MAM
SMG India promotes three key personnel
MUMBAI: Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) India has promoted its three general managers — Dinesh Rathore, Narendra Alambara and Sriram Sharma to the post of VP.
In their new roles they will be part of the national leadership team. They all continue to report to Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Mallikarjunadas CR.
Mallikarjunadas CR, said, “Dinesh as head of MediaVest Mumbai, Narendra as head of Starcom Chennai and Sriram as head of Starcom Bangalore have been pillars of the company. Their passion for product, people and process is well known and I am confident as part of the National Leadership Team they will continue adding even more value to clients and the company.”
Rathore has spent 11 years with the company; Alambara has completed six years and Sharma nearly two years.
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.
