Braving rains to attend heavy duty panel discussion on Live Streaming at SPICE

Against all odds, on June 28, which was the start of a five –day stretch of heavy rain for Mumbai, more than 200 people came to the Alberione Hall to watch and listen as experts talked about “Paradigms in Digital Video Content: Streaming it Right”.

Nor were they disappointed, evidenced by the fact that most of the audience stayed from 5 pm to 8 pm, absorbing comments, opinions, observations and straight talk on subjects ranging from digital innovation and artificial intelligence, to how technology is set to disrupt and impact the way we live, work, access information and consume goods, services and entertainment in the city.

Arranged by the Observer Research Foundation, a policy think tank, as part of its Mumbai Tech Talk series,  and hosted by St Pauls Institute of Communication Education, the evening saw senior players, including David Hyman of Netflix, talking about the future of entertainment in a digitized world. The question that most focused upon was how to get Indians to pay for entertainment when all along they have been used to getting content practically for free!

Also of considerable interest was the keynote speech delivered by Shashi Shekhar Vempatti, CEO, Prasar Bharti, who held forth on how the government Information and Broadcasting ministry was trying to stay relevant by using all its resources as smartly as possible. Efforts are afoot to ensure that bandwidth reaches the remotest regions in the country to give people access to information that aims at smoothing out social, economic and developmental equalities.

Additionally, there were panel discussions engaging the audience with a discussion on which new models of monetisation are emerging with video streaming, whether telco tie-ups for bundling are the only viable model for monetisation of content right now, how acceptable would viewers find pay-per-view in India, and whether earlier access to content could help in monetization.

Representatives from Hungama, Gracenote, Eros Digital, Viacom 18 etc, kept the discussion  both alive and lively.

The second panel, on Building viewership in a glocalised (global and local) world, was even more interesting, discussion piracy as well as ways to strengthen India’s ecosystem for cultural and creative digital content. This panel had people from Vodafone Idea, MX Player, Dashami Creations, Newslaundry and Zee5.

It is never too late to learn something new.

Awesummer 2019 was organized by St Andrews College, Mumbai in collaboration with St Pauls Institute of Communication Education, Mumbai, The Diocesan Youth Center and St Andrew’s Centre for Philosophy & Performing Arts, from 22^nd April to 30^th May, 2019.

From the very beginning of the AWESUMMER concept, the Society of St Paul (SSP) was knee to collaborate with the mission of the Church in Bombay. The summer programme created a platform for SSP to make known some of its apostolic activities to the youth of the Archdiocese of Bombay.

The courses conducted across 2 venues- St Andrew’ s College and St Pauls Institute of Communication Education-  offered the youth; aged between 16 years and 25 years, curated activities across genres to hone their interests, cultivate hobbies or simply to learn something new.

The participants benefitted this wide range of summer time courses, where options included a wide range of lineups- basic French, dancing, youth entrepreneurship, photography, mystery writing, graphic design, better communication, handwriting analysis and even baking!

One of the main highlights from Awesummer 2019 was the celebratory ‘Graduation Dinner’ took place at St Andrew’s School Quadrangle, on 30^th May 2019 with Bishop Barthol Baretto in attendance. This is where all successful candidates received their certificates. The Students excitedly walked up collect their certificates from the dignitaries presenting them- which included the who’s who of the Archdiocese of Mumbai- from Bishop Barthol, The Paulines, the Jesuits, the Salesians and the parish team from St Andrew’s Bandra.

Bishop Barthol Baretto thanked St Pauls Institute of Communication Education for the collaborative efforts to provide the classrooms, the multimedia labs and faculty required to make communication- media and design studies accessible to all interested students.

Fr Joseph Kandachamkunnel graduated with a Master’s degree in Pastoral Mental Health Counselling from Fordham University (a Jesuit Institution) in New York, on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. For the specialization in pastoral mental health counselling, he completed a 60-credit program with 600 hours of supervised clinical experience. The course focused on various counselling theories and practical skills of mental health counselling in a multi-cultural context, from a pastoral perspective. While doing the course, Fr Kandachamkunnel gained immense supervised clinical experience at St Francis of Assisi counselling centre, Manhattan. This Master’s degree qualifies him to apply for a license from the American Counselling Association.

The Provincial Superior, his team and the members of our Province congratulate Fr Kandachamkunnel on his praiseworthy achievement.

St Pauls Institute of Communication Education (SPICE) formally inaugurated its podcast studio on November 28, making it possibly the first media school in the country and certainly in Mumbai, to have such a facility.

The blessing was carried out by Rev. Fr Varghese Gnalian, Provincial Superior, Society of St Paul, India, with Fr Sebastian E., Director General of the Apostolate and others in attendance. Fr Anil C Paul, SVD, who teaches and anchors the podcast module, was on hand to showcase some student work.

Rajesh Tahil, co-founder of Audiomatic.in, arguably India’s first and best podcast network, inaugurated the studio and later addressed the students on the subject of podcasts or internet radio. During his address, which was accompanied by a presentation of podcasts from audiomatic.in, Mr. Tahil spoke of the immense potential of audio and its role in media. “I am thrilled to be part of this event, and I congratulate St Pauls Institute of being ahead of the competition.’ He added that very few media schools can boast of a podcast module on its curriculum, and even fewer would set up a proper facility to enable students to master yet another arm of the media ecosystem.

On their part, the students listened attentively to what he had to say and then asked questions pertaining both to teaching of the module and trends within the field.

St Pauls Institute now has both television and audio facilities aimed at ensuring its students, particularly those undertaking its Post Graduate courses in Journalism, Advertising and Public Relations, go into the work place armed with an awareness of industry practices, in keeping with its promise to work with professionals at every level in delivering practical training as well as technical knowhow, while developing content that matches industry needs and standards.