For India’s budding ‘creator economy’, the inaugural edition of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025 is nothing short of an excellent launchpad.
Despite the hiccups that usually follow the maiden editions for such big events, the four-day summit at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai (that began on May 1) more than made up for its shortcomings by honouring budding Indian talent.
Thirty-two sets of winners were honoured at WAVES 2025—these were the champions of 32 distinct categories in the Create in India Challenge (CIC) Season 1, leading up to the summit. The challenge covered “every domain of the media and entertainment industry, from animation, gaming, and filmmaking to AI, music, and digital art”, according to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the primary organiser of the summit.
“For the first time, an award is being given purely for creativity. This journey has only just begun,” announced Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, as he joined in congratulating the winners.
“With this initiative, you are stepping into a world of new opportunities,” he added.
Creative arms such as animation, gaming, and digital art were traditionally considered niche tributaries of mainstream media and entertainment. With WAVES, the Centre has legitimised their presence as bankable career options, promising a global stage and investor attention.
In line with this, Vaishnaw also announced the launch of the Indian Institute of Creative Technology—an IIT-like national institute “but for training in creativity, to build a strong foundation for innovation and expression”.
The Union Minister was joined by the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, L. Murugan, and Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, at the Jio World Centre to congratulate the winners of CIC.
Highlighting the impressive female participation in the CIC, Murugan said that it reflected “the strength of Nari Shakti and the future of Indian content creation”.
It was not just India’s tier-2 and tier-3 winners who took to the stage. According to Jaju, these 32 winners came from 750 finalists. They were selected from over 1 lakh registered entries to the contest—including 1,100 international participants from 60 countries.
The winners were presented the awards at WAVES 2025 by an impressive lineup of celebrities, including Aamir Khan, Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Vikrant Massey, and Prasoon Joshi.
The CIC included a wide range of activities: from the Anime Challenge to the AI Film Making Competition and XR Creator Hackathon, spanning the media and entertainment ecospace.
This Saturday, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is set to officially release a report titled 'From Content to Commerce: Mapping India’s Creator Economy at WAVES'.
This study reveals that India’s creators influence a whopping $350 billion in consumer spending on a yearly basis. This figure is expected to cross $1 trillion by 2030.
