Director of Digital City Festival, Martyn Collins, continues his trip to India as part of the Manchester India Partnership visit to the country.
Martyn accepted an invitation onto the tech delegation, which seeks to promote Manchester’s significance as a digital and creative hub, alongside local tech figures like Tim Newns, CEO of MIDAS, as well as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.
This marks Martyn’s second day in Mumbai, India’s largest city and financial centre. Next, he will travel to Bangalore, before heading to Delhi. He is in India to promote connections between Indian and Manchester-based businesses, as well as spreading the word about Digital City Festival in 2020.
Martyn Collins, Digital City Festival Director
Day Two: Mumbai
Hello again from Mumbai! I’m reflecting on a busy day that started with a tech roundtable to a range of Indian and global businesses, followed by a ‘Manchester comes to Mumbai’ reception, before a trip downtown to the city’s Famous Studios.
At the morning roundtable, it became quickly evident that local businesses are extremely interested in the potential of Manchester as the base for their UK expansion. The whole room was engaged, attentive and eager to learn about the opportunities that were being presented to them. Every single invitation to Digital City Festival was taken from me with people also really interested in flying over to the UK and being involved.
However, the highlight of the day had nothing to do with Digital or Tech. That honour belonged to Asha Bhosle, the 84-year-old Indian singing legend, who received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salford.
Asha is clearly a legend in her own country, and the packed Palazzio Room was in awe as she accepted her award. In the UK, you might know her name from the Cornershop song ‘Brimful of Asha’ – but in India, she’s achieved near-deity status over a career spanning more than six decades, that has seen her do playback singing for a thousand or more Bollywood movies!
Jon Corner preparing to remix ‘Brimful of Asha’ at Famous Studios
This aptly takes me to our next visit to Famous Studios, which is almost as Bollywood as it gets. This film production studio was launched in 1945 by Shree J. B. Roongta, and is busier and more diverse in its offer today than ever before.
Still in family hands, the present owner Anant Roongta is overseeing an expansion of its activities to include pre- and post-production, animation and visual effects, and incubator spaces for media startups in Mumbai. This involves a now-signed agreement for Famous Studios and The Landing in Media City to partner and collaborate moving forward.
A successful day and some great connections made. Tomorrow, we fly south to Bangalore – the Silicon Valley of India!
P.S. I forgot to mention. Breakfast this morning was sushi, followed by curry!
Martyn’s diary will continue tomorrow as he travels to Bangalore.
Learn how you can get involved with DCF on the official website.
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