INK Live 2014

Bani Kohli

Bani Kohli is a 16-year-old student based in Delhi. Bani started Jai Jan in 201,a non-profit organization that helps feed the underprivileged. Jai Jan collects unutilized food from restaurants at the end of the day that cannot be reused by them and distributes it to the needy.

Joi Barua

Joi Barua is a musician from Assam, India who fell in love with music at the age of four, after his father gifted him a violin. Growing up, his town had one piano and no music teachers, and his father had to cross the border and get him a keyboard from Bhutan. Since then, Joi has been making waves in the advertising, music, and film circuit in Mumbai with his musical stylings and melodious voice. He is also the lead vocalist of the band Joi and has a mixed musical style incorporating elements of rock, soul, jazz, folk and world music.

Kenneth Sebastian

Born and raised across different cities in India, Kenneth Sebastian is a musician, filmmaker and one of India’s most popular stand-up comedians. Having performed all over the country with comics such as Vir Das, Phil Nichol (UK), Scott Capurro (UK), Raj Sharma (US, HBO), Imran Yusuf (UK), Tanmay Bhat and many more, today Kenneth has done over 300 solo shows, is soon releasing a solo stand-up special, and working on hosting a TV show on Comedy Central. He also regularly performs at The Canvas Laugh Club and The Comedy Store and is actively involved with Bangalore based comedy group ‘The Polished Bottoms.’ Earlier this year, he started an improvisational comedy ensemble ‘The Improvisers,’ which is one of the highest rated improve groups in the country and now plans to take over the world by spreading laughter

Neeraj Kakkar

Neeraj is co-founder and CEO of Hector Beverages, the makers of Paper Boat drinks, traditional Indian beverages. Their other brand is Tzinga Energy Drink, the second largest selling energy drink in India.  Prior to starting with Hector Beverages, Neeraj had an impressive career with The Coca-Cola Company for 8 years.

Neeraj is a graduate from Wharton Business School and was awarded the highest academic honour, the palmer scholar, in the University of Pennsylvania business program

Nikhil Velpanur

Nikhil operates the multidisciplinary studio and business incubator, Boiled Beans Inc, whose purpose is to explore the idea of infinity and build technology that can change the world.The incubator builds companies at the intersection of the physical and digital world, in realms like personal fabrication, robotics and physical computing.

He was a TED fellow in 2009 and became part of the founding team of INK, putting together the INK Fellows program and launching www.inktalks.com. He is a repeat offender at this ‘entrepreneurship’ thing and has been at it since he launched a magazine at 20.

Prakriti Singh

Prakriti Singh is a 17 year old Delhi girl who has recently become Google’s top hit for “Water Wonder Girl”.
Traumatized by the death of her grandfather from water-borne hepatitis in 2011, Prakriti formed her own NGO, “Praanaadhar” (essence of life), at   age  16.  She worked with different NGOs in the slum areas of Delhi, conducting workshops on water safety for the children who she later organised into ‘Water Ambassadors’.

She has been actively fund raising in her school and with corporate and individual sponsors to install water purifiers in these remote villages of Delhi. She has installed 2 water purifiers that provide clean, potable water to all individuals of the community, free of cost.

Her unbendable determination to rid Delhi of contaminated drinking water and subsequent efforts to supply clean water has earned her media attention from all around. Currently studying in the 12th grade at one of India’s top schools, The Shri Ram School in Gurgaon, Prakriti has many  active interests ranging from  sports to arts and journalism.

She represented India at the US Kids World Golf Championship in North Carolina in 2009. She has been expressing her support to conservation through her works of Art.

In 2013, she interned at NIE at Times of India, researching and writing about pressures that plague today’s teenagers and earlier this year she become one of INK’s young volunteers working on the social media front

Prakriti Singh is a 17 year old Delhi girl who has recently become Google’s top hit for “Water Wonder Girl”.
Traumatized by the death of her grandfather from water-borne hepatitis in 2011, Prakriti formed her own NGO, “Praanaadhar” (essence of life), at   age  16.  She worked with different NGOs in the slum areas of Delhi, conducting workshops on water safety for the children who she later organised into ‘Water Ambassadors’.

