Looking alive ; The animation industry is in good shape and hiring in a big way.

The past four months have been the busiest in a long time for theplacement cells of the Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC),the Aptechpromoted leading provider of high-end 3D animation andvisual effects education. Already, more students have been picked upby the animation industry during the first six months of thefinancial year 2010-11 than in the whole of the previous year. "Juneonwards has been phenomenal. The demand for talent is growing at afast pace," says Ram Warrier, Business Head of MAAC.

But what is contributing to this uptick in demand? The ITindustry lobby NASSCOM expects the animation industry to report acompounded annual growth rate, or CAGR, …