INK is a platform for innovation with storytelling and impact at its core. Being India’s foremost platform for cutting-edge ideas, INK takes pride in nurturing, bringing to life inspiring stories from various walks of life. INK 2023 is our annual celebration of innovative ideas and achievements.
The theme for INK 2023 is Futureverse: Designing a future where technology and humanity cocreate / coexist
As we enter the future, the only certainty is the uncertainty of it. We can either be passive observers of actions unfolding around us or active influencers of the future we want to create. We need to understand the diverse technologies, societal trends unfolding around us; we need to course correct to reverse the climate damage we created; we need to learn to unlearn and relearn at a fast pace and most importantly, we need to collaborate and act as a collective.
This year, at INK, we are reimagining a multitude of magnificent possibilities. We are exploring an alternate timeline for the super era of our future. There is now a need, more than ever, to bring collective action for the hope of a better humanity.
Join us, as we bring the world’s most audacious dreamers, doers, thinkers under the same sky and create a universe for the future. We will gather experts from behavioral science to blockchain; genetics to geopolitics; robotics to renewables; music to mindfulness and more to take us on a journey into what awaits us in the future.
Future is collective
Future is human
Future is …. Fill in the blanks with us – September 22-24, 2023
Lakshmi Pratury brought TED to India in 2009, when the first TEDIndia conference was held in Mysore. In December 2010, she curated and hosted the first INK Conference, in association with TED, which carried forward the momentum created by TEDIndia. Lakshmi Pratury brings with her a varied and rich experience that spans for-profit enterprises, venture capital and nonprofit organizations. Featured in the list of ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ by Forbes Asia in 2010, Lakshmi has traversed an incredible distance professionally.
As a social entrepreneur, Lakshmi was a leading force at the American India Foundation (AIF), where she was part of the management team that raised over $30M in five years to channel towards development activities in India. She was the founder of the Digital Equalizer program, which brought technology education to over 100,000 children and 2,000 teachers in India.
Prior to AIF, Lakshmi was a partner at the venture capital firm Global Catalyst Partners. At Global Catalyst Partners, she established relationships between GCP, the development community in India, and key executives in India.
Before this Lakshmi was with Intel Corporation for 12 years and had various roles in marketing, marketing communication, advertising, and evangelizing the developer community.
Lakshmi holds a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from Nizam College, Hyderabad, India. She attended IIT, Mumbai, and has an MBA from the Bajaj Institute, India, and a second MBA from Portland State University, with a minor in theater arts.
Lakshmi has published articles in San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Chronicle, Mint (leading business daily in India), interviewed celebrities, contributed to radio shows, including National Public Radio, and acted in local (US) theater.
Lakshmi has spoken at high-profile conferences like TED Conference in the US, the DLD Conference in Germany, WIRED conference in UK, and more.
Pradeep Nair is the Regional Director at Ford Foundation, India. Starting off as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting, he advanced to hold several prestigious portfolios, including working with ex-federal reserve chairman Paul Volcker, helping set up his start-up advisory, focused on building trust in global governments; on the C40 network with Mayor Bloomberg; and in climate and finance with President Clinton’s foundation (focused on India).
Balki is currently the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Utopus Insights, a New York-based energy analytics software products company founded in 2017, whose mission is to orchestrate a sustainable future by accelerating the use of renewable energy worldwide. Balki leads all sales and business development initiatives for the company and is passionate about the role of clean energy in changing the world. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Enel Green Power.
Balki deeply values the power of education in empowering people to help make meaningful change. He is Director of Iyer Educational Institutions (IEI) in Bengaluru, India, that runs schools for children with autism, which he co-founded with his wife.
Balki is a recipient of several awards including the prestigious ‘Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business’ award in 2017.
As the MD of Patni Financial Advisors, during his leadership, the firm is in charge of managing deployment of assets across listed securities, debt instruments, real estate and other alternate assets in India, UK and the US.
Anu Sethuram combines her passion for promoting inter-cultural activities and her dedication to community service in her work at INK. As a Partner in the venture, she is an early investor and truly believes in the value proposition that INK offers.
Earlybird (registrations from 1st May - 30th Jun 2023)
Individual - Rs.45,000 (+18% GST)
General (registrations from 1st July - 31 Aug 2023
Individual - Rs. 60,000 (+18% GST)
Last minute registrations from 1st Sep - 15th Sep 2023
Individual - Rs. 75,000 (+18% GST)
*Payments have to be made by the due dates mentioned above.
