NetEnt has tapped the managing director of its Indian arm to take over the top technology job at the online casino games provider following the departure of Tobias Palmborg.
Palmborg left his post as chief technology officer (CTO) at the Stockholm-listed supplier last September 4 after a two-and-a-half year stint, iGaming Business reported, and the company wasted no time appointing his replacement—Aditya Bhushan, formerly the director of the game platform and managing director of NetEnt India.
The 11-year NetEnt veteran has set up “an innovation and development center” in Hyderabad for the casino provider, which has been producing classic titles for online casino sites and other platforms around the world, catering to players from all walks of life—from logical thinkers to thrill seekers, explorers, analysts and risk-takers, and even the optimists and the spontaneous.
The innovation behind NetEnt power
Software providers like NetEnt are known for powering live casino games for platforms as well as the best online roulette sites and Online Slot Machines all over the globe, necessitating the need for a team to support their global operations. In NetEnt’s case, the company has set up a site in Hyderabad, the capital city of the Telangana state in India.
Prior to his role as managing director of NetEnt India, Bhushan—now the technology chief at NetEnt—worked for more than four years as domain architect and head of India development. Aside from managing the team, Bhushan is also tasked to “define, design and deliver the technical vision for a highly scalable gaming system handling close to 5 billion transactions a month, generating hundreds of terabytes of data and handling tens of thousands of concurrent users.”
Hyderabad is India’s new innovation hub
The Telangana city, previously nicknamed the “City of Pearls,” has emerged in the 1990s as a hub initially for pharmaceuticals and biotechnology—until the formation of special economic zones and the HITEC City, which are dedicated to information technology.
The Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy (HITEC) City, also dubbed the “Cyderabad,” is a special economic zone that has been credited for starting the era of software and IT in Hyderabad, paving the way for IT companies to set up shop in the area. Hyderabad is currently the second-largest contributing city for IT exports, according to state government data.
In May 2020, the Telangana state registered a 7.2% growth in terms of IT employment compared to the 4.93% national average, and the 4.59% national average. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Telangana IT minister KT Rama Rao was quoted by the Times of India saying, “Overall share of Telangana in the Indian export growth for 2019-20 is 23.53% and Indian employment growth for 2019-20 is 19.07%. This clearly shows that the Telangana is poised to be the preferred destination of IT investments in the future.”
The state IT minister has been pushing to build a “culture of innovation” in Telangana, starting with the Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC). Formed in 2017, the project has been implementing initiatives “to make innovation a dinner table conversation and to each every household” by operating in domains like Student Ecosystem (Schools & Colleges), Startups, Grassroot Innovators, and Innovation in the Government, and Communication for Innovation.
