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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

TEDxIITDelhi

I attended the TEDx event at IIT Delhi held on the 27th February.
For those of you, who are unaware of what TEDx is I am starting from the basics of it..

What is TEDx?
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self organised events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Here x=independently organised TED event. At the event TEDTalks video and live speakers combined to spark a deep discussion and connection in the small group present.
This was the first time, TEDx had come to IIT-Delhi. It was organised with overlapping aims of spreading the culture of ideas, entrepreneurship and innovation amongst the budding entrepreneurs of today.
The theme of the event was "passion", which allowed all attendees to recognise their destinations, while identifying strong talents and ideas at the gathering.
The event featured the following business magnates and entrepreneurs from across the globe:-

1. Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Co-founder Cyber Media

Talk Theme: Indian Entrepreneurship

A first generation entrepreneur, along with his family members promoted Cyber Media in 1982. Mr. Pradeep Gupta is a B.Tech from IIT Delhi(1975) and PGDBM from IIM Calcutta(1977). CyberMedia is South Asia's largest speciality media house, with nine publications in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas; and an end to end media value chain including the internet, events and television. He is also the past chairman of Pan-IIT Alumni India, a board member of TiE Delhi and the vice president of the Indian Association of Magazines. He also heads the technology committees of the Indian Newspapers Society. He was awarded the distinguished alumnus award by IIT Delhi in 2001.

2. Prof. Dinesh Mohan

Talk Theme: Life, Passion and Work

Prof. Dinesh Mohan, Professor, Transportation Research and injury Prevention Program, IIT Delhi has been an instrumental architect of the Bus Rapid Transit(BRT). In the past, he has worked in the Insurance Institute of Highway safety, Washington DC(1975-1978) and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute(1971-1975). Professor Mohan has been a consultant on safety related matters to government departments in India, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Iraq and Libya. A distinguished alumnus from IIT Bombay and a member of WHO advisory panel, Dr. Mohan designed BRT systems in Delhi that provide a dedicated corridor for quicker bus movements coupled with bus priority signalling systems.

3. Mr. Aki Oyama

Title: Introduction to PR2 robots

Mr. Aki Oyama is the Director (Business Development-Asia Pacific) of Willow Garage. Willow Garage was founded by an initial architect of Google and the founder of eGroups, Scott Hassan, 3 years ago in Menlo Park, California. Willow Garage has found the basis of automation in homes and offices through the development of open source communities and common research platform PR2 robot. The PR2 robot is used by leading researchers at Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, UPenn, Georgia Tech, Technical University of Munich, Tokyo University and industrial companies such as Samsung, Bosch and Intel.

4. Mr. Kishore Chakraborti
 
Mr. Kishore Chakraborti is the vice president at McCann Erickson India. McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, where Kishore has been working since the last 25 years. He set up McCann operations in Nepal in the early 90's and turned it into a profit centre. He uses his skills of a language copywriter and strategic planner with responsibilities of a General Manager to explore and innovate new possibilities in consumer insight and brand planning. He edits the McCann insight quarterly and is a visiting faculty at a number of business schools.

5. Mr. Aseem Sadana

Mr. Aseem Sadana is the Co-founder of the London based inline travel company isango.He is currently the head of the company's Indian arm which is based in Delhi. Isango's other cofounder Ranjan Singh was named one of the "Future 500 Business leaders" of the UK. Aseem utilizes the process of production offshoring to provide it's customers with easy access to, what once were, hard to book products.

6. Mr. William Bissell

William Nanda Bissell, 43, is the Managing Director of Fabindia, a company committed to the retail of products made by craft and small producer groups throughout India. Fabindia operates 118 stores (as of June 2010) and has a significant stake in East Limited a UK retailer with 78 stores, 54 independent and 24 in prominent department stores, including John Lewis stores. Fabindia is a pioneer in the Community Owned Company movement having converted its entire supply chain of small artisan clusters into Community Owned Companies(COCs). These companies have 40,000 artisan shareholders and operate in the same regions as the artisan clusters providing them with design inputs, raw materials and access to last mile warehousing and distribution for their products. Bissel is the author of "Making India Work" published by Penguin that outlines a plan for rapid environmentally sustainable growth for India. He lives in New Delhi with his wife Anjali and their two children Sara and John.

Click Here to download voice recordings of all the speakers from the event-- Part1, Part2, Part3

Besides the above speakers, Mallika Sarabhai's video from the TED event at Mysore in November 2009 was also shown. In the video she tells a transformative story in dance -- and argues that the arts may be the most powerful way to effect change, whether political, social or personal.

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