IICT, Netflix announce scholarships for 100 students, professionals

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) and Netflix have announced scholarships for 100 students and working professionals from across the country, offering up to 80 per cent financial support for six programmes in animation, visual effects, gaming and related creative technologies.

The scholarships are part of the Netflix India Storytelling Initiative launched earlier this month following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Wednesday.

Modi met Sarandos on August 5 and highlighted India's "rich tradition of storytelling" and its pool of creative talent, saying these could be leveraged to strengthen the country's position as a global hub for content creation.

Also read 16 Ashoka University students with top scholarships to study in UK, US, Europe

Netflix India Storytelling Initiative

The Netflix India Storytelling Initiative was launched following the meeting to invest in India's creative talent pipeline and equip the next generation of storytellers with industry-relevant skills across the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) ecosystem, the ministry said in a statement.

Scholarships for one-year diploma, certificate courses

Under the latest initiative, scholarships will be offered for two one-year diploma programmes and four six-month certificate courses at IICT. The diploma programmes are Interactive Comics and Sequential Arts and Visual Effects Mastery, while the certificate courses cover Virtual Art Department Content Creation, Media Tech Workflow, Art of Character Animation, and E-Sports and Gaming Management.

The ministry said the curriculum for IICT's Visual Effects Mastery and Media Tech Workflow programmes has been designed with inputs from Netflix to align them with contemporary industry workflows and global standards.

Scholarships open to students, professionals

The scholarships will be open to both students and working professionals from across India. IICT, set up as India's national centre of excellence for the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics and Extended Reality (AVGC-XR) sector, is an initiative of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in partnership with the Maharashtra government, FICCI and CII.

The institute currently operates from the National Film Development Corporation Complex on Pedder Road in Mumbai. Its permanent campus is being developed on a 10-acre site at Film City in Goregaon. Information and Broadcasting Secretary and IICT Board Chairman Chanchal Kumar said the institute was conceived as a bridge between India's creative talent pool and the changing requirements of the global AVGC-XR industry.

"Partnerships with leading global players are an important part of building that bridge," Kumar said, adding that such collaborations would bring industry knowledge into classrooms and help develop a workforce for India's growing creative economy.