Google Is Opening A YouTube Production Studio In Mumbai, India

There’s good news for aspiring YouTube stars in India after Google announced its first YouTube Space for the country. Located in Mumbai, the production facility — the second of its kind in Asia — will be hosted by the reputed Whistling Woods International film school.

The first YouTube Spaces project started in 2012 and it is designed to give filmmakers (YouTube filmmakers, naturally) a place where they can access high-quality equipment, gain mentorship and, ultimately, produce quality content. Like many Google projects, there’s also a community angle to it — Spaces are used to host training programs, workshops and other events to encourage creativity among the local and national community.

“India is seeing an emergence of a new generation of YouTube creators who are capturing the color, music, humour, and drama of India more creatively than ever before. In fact, Indian creators are now amongst the top contributors in Asia when it comes to driving time spent on YouTube watching videos,” David Macdonald, Head of YouTube Spaces in Asia Pacific, said in a blog post.

Google said the Mumbai Space, which is its seventh worldwide, will be open to YouTube creators “soon.” In the meantime, it released a sneak peek — on YouTube, of course.

In case you’ve been living under a stone this year, surging smartphone shipments — which promise to bring millions of new internet users online — have made India of one of the most interesting markets for technology companies right now. India was one of the first markets to get offline playback on YouTube, and today’s announcement is a reminder that the country is an important creator, not just consumer, of video content.