Hello World!

Souplala back on track -- new year, better stories & higher hopes :)

One of the most exciting digital media events: Doors of Perception 9 is approaching! On this account I will focus on India. ICT-wise India has been HOT for a couple of years already. The annual economic growth rate continues to exceed 8%. Everyone knows how the purchasing power and number of potential consumers have expanded (Source: IT Korea Dec06).

India’s inexhaustible supply of skilled IT workers and engineers has underpinned the rapid growth of the country’s services sector. India is accounting for around 65% of all outsourced IT services work and nearly half of all back-office tasks (responding to computer helpdesk enquiries and processing medical claims and credit-card bills). (Source: The Economist Nov06).

Also the market for game development is expected to increase 10-fold by 2009, according to a National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) study on animation and gaming industry in India. According to the study, while the market for game development in India was estimated at $30 million in 2005, it is expected to witness a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 77.8 per cent, reaching $300 million by 2009. The report says that Mumbai is the hub for the gaming industry in India and emergence of new gaming platforms such as mobile and online gaming, and increasing PC penetration in India are leading to the growth of the gaming market. Mobile gaming is expected to dominate the Indian gaming development market. (Source: Nasscom Oct06).

Cultural convergence is referring not only to collision of cultures (west-east) but also to lifestyle crash (nature-technology-urban-rural etc.). This is what DoP9 will be discussing about. The development of ICT and social technologies is a global trend. Dop9 focuses on the use of emerging technologies to achieve sustainable and socially-responsible growth in emerging economies. It is also very interesting to see what type of software products will come out from India when local developers start innovating. Indian game developer might just as well create the signature product for mobile platform!