Nasscom partners Netherlands to promote "serious gaming"

NEW DELHI: IT industry body Nasscom has partnered the Netherlands government to promote "serious gaming" in India.

As part of the partnership, the two partners organised roadshows across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru this month, focusing on showcasing the potential of gaming for various sectors.

Demos of solutions that have been developed and deployed by reputed Dutch games companies were showcased at these roadshows.

Nasccom Gaming Forum also launched Special Interest Group (SIG) on Applied Gaming with Manisha Mohan (Executive Vice President at Tata Interactive Systems) as the Chairperson.

The group will also include members from companies like Robosoft, Indusgeeks, Skilldom and Madrat Games.

"India has just begun taking gaming seriously as a career and as an avenue to larger growth of the sector. The roadshow will act as an accelerator and encourage young talent to build innovative ideas for large scale applications," Nasscom Gaming Forum Chairman Rajesh Rao said.

The Netherlands government has also launched a joint venture -- Ludowise -- between Ijsfontein (gamification and applied learning solutions major) and India-based Dhruva Interactive.

Ludowise will provide mobile and PC based apps and solutions for skill development, enterprise customers, education, healthcare and cyber security.

With a rapidly digitising workplace, enabled by smartphones and high-speed Internet, emerging nations are showing great interest in using serious games, immersive simulation and use of gaming technologies to tackle issues like upskilling and high user engagement for training.

Serious gaming promises to give much greater return on investment as compared to traditional training models, by making learning much more engaging, effective, on-the-go.

National Association of Software & Service Companies (NASSCOM)