Speaker Bio:  

Biren Ghose
Country Head, Technicolor India
Biren is presently responsible for the animation, VFX and computer games business at Technicolor [formerly called Paprikaas Interactive] he is additionally overseeing India for as the Technicolor Country Head. Biren was earlier pionering the Integrated Studio Model within EROS International Films. He has been the co-founder of an animation IP company Kahani World between canada and India producing Indian themed brands for kids. Prior to that he was the COO at Asias largest animation studio at UTV with over 700 animators! Worked with Disney, Teletoon, Cinegroupe, Funbag, Decode, Teleimages, Futurikon & Fox. Created an original series for Walt Disney in 2002 from development to screen. Prior to that he was in Corporate Planning at UB, where for 13 years he transitioned across various assignments. He also strategised UBs forays into Biotechnology & Engineering. Biren has been a prolific speaker on media at Kidscreen Summit; NASSCOM Annual Conferences [since 2002]; and many other stages!A trade show WARRIOR ,GDC; TIGA; MIP/MIPCOM at Cannes [over 14 times!]; E3, AFM; NATPE; & MIFA Annecy. Judge at Superpitch Singapore since 2006 and India 2006 till date. He is an advisor to Copenhagen Business School on computer games. Co-founder of Game Industry Trade Association of India & Chairman for Animation & Gaming Forum [NASSCOM}.Animation Magazine voted him one of Asias Top Toon Titans in April 2008.
Robin Alter
CEO, Kreeda Games India
He co-founded Kreeda Games India, an online game publisher in Bombay India which license, operate and localize massive-multiplayer online games. As CEO, he also leads Professional Services, Sales, Marketing and Game Design. Previously, he founded Descriptive, a Management Consulting Firm focused on building technology blueprints for Media and Telecom companies across Asia whose clients included Telstra, China Telcom, Optus, SingTel, Reliance, MTNL and others. He has been consulting in the Content Management and Content Architecture Space for the last 8 years and has worked at IBM as an Sales & Marketing Manager, Analyst, and Enterprise Systems Architect. Has spent 6 Years in technology implementation in K-12 Education and 10 in Entertainment, Telecom and Finance industries. He is a B.S graduate of Carnegie Mellon University
Bruce Brodie
Director Games, SourceBits
Bruce started his career in games at Take Two and worked on Prey, The Darkness and Bioshock on Xbox 360 before moving into project development and management for the UK Government across a variety of software and educational game projects. He joined SourceBits in November 2010 and is the Director of the Games Division – and has already released the hit puzzle game - The Plateau and classic top down shoot em up Robokill to critical acclaim on the app store. Currently the gaming team at Sourcebits is working on some major projects and expanding the division across the world with cutting edge developers. Primarily working on IOS SourceBits are expanding into Android games development and gearing up for next generation development on the major consoles.
Kasturi Rangan
Site Head & Sr. Manager - Operations, e4e
Gaming is more than just a spare-time activity for R. Kasturi Rangan, a young gamer and innovator who has been working towards changing the face of the Indian gaming industry for close to a decade now. Currently, the Site head for e4e Interactive Entertainment India, Rangan heads a passionate games testing team, who work on top-rated games for the PC, Console, Mobile and the online domain. He has designed several social games and has previously worked with gaming giants like Electronic Arts. Having transformed a game-starved Hyderabad into one of the top hubs for gaming in India, Rangan set up gaming parlours in the city and was also the force behind the launch of ‘Rush’, the largest gaming lounge in India and rated as one of the best in Asia. Dedicated to upholding the quality of Indian games with his vast experience in the field of Quality Assurance and Production, Rangan has also worked towards uniting the gaming community of India with his online commune Fragcentral
Ashish Kumar
Product Manager - Alienware, Dell
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Alok Pareek
Director-Mobile Operations, Digital Chocolate
Alok, has been in the gaming industry for 10+ years and is currently working at Digital Chocolate as Director Operations for Mobile game, focussed on Mobile gaming, Social Mobile and Smart Phones.Prior to this, he was associated with EA (Hyderabad), where he managed the Mobile Games Deployment Team (as Deployment Manager) for close to 2 years. (2005-2007).In early days of his career he founded A Cube Media a studio based out of Mumbai, developing Web based Flash & director games, later the company focussed on Mobile games which eventually got acquired by a Finland based company called TraceBit. He has a Master Degree in Commerce from Mumbai university.
