TEDxPilani

We presented TEDxPilani with its theme "Unveiling India"  in association with APOGEE 2010, the technical festival of BITS, Pilani. The event was held on the 13^th of March 2010 in the auditorium of BITS, Pilani.

The TEDx program is an initiative by TED to allow local communities to organize their own, independently organized TED-like events and share their videos through the world-wide TEDx Channel.

                             

The  program had 18-minute talks from eight speakers from diverse fields sharing stories or ideas like never before. The talks had been orchestrated around the TED format of short yet impactful talks meant to inspire, inform and instigate change for a brighter India. With a plethora of speakers, video interludes (graphics support by CDS Solutions) and other surprises, TEDx Pilani gave the youth a paradigm shift to contemporary ideals from the clichéd viewpoint sporting our cultural enigma and age-old mythology. TEDx Pilani was hosted by Prathamesh Naik, a TED fellow.

The event began with Dr. K.N. Ganeshaiah who is an agricultural scientist and famous Kannada writer, whose style of writing is renowned for weaving stories around Indian mythology and real historical events. During his talk, he said that he was a person who had explored many myths and miracles and had found in them many scientific lessons. He jokingly regarded Hanuman as a ‘Bio-Pirate’ who in search of the Sanjevani herb, is believed to have lifted the whole mountain and flown back to India. He related this myth to science and made a hypothesis of the existence of such a ‘Resurrecting Plant’ and described his search for it. By giving a few logical arguments, he suggested the existence of such a herb (Selaginella Bryopteris) which could treat the situation the medical condition of coma. Similarly, he explained a few other myths and while concluding, said that scientists are the people who question God whereas artists will never dare to do that.

The other speakers included Kartick Satyanarayan, an activist, founder of Wildlife SOS in India, and TED Fellow. He is also known as bear-man for his dedicated efforts. He talked about how he has worked to eradicate animal cruelty especially the painful street shows of Dancing Bears in a community called the Kalander community in North India. In his pursuit, he completely changed the lifestyle of the whole community. He setup veterinary hospitals for the bears and gave them an environment in which they can live with full freedom like they live in forests. As a result of his efforts, the ill treatment to bears completely stopped on the 18^th of December 2009. The ill practice of ‘Bear Dancing’ does not take place in India anymore. These days, he converts tiger poachers and the like into better humans by giving them an alternative source of livelihood and also by using their expertise in hunting to actually save animals.

Rahul Roushan is an entrepreneur who owns Faking News which publishes fake news out of real happenings to infuse the element of satire around politics and lifestyle. He began his talk by hilariously connecting the talk of all his previous speakers and spontaneously creating fake news! With his ready wit and subtle humor, he charmed the audience thereby presenting himself as an entertainer.

Nakul Shenoy is a famous psychic corporate entertainer. His talk started with a magic trick in which he ‘invisibly’ transferred a bunch of cards from one volunteer to another! Thereafter, he performed a fabulous feat by reading the minds of a few people in the audience from a distance of about 10 to 20 meters. The whole audience was spell-bound, maybe literally!

Vishal Talreja is a social entrepreneur who runs the Dream-a-Dream Foundation. Recipient of the prestigious Asoka Fellowship, he helps street children in Bangalore grow out of poverty and lead happy lives. In his talk, he talked about how he chose to become a social entrepreneur and his journey as one. He began his talk by giving touching examples from his life which made him take this path. In the latter part of his speech, he talked about his firm ‘Dream-a-Dream’ which believes that every child has a right to a fun learning environment. It believes in empowering children through giving them life skills. 

Harish Sivarakrishnan is a computer scientist and platform evangelist at Adobe. He is one of the pioneers of Adobe flash and Adobe flex platforms in India. He believes that, one should ‘light a blub’ wherever one can. He said that the concept of a good user interface varies from person to person and is very difficult to generalize. He believes that, in this world of internet shopping, our choices depend on how the interface looks and how easy and intuitive it is to use. He then proved his point by giving a live demonstration of a software which he had created using which he booked a airplane ticket without even touching the keyboard! And ya he’s an ex-Bitsian…

Nitin Gokhale is the Defense and Strategic Editor at NDTV. He has an experience of 27 years in his field. He started his talk by mentioning the different security challenges India faces in the current political scenario. According to him, we are a part of the most turbulent region in the world because we are surrounded by a group of unstable countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. We are also facing ‘externally sponsored Jihad’ and  internal armed movements of Naxals. Other issues like communal and economic divide, non military threats and pandemics constantly damage our growth rate as well. He felt that urgent steps are required in this regard.

Cleo Paskal is a  famous climate change expert and author of the popular book “Global Warring”. She is an avid researcher in her field and a fellow of the famous Chatham House, U.K.  She began her speech with a call to all the earthlings to clear the mess created by themselves in the last 100 years. She suggested the current energy and legal infrastructure was completely based on a model which considered earth to be a non-dynamic environment, but now that the whole earth is changing as a result of global warming, this infrastructure needed to be severely upgraded and changed.  She strongly felt that limiting loss is an important way of promoting growth.

All this left the audience spell-bound and hoping for an even bigger, an even better TEDx Pilani 2011.