Snap is empowering India’s AR Creator Community
Snap announced its annual virtual global Lens Fest from December 7th-9th, 2021 to highlight innovation and creativity across the Snap AR community. Aimed to help the Snap AR community, Lens Fest helps attendees learn and find inspiration to create new kinds of Lenses. Snap Lenses are made in Lens Studio, a free, desktop application designed to help artists, designers, and developers build augmented reality experiences, which we call Lenses.
Two local lens creators from India- Kavin Kumar and Pradeepa Anandhi, from Tamil Nadu, will be a part of the “Dream It. Build It” session at this year’s Lens Fest. They have developed the highly popular Web Shooter and Mood Octopus Lenses, respectively.
Pradeepa, a Game/ AR Engineer by background, developed the Mood Octopus Lens. She was also the brain behind the highly popular ‘Animal Print AR Fashion’ Lens for the New York Fashion Week. “AR Lenses have been particularly successful in India because we’ve found that our community likes to communicate and express themselves visually. Thus, when such technology is available, Indian users attach themselves to them,” said Pradeepa while speaking about the growing AR influence in India. “Snap is doing an incredible job of empowering creators by generating paid Lens creation opportunities to generate revenue opportunities for creators like us. Lens Studio has opened up the possibility for me to reach millions of Snapchatters with my AR creations, which was very difficult to do earlier.”
Kavin, a Computer Science graduate, has been making Snapchat Lenses for three years. “I started experimenting and creating with AR as a hobby, and now I’m doing it full-time professionally. It is encouraging to see Snap being so focussed on engaging with creators and also helping them monetize their creations. Opportunities such as these definitely allow creators to not only try new things but also keep learning more about new unique AR-based experiences,” said Kavin.
In India, we host Lens Studio workshops at high schools and top design and media colleges and have taught over 5,000 students to learn and build AR experiences. Snap Lens Network of creators in India has grown over 200% since September 2020.
For International Women’s Day earlier this year, we hosted a special Lens Studio workshop and the event introduced young women from across the country to AR and was followed by a Lensathon. Now as we reach 100 million Snapchatters in India, we are committed to continuing to grow the number of incredible experiences available to our Snapchat community, and the local creators who build them.
The three-day virtual event explores major advances in AR, as well as those on the horizon. This gathering is a highlight of the year for us at Snap AR, an opportunity to meet face-to-face with a community of passionate creative professionals, developers, and partners pushing the boundaries of what AR will be.
From December 7-9, we’re going bigger and better with Lens Fest, featuring 10 sessions, interstitials, demos, meetups, workshops, and more. The events are designed to highlight new and existing opportunities in AR and celebrate the people who are making it happen—from Lens Creators to Developers and Brand Partners.
Join Snapchat at the AR Lens Fest to jump into the sessions and explore the immersive space they’ve created to celebrate the Lens Creator community!
Tune in live for the first sessions and one can view the schedule and register here: https://lensfest.live/