Preetham Venkky
Business Head, KRDS India
KRDS is Asias only Facebook PDC (Preferred Developer Consultant). He has won the Yahoo! Award in 2010 for a Game Mechanics based App residing on the Twitter API. And social media expert, he comes with in depth knowledge on how game mechanics can be tweaked for virality using existing social platforms. In his previous role, he has been an evangelist for Apple in Asia. He has over 11 yrs of experience in the online industry.
Chaitanya Munjuluri
Game Architect, Sierra Atlantic
Chaitanya is credited as a Console Engine Programmer for "Magnacarta 2" on Xbox 360 and has over 8 years of experience in video games on various platforms and engines. Chaitanya holds a B.Tech(CS) degree from IIIT, Hyderabad - which is where his passion for video games bloomed. Chaitanya has vast experience in working with clients in the Far East markets. Chaitanyas current research interests include new paradigms, patterns and programming languages.
Saagar Dhoke
Founder and CEO, Fun Element
Saagar, has been in the industry since last 10 years, having started as an Flash Animator he contributed for an E-Learning company. He got infected by the gaming bug in 2000 and since then has been working in many different roles, as Game Designer, Game Producer and Game Developer. Saagar in past has worked with companies like Jump Games (Paradox Studios), Mauj Telecom, Zapak Digital Entertainment in several capacities. Saagar was the Game Designer for Bappida Disco King (mobile game) which won the Best Mobile Game award by FICCI. He has been honoured with the nomination of Best Game Producer by FICCI in 2010 In 2010 Saagar left Zapak Digital Entertainment to start his own venture, Fun Element and since 2010, Fun Element has worked on advergames for clients like Colgate Palmolive, Honda, Eureka Forbes etc."
Jasmeet Singh
Industry Representative, .
Working in the gaming industry from past 7 years. Started his career as a tester in 2004 and now working as an Industry Represntative. Started off at iEnergizer and contributed to successful testing and launch of many MMOGs & Online Games. At the capacity of Team Lead worked with various studios including SOE, THQ & BIOWARE. In late 2007, joined Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd. as Product Manager and contributed to the successful launch of MMOGs for Indian market. Left Zapak in 2010 and as of today working to create games for a range of smartphones & other handheld devices.
SriSatish Mavuri
Lead Game Designer, Emantras
Sri Satish Mavuri has done his B.Engg. from Andhra University. Started off his career as a software engineer in erstwhile EDS(now Hewlett-Packard) in 2000. After a two-year stint at EDS, relocated to UK for higher studies. Studied Masters in Electronic Imaging with a specialization in Multimedia Systems during 2002-2004. Started his research in 3D GEOMETRY using PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS ( read as Applied Mathematics) and graduated for M.Phil in the same University in UK. Returned to India in 2007, Joined Reliance-ADAG and started making 3D games for Mobiles. As on today, he is working as Project Lead for Emantras, Chennai and developing games,learning apps in Apple devices like iPad,iPod/iPhone and Mac. He has 8.5 yrs of IT/Project experience and 6.5 yrs of graphics experience. His interests also include ISO,CMM Quality processes.
Bhavya Siddappa
Technology Evangelist, Teleca
Bhavya Siddappa is a Technology Evangelist at Teleca. Responsible for Technology trend evaluation and Analysis within Teleca. Being a Gold Medalist from Pune University, passionate about upcoming technology. Being in Framework portfolio of Motorola provided enterprise solutions in Android space. Bhavya was instrumental in setting up the Android competency team and Android training forum within IBM, India. Apart from this, been active in various Android forums & Evangelizes Android amongst students through guest talks in Universities.
