iLead: Experts give career advice to students at ‘Future Vista – The New Age Careers’

Representatives from real estate, media, film, digital marketing, sports, tourism, management, entrepreneurship, animation, gaming, fashion and interior design, data science, cyber security and allied healthcare provided their insights and interacted with the students.

Talking about the expansion of India’s real estate sector abroad Apurva Salarpuria,MD, Salarpuria Group, said, “We have so much to do in India, the market is growing and we don’t need to look for work outside”. He also talked about the emergence of technology start-ups in real estate.

Anjan Chakraborty,Co-Founder and CEO, Estory Infocom, talked about the disruptive technologies that are going to change the media sector in the next few years.

 “Web 1.0 was about read only. Web 2.0 was interactive. Web 3.0 is going to be immersive. Metaverse is the next disruption,” he said.

He also stressed on being ‘bi-lingual’ and developing ‘multi skill sets’ for a career in media as per the present demand.

Sudeshna Roy, veteran filmmaker, talked about the importance of ‘practical’ learning in films. She spoke about how digital technology has changed the way films are now shot.

“Take internships at startups, you will know how an organization works”, said Avelo Roy, MD and Startup Mentor, Kolkata Ventures, while advising students on how to start off their entrepreneurial journey.

The event also witnessed a session on the possibilities of the growing tourism sector in India.

“We have a younger population in the country which has disposable income and travel features amongst their top 5 spends. So, it’s a great time to be in India, study tourism as well as be in the tourism business,” said Hemant Mediratta(Founder, One Rep Global).

Ashish Kulkarni, Founder of Punnaryug Artvision Pvt. Ltd. And Chairman of FICCI AVGC Forum, gave a detailed insight about the statistics of the animation and gaming industry.

He said, “Right now we have 1,56,000 direct employees in the studios of animation and close to a lakh indirect employees in India. And we anticipate in 2030, hard core studios of animation having 10 lakh+ employees and 10 lakh+ people coming into the gaming industry. That’s the projection by the industry right now. We have just published this projection and we are working on setting the UGC guideline for animation, gaming, VFX out of the taskforce that has been formed by the Govt. of India”.

From the design sector, Indroneel Mukherjee (Celebrity Designer, Stylist & Grooming Expert) and Christophe Plais (French Furniture Designer, Founder, Terra Indica) were present.

“Try to be as original as possible. Because when there’s a lot of competition, people are looking for originality”, said Indroneel Mukherjee.

Viewers’ favorite Foodka aka Indrajit Lahiri interacted with the students during the digital marketing session. He explained the qualities that are looked for in digital marketing experts and also said how “Getting on digital platform is fun!”.

Sunando Banerjee (COO, Anonymous Digital, Founder of Hanglaatherium and Co-Founder of Foodka) gave an insight into the job opportunities for students existing in the digital marketing field. 

He said, “A number which has come 3-4 months back by KPMG says that close 30 to 40 million jobs would have a tag called ‘digital’ in their portfolio. So that is the number of jobs today in front of you and you are just going to grab that!”.

Pradip Tondon (CEO, Belle Vue Clinic) spoke about the scope for students willing to join the healthcare industry. “Today healthcare is not only about hospitals. It has diagnostic centres, educational institutions, paramedics, medical devices. So students who are thinking of making their career in this area, there’s a tremendous future. As soon as students pass out, they are absorbed,” he said.

Indrajit Bhalotia (Director, Protouch Sports and Professional Golfer) had joined the panel of sports management.

He stressed on being ‘passionate about sports’ and also termed it as a ‘glamorous’ profession that allows you to rub shoulders with the greatest players around the globe.

“This is the closest you can be to action other than playing yourself,” he said.

Saurav Mukherjee, VP, Goldman Sach, joined the data science panel from USA. Mentioning the application of data science in various fields he mentioned how it is recession proof.

“Data science is a very safe bait for students because companies will invest in data science no matter whether it is recession or not. At least in the current situation, it is recession proof,” he said.

Future Vista also had a panel on cyber security.

“It is more than $175 billion. In our currency it is more than 1 lakh crore rupees. That is the kind of investment we are assuming by the year 2025,” said Sudip Pal (Seasoned Leader in Digital Strategy and Transformation), explaining the scope of jobs in the sector.

The last panel of Future Vista was based on the importance of traditional media in today’s world joined by Gaurav Chakraborty (Actor), Rita Bhimani (CEO of Ritam Communications), Prema Rajaram (Journalist) and more. While Rita Bhimani narrated the changes in the media sector stressed on the credibility of the traditional media, Gaurav Chakraborty shared his insights about filmmaking

Talking about the exposure of print media Prema Rajaram said, “Print always gives you that foundation for being a good journalist”.