Introduction

Get ready for a landmark celebration of creativity, technology, and storytelling as WAVES 2025 — the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit — takes center stage in Mumbai from May 1st to 4th. Hosted by the Government of India, this first-of-its-kind global event brings the spotlight to India’s vibrant Media & Entertainment sector, transforming the Jio World Convention Centre into a dynamic hub of imagination, innovation, and opportunity.

With over 100,000 registrations, including 1,100+ international participants, WAVES 2025 is where filmmakers, tech pioneers, creators, investors, and industry leaders come together to shape the future of entertainment. From the legendary voices of Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan to the tech leadership of Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai, the summit unites visionaries across sectors in a powerful showcase of talent and ambition.

This is more than a summit — it's a movement to position India as a global creative and digital powerhouse. With exciting highlights like the Create in India Challenge, cutting-edge exhibitions, startup pitches, cultural performances, and high-level dialogues, WAVES 2025 marks a bold step into the future—where culture meets code, and tradition meets transformation.

Create in India Challenge Season 1

The Create in India Challenge (CIC) is a strategic initiative aimed at empowering India’s content creators. By providing a platform for innovation and creative expression, CIC seeks to strengthen India’s creators’ economy, enhance soft power, and position emerging talent for global recognition. The initiative supports monetization of skills and contributes to the growth of the media and entertainment industry.

CIC brings an exciting lineup of 32 unique challenges across creative, tech and cultural fields. Launched on August 22, 2024, it attracted massive participation from across India and around the world! The challenges have attracted entries from over 60 countries, reflecting the global appeal and reach of this pioneering initiative. From this exceptional pool of talent, 750 finalists will be given the opportunity to showcase their creative skills and outcomes at Creatosphere, a specially curated platform featuring innovation across animation, comics, AI, XR, gaming, music, and more, as part of WAVES 2025. The winners of these challenges will be conferred the prestigious ‘WAVES Creator Awards’ in a grand red carpet ceremony on Day 2 of the event.

1. WAVES Promo Video Challenge: A unique contest designed to discover powerful and inspiring audiovisual content that captures and showcases the spirit and ambition of the WAVES 2025, through a video.

2. Truth Tell Hackathon: Tech innovators, data experts, and media professionals were called to develop AI solutions that tackle misinformation and promote credible journalism.

3. Community Radio Content Challenge: This exciting competition aims to celebrate and showcase the creativity, innovation, and impact of community radio stations across India.

4. WAVES Hackathon Ad spend Optimizer: Participants worked on using data science, machine learning, and statistical modeling to create solutions that help advertisers make smarter, data-driven decisions. The goal was to maximize ROI and support marketing objectives.

5. Make The World Wear Khadi: Aims to blend India’s rich textile heritage with global fashion trends, offering an exciting challenge to advertising professionals and freelancers.

6. Wah Ustad: It aims to nurture exceptional talent in Hindustani, Carnatic, and soulful Sufi music while preserving and promoting India’s rich musical legacy.

7. Battle Of the Bands: Designed to push the limits of creativity and music, while promoting a sense of community, innovation and growth within the industry

8. Symphony Of India: The event featured a diverse range of musical performances across various genres, celebrating the broad tastes of music lovers.

9. Theme Music Competition: Songwriters, singers, performers and music creators were invited to create and share a piece of music that resembles Indian classical music or a fusion of classical and contemporary music instruments and styles.

10. Resonate EDM Challenge: Aims to spotlight and celebrate global talent in production of Electronic Dance Music (EDM), fostering collaboration, innovation, and creativity in music production and live performance. This initiative aligns with the “Create in India” mission, showcasing India as a hub for global creativity and entertainment.

11. India A Bird’s Eye View: Passionate drone pilots and filmmakers were invited to capture the breathtaking beauty and diversity of India in a 2-3 minute video, showcasing the country from the unique perspective of aerial drone cinematography.

12. Anti-Piracy Challenge: This competition focuses on encouraging and supporting innovative solutions created by local companies in fingerprinting and watermarking technologies.

13. Comics Creator Championship: Comic Making Competition for amateur and professional artists.

14. WAVES Anime and Manga Challenge: An innovative initiative aimed at harnessing the growing interest in manga and anime in India.

15. Animation Filmmakers Competition: Aimed at uncovering and empowering India's storytellers in the field of animation.

16. Game Jam: An exciting opportunity for India's game developers to showcase their creativity and innovation.

17. Esports Tournament: The eFootball and World Cricket Championship (WCC) competitions are held in batches, each offering thrilling matchups, with the champions being crowned at WAVES.

18. City Quest: Shades of Bharat: An educational game to celebrate Bharat’s urban development.

19. XR Creator Hackathon: Challenge that invites developers from across India to push the boundaries of augmented and virtual reality.

20. Innovate2educate Handheld Device Challenge: Academia, designers, engineers, and innovators were invited to develop a prototype of an educational handheld device that makes learning math, solving puzzles, and boosting cognitive skills fun and interactive.

21. AI Avatar Creator Challenge: The challenge focused on creating AI avatars: personalized, interactive digital personas that engage with users like human influencers in virtual spaces.

22. WAVES Awards Of Excellence: A prestigious competition recognizing outstanding showreels and AdFilms in animation, VFX, gaming, and related fields, celebrating creativity and innovation.

23. Bharat Tech Triumph Program: A contest to identify and empower the top gaming and interactive entertainment innovators.

24. WAVES VFX Competition: Participants were tasked with creating a visual effects sequence or short film featuring a superhero with extraordinary powers, but using them in the context of everyday, mundane life.

25. WAVES Comic Chronicles: This competition invited comic submissions on any chosen theme, requiring a minimum of 60 panels, with each image or scene representing a single panel.

26. WAVES Explorer: Invited participants on a captivating journey to showcase India’s rich cultural heritage and creativity. Participants created YouTube videos (up to 1 minute) or vlogs (up to 7 minutes) highlighting their favorite aspects of India.

27. Reel Making Competition: Participants were invited to create engaging reels on themes such as food, travel, fashion, dance, music, gaming, yoga & wellness and tech.

28. Young Filmmakers Challenge: The competition aimed to foster innovation, storytelling skills, and digital literacy among young participants through a concise 60-second film format.

29. Film Poster Making Competition: A unique opportunity to create innovative and visually compelling reimagined film posters to celebrate and promote the rich film poster heritage of India.

30. Trailer Making Competition: Filmmakers, both seasoned and emerging, were invited to craft compelling trailers using Netflix content, offering a chance to reimagine iconic scenes or highlight fresh perspectives.

31. Unreal Cinematics Challenge: The Unreal Cinematics Challenge by TVAGA provided a platform for artists, animators, and content creators to showcase their storytelling and technical skills using Unreal Engine.

32. WAVES Cosplay Championship: A grand celebration of pop culture, creativity, and craftsmanship, bringing together participants showcasing their talents on the final day. It highlights genres such as Indian history, manga, anime, comics and games.

Conclusion

As WAVES 2025 nears its grand finale, thousands of participants from across the globe will come together to showcase their creativity, innovation, and talent. With a diverse range of challenges and an unparalleled platform for collaboration, WAVES is set to make a lasting impact on the future of India’s media and entertainment landscape.

References

https://cic.wavesindia.org/cic-dashboard/

https://wavesindia.org/challenges-2025

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2122688

Kindly find the pdf file

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Santosh Kumar/ Sarla Meena/ Kamna Lakaria/ Priya Nagar