India Talking “Virtual Worlds” – Consolidated Report

Author: Business Beyond Reality

Are Indians talking to ‘Second Life’, the popular online virtual world?

Apparently so…

Of the 50,000 registered Second Life users in India, Siddharth Banerjee (Founder Indusgeeks Solutions Pvt. Ltd) estimates an active base of 1,500-2,000. 

(Source: http://www.livemint.com/2008/09/29214006/Creating-a-real-life-learning.html)

The Economic Times ferreted out some Indian’s also living a virtual life, including a group called VR1 which intends to explore Second Life’s business propositions. Rahul Dutta, one of the founders of VR1, said that they are planning an educational network hub, solutions for MNCs, assistance with island acquisition, world modelling, scripting, animation and graphic design services for Second Life.

Child Rights and You (CRY) opened a virtual action centre in Second Life. Indusgeeks partnered with CRY to conceptualise, design and create this presence as a part of an overall initiative to raise awareness about CRY online. This made CRY the first Indian NGO to open a space in Second Life. The CRY office consists of an auditorium to display movies and hold events etc, a CRY shop (Expressions of Childhood), outdoor café, gallery showcasing child rights posters and materials. It has donation boxes which direct users to the website or pay in Lindens.

CRY - Second Life

Wipro launched its offshore development centre in SecondLife a year back and now they have launched a SOA solutions lab – which gives customers an opportunity to explore the impact of SOA in transforming their organizations to be more agile and enable business transformation.

Wipro Office - Second Life

Amul (An Indian Dairy), which established its presence in Second Life by setting up its virtual parlour, is now working to expand its presence in the virtual world. Trimensions, a Gurgaon based company, is helping Amul to develop its existence on Second Life. Rahul Dutta, chairman and managing director, Trimensions, says, “Amul is planning to buy eight-10 islands, equal to 160 acres of virtual land, in Second Life to set up a simulation of its production and distribution facility. The objective behind launching a virtual setup is to demonstrate its functioning to the consumers, and experiment with any change in the production or distribution system virtually before executing it in the real world.”

Amul Dairy - Second Life

Software major IBM announced that it was expanding its business centre for India in ‘Second Life’, by adding sales representatives based in the country. The business centre in Second Life would allow customers to visit IBM virtually and see products and solutions in 3D. it also offers a platform for IBM sales people, clients and partners to meet, learn, collaborate and conduct business together virtually without the time and cost of travel.

Zensar Technologies, a leading software services and business process outsourcing organisation has announced its second life. Kiran Karnik, former President of NASSCOM at his recent visit to Zensar launched the virtual estate of Zensar on SecondLife and said, “I really enjoyed my visit to Zensar on SecondLife and will keep my Avatar alive there and will visit the Zensar facilities from time to time. It has been a great effort by the team.”

Text 100 opened its Second Life office in August, 2006. To introduce SL to employees in the company’s 30 global offices, Text100 held a worldwide meeting to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. The meeting included a presentation by our CEO, accompanied by a slideshow, a video featuring an interview with the company founders and a Q&A for employees with the CEO.

Indusgeeks has built a platform on Second Life that enables students in distance-learning programmes to plug into a simulated environment replicating and enhancing real life learning processes. By assuming an avatar (a virtual identity), each student can attend classes, go on field trips (to say, ancient Rome) and perform experiments in labs, all in the virtual domain created by Indusgeeks. Indusgeeks has also started Bollywood Masala, a forum on Indian films and music on Second Life.

Filmmaker use Second Life for making films for first life thus saving on a lot of effort, time and cost especially in special effect and background rendering. Here is one short film, a Mash up of Second Life and Real Actors:

http://www.filmaka.in/watchvideo.asp?id=63974562-8C76-4715-A35A-2B1EEA501FFC

Mumbai may be India’s financial capital but it is New Delhi which rules virtual reality finance. “More than 90 per cent of the active users, mostly from the National Capital Region, are also investing in the currency exchange,” revealed Daniel Dias, director, Research Lab, IBM India, one of the companies with a massive presence on the system.

“We have been informed that the ratio of active residents to registered users is one of the highest in India and China,” said Joe Miller, vice-president, platform and technology, Linden Labs. 

Miles to go India…