National Cyber Media Conclave ’09

On Saturday, 28th of March '09, Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication organized a first of its kind initiative – National Cyber Media Conclave '09 in its campus at Lavale. The event explored various aspects of the cyber medium and its vast potential aiming at bringing together stalwarts from the cyber world on a common platform where they can address enthusiastic young minds.

The Indian cyber media industry has evolved over the years and is today replete with innovative ideas and ventures. The NCMC hosted two panels of speakers on the potency of cyber media for knowledge sharing, social change and networking; and the emergence of the web as a medium for branding and marketing.

Beginning on a auspicious note, with a prayer song, the meet was declared open by the ‘click of a mouse'. Prof. Ujjwal K Chowdhury, the Director of SIMC inaugurated and gave an introduction talk, after which the stage was open for the first speaker Mr. Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging who readily interacted with the audience whilst discussing internet as a tool for networking and knowledge sharing. He also shared real life examples of how social networking sites could come to one's rescue in situations of emergencies. Next was Mr. Shivam Vij who highlighted the relationship between social and mainstream media with an array of examples such as the Pink Chaddi campaign. Next up was Mr. Shiv Bhaskar Dravid, founder, The Viewspaper who spoke about media being the fourth estate, and the most significant one – also that cyber media is economical and environment friendly compared to the other forms of new media. The session was further taken over by Ms. Jasmeen Patheja from Blank Noise who focused on the power of the blogosphere in giving women and men the freedom to stand up and talk about eve teasing which was rather, to be labeled as ‘street sexual harassment' and steps to use new media to handle such situations.

The post-lunch session dealt majorly with the branding and marketing of cyber media. Marketing communication professional Mr. Rajesh Lalwani, Founder & CEO, Blogworks enlightened the students with his knowledge on "Internet as a tool for marketing". He compared sex with the internet and masturbation with blogging and tried to explain how important it is especially in the word of mouth marketing. Ms. Rashmi Dhanwani, Manager – Media & Internet, Breakthrough spoke about trying to bridge the gap between human rights and culture by appointing change agents, invoking justice, dignity and equality in the public the ‘Bell Bajao' campaign against domestic violence endorsed by Boman Irani & ‘ICED' (I Can End Deportation 2008). Next speaker was Mr. Namit Bimbhat, CEO – Switch Media who spoke about the evolving face of the online video and its scope in India. Mr. J. Mahadevan, VP of Bharatmatrimonial.com, spoke on the social ways of Brand Building giving an overview of how to create online brands. Mr. Atul Chitnis, Senior VP of Geodesic Information Systems interacted with the audience on open source software and their uses in the current media.

The sessions were concluded with a highly informative question and answer session by the audience and were formally brought to an end by Prof. Chowdhury. The event was a tremendous success and added another feather to the wings of SIMC.