The future of storytelling is here!
Auryn is a premiere digital publisher focused on creating award-winning interactive children’s stories for the iPad and other tablet devices. We collaborate with authors, illustrators and publishers to turn their stories into educational, engaging and entertaining experiences. Auyrn’s patented technology (Aurynization) brings any illustration style to life through animation and interactivity. Kirkus Reviews, Fast Company, NPR, PadGadget and Animation Magazine all herald Auryn as a leader in creating sophisticated and immersive “app” experiences.
Umesh Shukla
An award-winning animation director and artist, Umesh Shukla founded Auryn to push the boundaries of animation technology and provide truly unique consumer experiences. Using Auryn's proprietary technology, Umesh has collaborated with noted storybook illustrators to bring their creative vision to animated life for leading publishers and distributors.
Shukla's lifelong fascination with motion-based storytelling has inspired a rich career in visual effects and animation focused on the medium's emerging frontiers. Working as senior supervisor and other strategic positions at Walt Disney Feature Animation, DreamWorks Feature Animation, and Digital Domain, as well as other leading creative studios around the world, Shukla has contributed to the development of leading feature, commercial and short subject entertainment. Shukla was a prominent member of the Academy Award®-winning team (Outstanding Visual Effects) for the movie Titanic; He was also lead computer graphics supervisor at Disney Feature Animation for the first 3D animated movie produced at its Burbank studios and served as a designer/director for an episode for Disney's Fantasia 3. A consultant for DreamWorks' Shark Tale, Shukla's expertise was utilized to design the technical and production pipeline. His visual effects work played an integral role in numerous features including The Island of Dr. Moreau and Dante's Peak.
In the directorial realm, his animated short film "Still I Rise," inspired by the life and death of John Merrick (The Elephant Man), toured festivals around the globe, earning awards and critical praise as "a truly magical and masterful tour de force." As a product of this experience, he then founded Animaestro (http://animaestro.com) an online resource for curated short subject animation frequented by enthusiasts, scholars and artists worldwide. He is also the director of "The Girl Who Cried Flowers," (Scholastic/Weston Woods) "Almond Blossoms," (Microcinema) and "In Winter Still" (Possible Films).
Over the years, Shukla has presented at animation and business conference including SIGGGRAPH and has been widely covered by leading national and international magazines. He has taught at Cal Arts, designed courses for the Art Institute, and has served as a judge at animation festivals.
Sangam Pant
Sangam Pant is member of the Auryn team and a Senior Advisor to Evercore (NYSE:EVR).
Earlier he was a Senior Managing Director at Evercore and was responsible for Evercore Ventures plus investing from Evercore Capital Partners in buyouts, growth equity plus India related investments. Prior to joining Evercore, Mr. Pant held various senior management positions with companies such as AT&T, DEC, eCompanies, Lycos and Ziff-Davis.
Mr. Pant is currently a board member at AlliantGroup and StrongMail plus a board observer at Boingo and Panasas. His prior investments include Atheros (IPO), Balkrishna Industries (BSE: BKI.B, Pipe), Business.com (sold to RH Donnelley, former board member), Cast Iron (sold to IBM), Jamdat (IPO, former board member), LowerMyBills (sold to Experian), Meru Networks (IPO), Sierra Design (sold to Mentor Graphics, former board member), StorePerform (sold to Red Prairie, former board member) and ThinkIndia (sold to Rediff).
Mr. Pant received a B.E. from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, India, an M.S. from the University of Florida, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds four patents and has been widely published.
Amit Agrawal
Amit Agrawal, Co-Founder and CTO of Auryn, leads the company's production and technology teams as head producer and was instrumental in the development of Auryn's proprietary technology. His extensive management and production experience coupled with his technical expertise have been invaluable in delivering Auryn's groundbreaking productions.
Before joining Auryn, Amit was the Executive Director of Software Engineering at Sony Pictures Imageworks, where, under his direction, the department underwent its largest expansion since inception. Amit has made a career delivering toolsets that raise the bar for digital production. He has supervised software development for both computer animated and visual effects feature films including The Polar Express, Spider-Man 1 & 2, Stuart Little, Hollow Man, and the Oscar-winning short Chub Chubs. In addition, Amit's vast production experience includes dozens of feature film credits.
Amit holds a degree in computer science from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) as well as a PhD from the Computer Science Department at USC, Los Angeles. He is an avid photographer and a constant student of filmmaking.
Robert Kalnins
An important voice in the emerging field of non-photorealistic computer graphics imagery, Robert Kalnins has created a bold new approach to animated content creation with Auryn. Working with some of the brightest minds in the industry, Robert has applied cutting edge technologies to advance digital storytelling with expressive aesthetics inspired by hand-generated techniques and traditional media.
Robert earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University Computer Science Department, where he collaborated with scientists at the forefront of non-photorealistic CGI research. Some of Robert's contributions to the field include tools enabling artists to describe styles via direct sketching interfaces, automated methods for animating artistic drawings, and techniques to lend smooth coherence to stylized animation. To leverage this experience, he was recruited by Auryn Co-Founder Umesh Shukla to apply his passion and expertise to the development of Auryn's proprietary technology.
In addition to his background in computer graphics, Robert brings to Auryn unique interdisciplinary insights. He is a graduate of the Engineering Physics program at McMaster University in Canada and was awarded numerous honors including the prestigious Governor General's Academic Medal.
Robert is a member of the IEEE ACM SIGGRAPH. He has authored, presented and reviewed papers for graphics conferences and journals, including SIGGRAPH, NPAR, Eurographics, and Transactions on Graphics.
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