Artificial Intelligence and The Law: A Symposium for Creative Professionals

Pankhuri Upadhyay has over a decade of experience in corporate law, having worked at leading law firms in India. She is now the founder of Maker's Legal, a full-service law firm with a strong focus on intellectual property, media, and entertainment laws. One of the primary objectives of the firm, since its inception, has been proactive engagement with the creative community and quantitative research to help better the legal infrastructure for creators in India. This includes anticipating and preparing for legal challenges that innovations in media and technology bring about. Given the rapidly evolving nature of these systems, there is an urgent need for active discourse, problem-solving and equally innovative strategies around concepts of intellectual property along with the legal infrastructure that supports the execution of new media. Maker's Legal strives to work at this intersection of 'future' law, research, education, multimedia, and technology and the facilitation of intermediary processes.

One of India’s finest orators and storytellers, Roshan Abbas is an actor; TV & radio host; producer; event manager; creative director; film & theatre director; lyricist; CEO; angel investor; serial entrepreneur; author; and public speaking coach. Roshan founded and led Encompass (now Geometry Encompass) as Managing Director into becoming amongst India’s largest, most awarded experiential marketing agency. He was also an initial investor in and continues to be a mentor-partner at The Glitch. Both ventures have been acquired by WPP. Roshan has won seven national-level awards for TV and radio. In 2015, he co-founded Kommune – a performing arts collective for storytellers. He also helped conceptualise the Spoken festival, bringing together performers from across the world for storytelling, poetry, spoken word, and song. Roshan continues to inspire by sharing his life lessons on communication and storytelling with entrepreneurs, corporates, artists, and anyone looking to discover a unique voice!

Girish Talwar is someone with a diverse background in the entertainment, entrepreneurship, business and legal industries. As a founding member and bass player for the band Zero, they released two albums and performed over 300 shows across India. Finishing his law from GLC Mumbai, he specialised in IP laws and worked at Juris Corp and Nishith Desai Associates. At 23, Bobby Co-founded OML Entertainment, managing over 30 prominent Indian artists including Raghu Dixit, Rabbi, Nucleya, Swarathma, Vishal & Shekhar, etc. Under OML he promoted many international concerts with stars like David Guetta, The Prodigy, Enrique Iglesias, Lady Gaga and Norah Jones. He created NH7 Weekender, one of India’s premier music festivals, and various music IPs and events for multiple brands including Bacardi and Red Bull. He successfully exited OML with a Series B investment from Chernin Media Pvt Ltd. As Vice President at Bookmyshow.com, Bobby led live events and launched the digital radio product Jukebox. He then Co-founded Weirdass Comedy with Vir Das, securing Series A investment and producing shows for Amazon Originals, Audible, and Netflix, earning an International Emmy nomination. Currently, Bobby is at the helm of Rebellion Management and Entertainment Pvt Ltd, a talent management/solutions and brand consultancy company. In its first year, Rebellion launched over 100 content partnerships, from music videos to influencer marketing campaigns, connecting artists with core fans and aligning brands with talent and their target audiences.

Neil has formerly worked with the Films Division of India as a producer and associate director on feature-length documentaries. In 2018, he worked as a casting associate and 2nd unit director on the critically acclaimed period-horror film Tumbbad. In 2016, he was the creative producer behind the political documentary film An Insignificant Man and a producer on the board game Shasn (2020). He is a founder at Stotomata Studios, a studio that resides at the intersection of art, science and philosophy, that strives to provide meaningful discourse in an increasingly disrupted world. He was formerly one of the co-founders at Memesys Culture Lab, a new media studio and a producer at India’s first virtual reality magazine, ElseVR. Work that he has produced has been showcased at TIFF, IFFR, Cannes Lion, Sundance, to name a few. The series OK Computer (2021) is his directorial debut. Directed, created and produced together with Pooja Shetty, Ok Computer is India's first sci-fi comedy series. OK Computer was the first series to be screened at the Bright Future's section at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2021 and at the New Zealand International Film Festival 2021. Currently the series is screening on Disney+ Hotstar in India, Canada, and the UK and on Hulu in the United States. Deeply interested in history, culture, and music, Neil is adept at drawing narratives out of complex ideas of science and technology. Neil’s work translates the most confounding questions around the origin and future of our species into accessible, insightful stories that we can engage with today.  

She has produced work that has been showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival, IFFR, IDFA, Cannes Lion, Sundance, NZIFF and many others. Her directorial debut, OK Computer (2021), was part of the Bright Futures section at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, where she has subsequently participated in panel discussions, workshops and publications. The series is screening on Disney+ Hotstar in India, Canada, and the UK and Hulu in the United States. She was one of the creative producers behind the documentary film An Insignificant Man (2016), and a producer on the board game Shasn (2020). She was also the production designer of Ship of Theseus (2012), Path of Zarathustra (2015), and Tumbbad (2018). Her previous work as an architect includes designing houses, a microbrewery, and a sports academy. She has also worked with the United Nations-Habitat, Jordan on a low-cost housing project for the displaced in Iraq.   She is the founder and director at Stotomata Studios, a studio that resides at the intersection of art, science and philosophy, that strives to provide meaningful discourse in an increasingly disrupted world. She was formerly one of the co-founders and the director at Memesys Culture Lab and a producer at India’s first virtual reality magazine, ElseVR.   She has been working in advertising for more than a decade in various capacities. She has worked in commercials produced by Offroad Films, Early Man Films, Memesys Lab, Catnip Culture to name a few. Pooja’s multi-disciplinary approach and knack for high-concept thinking helps her dabble in writing, filmmaking, design and technology.                    

Kanishka Gupta is a literary agent, writer and publishing commentator best known for his widely acclaimed series for Scroll.in called 'Publishing and the Pandemic'. He is the founder of Writer's Side, the largest literary agency and consultancy in South Asia. Gupta has been credited for single-handedly popularising literary representation in the subcontinent. He represents a range of highly accomplished debut authors as well as award-winning authors of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including the 2022 International Booker Prize winner Daisy Rockwell. Some of his other prominent writers include the Booker-shortlisted Avni Doshi, the Windham- Campbell prize-winning novelist and poet Jerry Pinto, multi-award-winning novelist Anees Salim,  Tamil writer B. Jeyamohan, Lindsay Pereira, Ranjit Hoskote, and Rijula Das among others. He has also worked closely with the 2022 Man Booker Prize-winning author Shehan Karunatilaka and represents his next two  books in South Asia  His first novel was longlisted for the Asian Booker Prize in 2009 and was published in 2010.