For group bookings of 5 & above - pls write to nandini@inktalks.com
James Cameron has many avatars that allow him to be a film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and inventor. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009). In the time between making Titanic and his return to feature films with Avatar, Cameron spent some years creating documentary films and also co-developing the digital 3-D Fusion Camera System. Cameron has also worked extensively in deep ocean exploration, diving to extreme depths with his own submersibles, robotics and camera systems.
FILMS: Avatar, Aliens of the Deep, Ghosts of the Abyss, Titanic, Strange Days, True Lies, Terminator II: Judgment Day, The Abyss, Aliens, Rambo: First Blood Part II, The Terminator, Piranha II: The Spawning
Kailash Satyarthi is a human rights activist from India who has been at the forefront of the global movement to end child slavery and exploitation since 1980. He founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) as the first people’s movement for social justice, equity, and education for all children in India. In the last 37 years his efforts have resulted in the rescue of over 86,000 children and adults from child labour, trafficking and other exploitative situations in India.
He innovatively conceptualised the Global March Against Child Labour, organised in 1998 across 103 countries with 7.2 million participants. This ultimately triggered the discussions on the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), which was finally adopted by the ILO in 1999 and went on to be the fastest ratified UN convention till date.
As the international community geared up to adopt and acclaim the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, Satyarthi successfully called upon global leaders to ensure that they include the abolition of child slavery in the post-2015 development agenda. In 2014, Satyarthi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He has dedicated the entire prize sum to the advancement of the rights of children. Presently, Satyarthi is spearheading the largest campaign against child sexual abuse and trafficking in India, the Bharat Yatra (India March).
Anu Aga is on the Board of Thermax Limited, the leading Indian player in energy and environment management. She retired as Chairperson of the company in October, 2004. The Government of India conferred her with the Padma Shri Award for her distinguished service in the field of social work in 2010.
Aga has been very active in various national and local associations like Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and had served as the Chairperson of CII’s Western Region. She has written extensively and given talks on the subjects of corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, role of women and education.
Aga is the Chairperson of the Thermax Social Initiative Foundation (TSIF) which runs the CSR activities of Thermax. Along with Akanksha, TSIF has signed a MOU to support three municipal schools in Pune. She is also closely associated with the Teach for India Initiative which attempts bridging the inequity gap in education. She is keenly involved in the causes of communal harmony and human rights, especially women and children.
Arunachalam Muruganantham of Jayaashree Industries designed, created, tested and implemented a sanitary napkin-making machine that operates on a small scale.
Contrary to a large-scale production model which requires Rs.3.5 Crores as initial investment, Jayaashree Industries sanitary napkin-making machine can be made available to a buyer for approximately Rs.65,000. This allows smaller players to adopt the business model propagated by him, and thus generates more employment and wealth in the most neglected sections of society. More specifically, an empowerment forum – such as a Self Help Group or a women’s group – can invest in a sanitary napkin-making unit to create a business that employs up to ten women. The new invention is capable of making 120 napkins per hour.
Overall, the Jayaashree Industries model helps offer livelihood, hygiene, dignity and empowerment to underprivileged women all over the world. And it does so using a sustainable business framework.
WEBSITE: newinventions.in
David Rowan is editor-in-chief of WIRED’s UK edition. He’s taken 120 flights in the past year to investigate the companies and entrepreneurs changing our world, recently spending time with the founders of WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Google, Spotify, Xiaomi, Nest, Twitter and countless other disruptive startups from Tel Aviv to Shenzhen. His recent keynote talks have included events for banks, governments and Fortune 100 companies, and recent stage interviews have ranged from will.i.am to James Murdoch and David Cameron. David has been a columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Guardian. At WIRED he has extended the brand into conferences, apps, and a consulting business. He is co-founder of FlowJourneys.com, taking amazing people for weekend adventures in the world’s most extraordinary locations. And he is still searching for the future.
The INK Fellows Program is a global community of impact makers and disruptive thinkers who are shaping the future of the world. We accelerate their journeys and take them to their next orbit of global impact.
We work with organisations and individuals who support UN SDG goals. Since the inception of the program in 2010, the work of INK Fellows have collectively reached >35 million people across the globe. We will be announcing the names of the INK Fellows shortly. Stay tuned to this page for more details!
