Anish Dhopeshwarkar
The whiz kids of the 21st century are adopting and adapting to technological innovations to touch newer horizons. They are coming out of their comfort zones to explore the world of science. Thanks to the cheaper data rates, YouTube is now easily accessible to common man and any smart person can freely use this platform to showcase his or her talent to the world.
YouTubers like BhuvanBam, Nick and Ashish Chanchlani are popular at national level but we have some young local artists too, who are making their presence felt. One of them is Kabir Naik, a 16-year-old from Panaji who runs a YouTube channel with 415 subscribers and 20,000 views. Kabir shares about how he kick-started, “I was going on a Europe tour accompanied by my friends and all of them were busy taking videos to upload on social media. Looking at them even I felt compelled to do so and slowly I too developed interest.”
Kabir learnt the technical aspects of videography and editing from watching videos on YouTube all by himself. He usually makes videos on social issues, trending news and travel blogs. He is a one-man-army who handles everything from videography to editing - all by himself, albeit with the help of his friends’ standing support. Kabir who is in SSC, manages both - studies and his YouTube passion. “I balance between the two. It’s difficult to manage both as my board exams are nearing but whenever I get free time, instead of playing games or doing anything else I indulge in video making. This has become my hobby as well as passion. I want to pursue film making. I want to be a film maker and continue producing creative content for YouTube,” he shares his future plans.
Comic books occupy an important phase in life of most of the children. Here they are introduced to this amazing world of sci-fi, superheroes etc. But the availability and popularity of comics has been decreasing over time. Saddened by this young entrepreneur Kaivalya Karkare, a 19-year-old has come up with this unique idea of setting up a web portal comicsindia.org where one could discuss, debate, buy and sell his/her comics.
“Collection of comics has been a very religious activity since 1970s and 1980s, but now-a-days comic books have become a very rare. They are almost going extinct. The lack of availability of comics in stores makes it difficult for one to have his/her own collection,” maintains Kaivalya who keeping this in mind started his portal in 2016 with a basic idea of starting a webpage dedicated to comic books, superheroes and Indian comics.
“I started this endeavour on my own. In order to start something like this I had to learn web designing and took tutorials from YouTube,” smiles Kaivalya. After the launch of his portal he received pretty good response from the comic enthusiasts. “There were around 200-300 active members from all over the world. After I finish my education and start working I would revive this site and take it took the next level by developing its app. Now being a student I cannot afford that, but will surely do that in the coming years,” says an optimistic Kaivalya.
Lego is a game of interlocking pieces to create anything - buildings, robots etc. Today it is widely used to set up the love of robotics, machine, engineering, coding in young kids. Sai Pranav is one such geek, brilliant young mind, who at the tender age of 8 has set his base firm in the art and science of Lego. “At the age of 4 he built his first robot, and from that day his love about robotics started growing,” said Saish Gandhi, father of Sai Panav. He added “When we noticed his love for robotics we did a little research on YouTube and gifted him a robotic kit from Singapore. He learned all of it by watching videos on YouTube, with formidable support from us.” Till date he has hosted around 10 workshops, where he demonstrates his talent of coding and robotics with the help of Lego toys. Though his first love is robotics, there is no negligence towards his formal education. He hosts and participates in workshops only during holidays, his father informed. “Though he is still very young and its difficult to say, but he speaks about being an inventor, scientist,” said his father when asked about his son’s future plans.