She has been actively fund raising in her school and with corporate and individual sponsors to install water purifiers in these remote villages of Delhi. She has installed 2 water purifiers that provide clean, potable water to all individuals of the community, free of cost.

Her unbendable determination to rid Delhi of contaminated drinking water and subsequent efforts to supply clean water has earned her media attention from all around. Currently studying in the 12th grade at one of India’s top schools, The Shri Ram School in Gurgaon, Prakriti has many  active interests ranging from  sports to arts and journalism.

She represented India at the US Kids World Golf Championship in North Carolina in 2009. She has been expressing her support to conservation through her works of Art.

In 2013, she interned at NIE at Times of India, researching and writing about pressures that plague today’s teenagers and earlier this year she become one of INK’s young volunteers working on the social media front

Sanvar Oberoi

Sanvar Oberoi is the Co-Founder and Director of Finance and Digital Technology at Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), a hybrid social enterprise transforming agriculture in developing economies. BOHECO is South Asia’s pioneering help company and is working with governements, scientists, farmers, industry and consumers globally to build an end-to-end ecosystem and self sustaining model which unleashes the supercrop’s tremendous socio-economic and environmental benefits at large scale.

He leads the BOHECO Innovation Lab, the organisation’s moonshot and fundamental research and nanotechnology domain. He has always been deeply affected by the growing number of farmer suicides and their state. He has mafe it his life’s mission to reinstate the status-quo of farmers, women artisans and producers in society and develop interventions to continually and sustainably improve their quality of life significantly. He’s a Ph.D research scholor in Business Economics and has been awarded the INK, Rajeev Circle and Ashoka Fellowship.

Shankar Tucker

Shankar Tucker is an American-born clarinetist and composer who creates music that explores contemporary and traditional Indian sounds. He collaborates with other musicians to represent new generation Indian artists – bringing their music to an internationally and culturally diverse audience, both on- and offline.

WEBSITE: shankartucker.com

Shantanu Moitra

Folk music is rapidly disappearing from mainstream music, but never fear! Shantanu Moitra is a man on a mission to save folk musical traditions. Shantanu is a renowned Indian music composer and restorationist. With a father as an accomplished sarod player and his mother as a talented artist, creativity naturally runs through his veins. He has worked on many landmark Bollywood films, including “Parineeta”, “3 Idiots”, and “Madras Cafe”.

In 2014, he received the National Film Award for Best Music Direction (Background Score) for Na Bangaaru Talli. With his compositions and exploration of lost musical traditions, Shantanu constantly contributes to what he strongly believes is the best way to “see” a country — by experiencing its music

Shashwat Ratan

Shashwat co-founded Robo Shack Microtronics with the aim of making learning about technology fun and engaging. Electro Bricks, the low-cost electronics kits designed for children by Robo Shack do not need any prior skills in programming or soldering. The bricks are pluggable with each other and one can create complex circuits using a number of different combinations of the bricks.

Shashwat has also worked in fostering the makers movement in the small town of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. He is passionate about bringing elements of the maker culture into primary and secondary education in India.

WEBSITE: electrobricks.in

Ugesh Sarcar

Ugesh Sarcar is India’s first and only contemporary and revered street magician. Ugesh was trained in the art of magic under the stewardship of his father – the “Living Legend” Prof. M. C. Sarcar. Thereafter, “Ugesh Sarcar’s 3rd Degree,” his first national TV appearance, became an instant hit and the highest rated show for the channel in over 3 years. There has been no looking back ever since, and his performances have won him accolades the world over

Vishal Gondal

While most kids were grappling with the realities of growing up, Vishal took a head start and started his first company – FACT, soon after finishing school at the ripe young age of 16.

In 1999, he founded Indiagames, then a five member team and today a global operation with over 300 employees and offices in Mumbai, Beijing, London and Los Angeles making Indiagames one of the leading mobile game companies globally. He is recognized as being instrumental in starting and growing the Gaming Industry in India. He sold Indiagames to Disney and headed the Digital business for Walt Disney in India before starting his new venture GOQii Inc. that integrates wearable technology with personalized coaching.