Arjun Gupte
Art Director, Freelance
Arjun was the creative head, Vice President - Creative of ACK Media. and was directly responsible for creating and overseeing all the new IP and media production that ACK Media produces.He was an animator and filmmaker by profession and amongst other places have worked at Jim Henson Studios on a movie called Mirrormask and on PC titles like Ghostmaster in Europe.He returned to India in 2004 to start his own animation and gaming studio called Quiet Men Studios.In 3 years he worked on several AAA titles such as Sonys Warhawk for PS3 and Warner Bros,Looney Tunes. In 2007 he did a couple of design jobs for Amar Chitra Katha (Indias most popular comics book brand)including some character redesigns and a proposal for an MMO.After various discussions, an acquisition seemed the logical thing to do as he wanted to develop the MMO as an end-to- end product and coupled with the tremendous amount of clout that ACK bought with respect to distribution and publishing, would allow him to expand his own professional expertise in this space.With take over Quiet Men Studios by ACK Media. in December 2007 he got a good studio at a scale where he could satisfactorily manage to push his ideas into the marketplace.
Laxmi Khanolkar
Director-Game Development, Apar Games
Laxmi Khanolkar, one of the founders and Director, Games at Apar Games, graduated from Mumbais prestigious Sir J.J.College Of Fine Arts, with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts in 1999 and an MBA from Welingkars Institute of Management.A chance brief to design an interactive game for children opened her avenues to the then nascent world of gaming in India. A stint with some of the industrys biggest names followed, Rediff.com, Paradox (now Jump Games), Lumenphon and others saw the talented young artist hone her skills on all facets from game art to game design and production. These combined experiences have stood her in good stead as a driving force behind a successful gaming venture, namely Apar Games, with over 100 internationally acclaimed published games.
Vimal Divecha
Project Lead, Span Infotech
Vimal is a seasoned leader with over 7 years of experience in developing diverse application and games in mobile space. His primary focus has been developing cutting edge applications and innovative games.He started as a software developer in Nazaara, quickly moved on to senior roles which handle client interfacing for Reliance etc. Later he moved to Mauj Telecom and achieved milestones which include developer of the best online multiplayer game for Nokia-Singtel contest 2006, contributed in the R&D for cutting edge 3D games using Java ME.
Himanshu Pant
Co-founder and Director, Mactabilis Arts
With a US patent to his name, Himanshu has an extensive software development experience in speech recognition and processing. Before co-founding Mactabilis, Himanshu has worked with global organisations like IBM research labs and ADITI Technologies. He also has a brief stint with a technology start-up called ELVISTA Technologies. Himanshu is an alumnus of IT BHU. Mactabilis Arts is an exclusive game studio and game development service provider for all gaming needs, based out of Delhi, India. Mactabilis Arts creates innovative gaming content on various platforms and genres. Founded in 2008 by a group of passionate gamers from varied technology companies, Mactabilis Arts has rich experience in Gaming research and development. From its inception, Mactabilis Arts has converted innumerable gaming ideas -from conception to launch,across the globe, including The Middle East, India, Europe and the US.
Vijayaprakash Rangappa
Founder & CEO, Mobi2Fun
Vijay brings over 8 years experience in the mobile game industry and a terrific technical understanding of handsets and platform. Prior to setting up Mobi2Fun, Vijay worked as lead developer with Disney Mobile Singapore where he was responsible for all porting and distribution of titles across South East Asia Markets. He was the part of Small Device Technologies (now rechristened Digital Chocolate) and actively involved with the core team in setting up its porting operations. Armed with such a rich experience, he has taken the entrepreneurial route and setup Mobi2Fun Studios in Bangalore
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