Meet the Jury

Ankur Bose is a global business and creative production leader with over 25 years of experience helping some of the world's largest brands scale content creation across international markets. He leads strategic client partnerships across EMEA, delivering large-scale creative production and content supply chain transformation programmes.

Ankur is passionate about the intersection of creativity, technology and AI, and has been at the forefront of integrating AI-powered workflows into content production to improve speed, quality and efficiency. His expertise spans creative operations, production at scale, content supply chains and innovation, bringing a balanced perspective that combines creative excellence with business impact.

Naveen Upadhyay is Co-Founder and CTO of Kupa Creative, a studio building at the intersection of animation, 3D and immersive experiences. With a background spanning creative production and technology, he leads Kupa's work in XR and AI-driven pipelines — pairing proven storytelling craft with emerging tools to shape the next generation of digital content.

Currently building Quiet Engine and solving for creative production agentically.

Priyadarshi Khastgir is a writer, Creative Director and Animation Filmmaker, and the founder of Talespun Studios, an independent creative studio built on the belief that great craft requires a human touch. With over 14 years of experience in advertising and creative communications, he has worked with leading agencies including JWT (now VML), Wunderman Thompson, Havas Worldwide, Hakuhodo Percept, Rediffusion Y&R and Grapes Worldwide, creating award-winning campaigns for brands such as Kurkure, Mountain Dew, JBL, Berger Paints, WION and Zee News.

His work has been featured in the Cannes Lions Archive and has received honours including the Goafest ABBY Awards, MAD Over Marketing (MOM) Awards and Srijon Samman, along with recognition at several national and international animation festivals. He holds a Master's degree in Comparative Literature, a discipline that continues to inform his approach to storytelling, culture and visual communication.

Through Talespun Studios, Priyadarshi develops original stories, films and brand experiences that combine writing, design, animation and handcrafted filmmaking. His work is driven by the conviction that while technology can transform the creative process, the most meaningful stories are still shaped by human imagination and craftsmanship.

Ray is a Creative Director and Technologist with 20+ years of experience driving innovation across the visual production spectrum. His expertise bridges 3D, print, and broadcast with emerging real-time VFX, projection mapping, AR/VR, and generative AI workflows. Honed at industry-leading studios such as The Mill NYC and Alt.VFX, his hands-on technical roots inform his strategic approach to creative direction and leadership.

In his role as Creative Partner at T&DA, Ray partners with high-impact global brands — such as Netflix, Samsung, Meta, Toyota, and Riot Games — to execute complex campaigns and immersive digital experiences. A proponent of tooling that enhances creative agency, he is also the creator of DACT, a specialized digital asset content toolkit.

Ray specializes in engineering custom pipelines, empowering creatives with tools tailored specifically to each project's unique constraints, replacing rigid, conventional workflows with friction-free, modern solutions built for scale.

Rupal Rawal is an internationally experienced Creative VFX Director, VFX Supervisor and AI Filmmaker with over two decades of leadership in visual effects and creative innovation. Having contributed to the growth of India's VFX industry from its formative years, she is recognised for building high-performing creative teams and delivering excellence across feature films, television, advertising and animation. Today, she continues to push the boundaries of visual storytelling by pioneering AI-driven filmmaking and next-generation creative workflows.