MAM
Makita expends sponsorship deal for Asian football by 4 years
MUMBAI: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has announced that Makita has extended its commercial engagement with Asian football for a further four years.
The Japanese power tool company, which has worked with the AFC since 2005, has extended its commercial relationship with Asian football’s governing body through the AFC National Programme until 2016.
Makita’s sponsorship includes all AFC national competitions including the AFC Asian Cup – Asia’s top sporting event – as well as the qualifying tournaments for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games.
AFC acting president Zhang Jilong said, “Asian football has provided great value in recent years to its sponsors. We hope that our relationship with Makita will allow football in our continent to continue to flourish.”
The agreement was sealed by World Sport Group, the AFC’s exclusive marketing and media partner in conjunction with Dentsu.
Makita president Masahiko Goto said, “We are proud to continue our partnership with AFC as we have been a part of Asian football family since 2005, We have been working hard to succeed together with Asian football for many years and we intend to continue working together with the Asian Football Confederation.”
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
