote STEM, and specially promote & encourage women’s participation in STEM.



Honorable Rashid Mukhtar, Secretary JMES, said that “Our founder’s vision was to empower the youth of India through quality technical education. Through our conferences such as 1st National Conference on Technology we want to connect our students with Industry and skilled masters of the industry for their professional career and entrepreneurship journey.”

As one of the aims of the conference is to promote women’s participation in STEM, the organizers have invited Ainul Attar who is Former, Deputy Director DTE, Former, Joint Secretary of Minority Development Department, Government of Maharashtra, Ex-Executive council member of I.S.T.E., New Delhi as a Chief Guest to inspire the rural girl students.

MMANTC have also invited Dr. Tausif Malik, Treasurer, Democrats Abroad India (Democratic Party USA’s International chapter), Founder MAHAbfic.com (Maharashtra Blockchain Fintech ICO Crypto currency) Pune, GCCStartup.News, All India Muslim Business Startup Network (AIMBSN), IndiaStartupFest.com, Muslim Spelling Bee, USA, Chicago as Chief Guest. He believes in the Gandhian Philosophy of empowerment of Rural India through sustainable development through Future Technologies. The sole objective is to promote and create a talent pool in Future Technologies creating sustainable development through “Reverse Migration”. He is a legend in his field and students will surely be benefited with his presence.

The MMANTC has also invited dignitaries such as Prof. (Dr.) N. B. Pasalkar Sahab, Dr. A. K. Kureshi, Dr. Neha Dand, Shahzed Lehry and Altaf Pirjade.



Dr. Munnazza Afreen, Chief Convener & Head, Faculty Training & Development; said that “Females participation in Technology and entrepreneurship is very low and through the conference we want to promote the same to our students, attendees and well-wishers."

Dr. Munnazza Afreen further added that we want our students to benefit from the Government of India schemes such as Make in India, Digital India, and Skill India & Startup India.

Conference specifically focuses on publication with our publication partner IOSR Journal, JMES Startup Showcase, JMES Hackathon, networking, branding and most importantly campus recruitment of college students.

For Registration - https://www.onlinesbi.com/sbicollect/icollecthome.htm?corpID=934644

The conference organizers are seeking Sponsorship, Media Partnership, Applications & Judges for JMES Hackathon, Applications, Investors & Judges for JMES Startups Showcase, Strategic Partnerships for Recruitment & Internship opportunities. They can contact me via Email facultydevelopment.jmes@gmail.com.
About MMANTC

Maulana Mukhtar Ahmed Nadvi Technical Campus (MMANTC) is located at the outskirts of Malegaon, the textile township of northern Maharashtra. The college offers Degree and Diploma courses in Mechanical, Civil, Electrical and Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering since 2012.

The Technical Campus has been a dream project of the Society’s President, Maulana Arshad Mukhtar, a great visionary, philanthropist, industrialist, educationist, and a worthy son of a worthy father, Maulana Mukhtar Ahmad Nadvi, who founded Jamia Mohammediya Education Society (JMES) in the year 1978. JMES has twelve institutions running in various parts of the country. Maulana Mukhtar Ahmad Nadvi strongly believed that only through education would the people of India, gain the vision of the future while preserving their timeless cultural values. Maulana Arshad Mukhtar, having taken the mantle from him in the year 2007, has been painting the canvas with such elegance that Jamia Mohammediya Education Society is now a name in the country to reckon with.