For decades, India has exported stories to the world through cinema, music and culture. The next chapter is about exporting the technology and creative talent that will power storytelling itself. This according to Dr. Vishwas Deoskar, CEO of the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) is a reason they are building an ecosystem where artists, coders, designers and entrepreneurs learn to create together. “Because the future of entertainment will belong to those who can combine imagination with intelligence.”
He was speaking at an official satellite event of Mumbai Tech Week (MTW) 2026, “Lights, Camera, Code: The New Storytelling Stack” held at his IICT Campus, NFDC, Mumbai jointly hosted by IICT and Hungama Digital Media Entertainment.
In his keynote Neeraj Roy, Founder & CEO of Hungama, outlined the evolution of storytelling toward 2030, envisioning a large-scale AI-assisted creator ecosystem and a new “AI storytelling civilisation”. Highlighting India’s structural advantage driven by its young demographic, cultural depth and rising AI adoption and defined four pillars of AI native storytelling: every creator becoming a studio through AI production tools; languages going global through real time translation; narratives evolving into participatory experiences; and cultural IP being reimagined hrough AI led storytelling, he also mapped the emerging 2030 stack spanning generative video, autonomous creative agents, narrative intelligence, immersive interfaces and distribution layers.
Speaking about the association with IICT, Neeraj Roy added, “Mumbai Tech Week is where innovation meets imagination and there’s no better stage to talk about the future of storytelling. Our partnership with IICT for ‘Lights, Camera, Code’ is rooted in a simple belief that India’s next great creators will be those who can harness technology as fluently as they wield narrative. As AI and immersive media reshape entertainment, the most important thing industry and academia can do is build that talent together and the time is now.”
The third edition of Mumbai’s flagship AI festival, organised by the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM) around the theme “AI in Action”, MTW 2026 takes place on 29-30 May at the Jio World Convention Centre, bringing together developers, founders, investors, policymakers and students showcasing real world AI applications across sectors.
