The Edutainment Show, an annual fair on media and design education held in cities across India, will be back for the second year in Calcutta this weekend. Organised by Event Capital, a division of Laqshya Media Group, and attended by the top schools and colleges of the city, the fair will be held at The Park on May 14 and 15, partnered by The Telegraph.
Over the two days, reputable campuses from across the country will put up stalls and interact with interested students, while educationists and industry experts will help students make the right career choice.
According to the organisers, more than 45 city campuses, including Amity University, NSHM Media, iLEAD, Future Media, Adamas University and Techno India, have confirmed participation and over 32 institutes and university departments of media and design education will showcase their best practices and courses at the meet.
The Edutainment Show was launched in 2013 and has already been to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Delhi this year. At the Calcutta edition, speakers include Swami Suvirananda of Ramakrishna Math and Mission, radio veteran Jimmy Tangree, film directors Goutam Ghose and Arindam Sil, TV presenter Mir, designers Agnimitra Paul and Abhishek Dutta and model-turned-entrepreneur Ushoshi Sengupta.
The highlight of the meet will be workshops on advertising, journalism, films, fashion, photography, digital media, entrepreneurship, event management and public relations and corporate communications.
"With the ever-growing spectrum of the entertainment business in our country it has opened up a major career avenue for the next generation. I feel Edutainment is a major requirement for those aspiring to join a world they know nothing about. It is important for us to educate the next generation as to how exactly the media works as a business model before one jumps in. Bengali cinema has come out of its shell and has become more and more corporatised. It needs to rise beyond regional cinema and as much as I would like to share my experiences in working in Bengal I would love to interact and get an objective point of view of how it can be taken forward to break out of the 'regional' tag," said filmmaker Mainak Bhaumik.
One of the panel discussions will focus on building brands on digital media. "We aim to talk about the challenges of building brands. Everybody wants to get on the brand bus but nobody knows where it is headed! So many start-ups (or what I call hiccups) are fizzling out in the digital space. We need to make students aware of content management. So, we will talk about the dos and don'ts and the good and bad of digital media," said Kanchan Datta, founder and director of Inner Circle Advertising.
In its fourth year nationally, The Edutainment Show is poised to grow even bigger after its six-city tour this summer.
"India's only platform for creativity education, Edutainment, is all set to become a 24X7, 365-day multi-media platform soon, with digital, on-ground and offline avatars of the same concept, to reach out to more than 2 lakh youths in the age-group of 15 to 25 years who are either aspiring to or learning media, design or architecture," said Ujjwal K. Chowdhury, project director, The Edutainment Show.
The Edutainment Show is on from 10am to 7.30pm on Saturday and Sunday. The panel discussions will go on all day. Entry is free for students.
