Story of Arijit Bhattacharyya : how I started virtualinfocom

I am an Entrepreneur from Kolkata, India, owner of an Animation, Mobile Apps and game Development Company in the name and style of ‘Virtual Information & Communications’ (VIC www.virtualinfocom.com ).

My involvement with software engineering began in 1996 when I took up basic programming as a hobby. Throughout the next three years this developed into a fascination with both electronics and software development.


Awards / Achievements

1. One of the Judge for “Dare to be Digital” for the game development competition at UK.

2. In 2008 I became mentor for “TATA UDUYOG PARBO” a joint initiative with NEN

3. Leadership Award by EIILM, Bengal Chamber of Commerce 2012

4. Adviser of Different Animation Colleges in India

5. Writer of Books on Animation and Game Development

6. Creator of First Hindu Mythological game Mahabharat

7. Writer of comics such as Archer, Mahavir, Nutron, Haglu.

8. http://www.yourstory.in/entrepreneurs/tech-entrepreneurs/3436-arijit-bhattacharyya-founder-virtualinfocom
9.http://www.britishcouncil.org/india-arts-yie-award.htm finalist for YCE Award British Council India 2010

10. Creator of first Indian Gaming Club

11. Member of eastangels

12. Started First Indian Cloud based Classroom on Mobile Apps, Animations, Game Development

13. Writer of Animation Books on How to do animations

14. Writer of Game Development Books on Object C, OpenGL, Lua
15.Pioneer in Starting of Online Training on Mobile Apps, Animations, Website Design and Game Development at West Bengal, Rajasthan and Nigeria.

16. http://www.forwardfocusmagazine.com/arijit-bhattacharyya/
17. Star Enterprise Award 2011



I began programming in late 1994 with BASIC, before progressing rapidly to C and C++ in early 1995 for DOS application development, then onto 32-bit development under Windows. I moved to RAD with Borland's C++ Builder (essentially Delphi for C++) in 1998. In 1997 I became involved in Internet technologies, progressing to dynamic, database-driven websites. In 2000, as I am an Artist, I turned into the field of animations and late 2001 I became a Game Developer and Simulation Engineer.

A combination of industrial experience and my educational background has allowed me to work with a variety of technologies and develop software with a range of complexities and characteristics, from medium-sized web-based deployments to real-time control and embedded systems.


I believe that a mission coupled with quality education is required to start any entrepreneurship in the field of Information Technology.


What Inspired:
When I was in school, I used to write and draw comics on my own. I loved to draw different sketches. In my school life I've done couple of comics with 6 super heroes. When I was in the 10th class, I got in touch with computers and I fall in love with it, although then I got to know “Basic “language and MS office only. I decided to do an animated series for my comics’ series, to satisfy my creative mind.
By the process a confidence had been set in and my intuition told me to start a mission in the creative field to add value.                                                                                                                         When I was in class 12th, I took the path of business and used to do software programming for some local people and self funded my venture by doing freelancing and giving training to students. I started a small training institute at my residence with one computer.

To understand & acquire knowledge on HRD, mass inter-action and want & need of the customers, I started selling and repairing of computers and started another computer training institute with one of my friend in a poor village of Sundarbans in West Bengal, India. For that I had to take a 4hour train journey followed by a boat journey then a 5km. walk to reach that little village! At that time, with the cost of computers being so expensive, I started with one computer and 5 students and within one year after a lot of effort and dedication-5 students turned into 67 students. After a year I soon found that my friend and his family began to rely solely on the income of the training center and realized that if I took my monthly share of the profits, the partner would not be able to survive. So I decided to hand the business over to my friend including the PC I had struggled to buy.

Initially my financial position was such that I could not avail a hired cab, while going for a business deal. I used to have one extra shirt at my bag and before entering to any client's base I used to change my dress in a nearby toilet .Initially I couldn't been able to get any orders' regarding animations or on gaming as the kolkata,India market was not ready for that kind of service. By the way, once I got a call from a person that he wants to do business in animations ,and he would like me to be his partner , I took the chance and started with him , after 6 months of work , he asked me to leave the organization , stating that “ I am making money now , so I don't need you “ .
I came back home with an empty hand and decided to start again on my own. After a hard work for 3 months I managed to make a team from my own training institute who came for animations training. With those 3 people with me, I went to New Delhi and got an order in animations as an out-sourced model. During this period of my academic studies, I started making a software engine for the games and it took me two years to develop the application. With the help of the engine and rendering solution, I managed to do lot more works with small team-size, to tame the lack of fund/ cost cutting.

As I had a pocket crunch, I made a technique to make some of the animations in 8 frames instead of 24 frames and was thinking of making the business bigger. So I molded the business model and in the year 2002 started production unit model along with training institute to cater the need of supply of employees.
And the ball starts rolling slowly getting orders from outside India. From 2003 ‘virtualinfocom’ started getting game art orders and within a few years we got couple of order's in game development and game design and then started doing apps for the mobile based market. We do have couple of IP with us on games and animations and slowly we are going to sell them.

Training institute along with production unit is our main mantra .. we try to give actual education to the student's so that they can be a part of the industry.

In 2007, we decided to give franchise for the training institute wherein the faculties are from our own house as well as the course and study materials are according to the industry needs. We do train on animations, game design, game development, mobile apps. In 2010 we have launched India's first online animation and game design training institute, and we have got an excellent response from Japan, Europe, Nigeria and USA.

This is just a brief , shall update the detail story soon .. probably part by part .