Prior to forming Emotiv, Nam Do co-founded and ran SASme, a pioneer in providing SMPP platforms to telecommunication carriers and content aggregators in Australia and Asia. In 1995, Nam won one of Vietnam’s most prestigious study abroad scholarships. Nam came to Australia’s RMIT University under a full merit scholarship, and started his first technology company in his final year. A regular guest-lecturer at Harvard Business School, HAAS Business School and Stanford University, in 2007, Nam was voted as one of Australia’s Top 10 Digital Entrepreneurs.
UNTOLD STORY: In 2003, Nam Do had dinner with Professor Allan Snyder FRS. They discussed at length about Allan’s work on non-conscious mind with autistic savants. At 4am, Nam told Allan, you know what, the last 20 years have been the era for DSP (digital signal processing), the next 20 years will be the era for ESP (emotional signal processing). Allan loved it and that’s how Emotiv was formed.
Tom Wujec is a pioneer in business visualization, the emerging practice of using images, sketches and data-driven infographics to help teams solve complex problems. Tom�s work has been featured in many international conferences, such as TED, Pop!Tech and the Fortune Innovation Summit. Tom is also the author of three books on creative thinking and is a highly sought after international speaker, delivering visually rich innovation keynotes, workshops and knowledge maps. He has brought several software applications to market, including Autodesk SketchBook Pro, PortfolioWall, and Maya which won an Academy Award for its contribution to the film industry. Tom has worked as a creative director, writer and animator, has designed dozens of museum exhibits, and lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.
BOOKS: Five Star Mind, Pumping Ions, Return on Imagination
WEBSITE: www.tomwujec.com
Simon Lewis is a film and television producer and author. After earning law degrees from Christ’s College Cambridge and Boalt Hall, Berkeley, Lewis moved to Los Angeles where his Hollywood experience includes managing writers, directors and stars as well as producing Look Who’s Talking (1989), The Chocolate War (1988), the Emmy award-winning international co-production for HBO and ITV Central Age Old Friends/A Month of Sundays (1988), and variety specials starring Howie Mandel.
He is the author of Rise and Shine (June 2010), his inspirational autobiography about his journey from near death back to consciousness.
UNTOLD STORY: Simon attributes his belief that life is best lived at the cutting edge to a Swiss friend who showed him how to ski the yellow mogul runs at Zermatt, and achieve balance on the edge of a cliff. He’s been taking creative risks and leaning out over precipices ever since.
BOOKS: Rise and Shine
WEBSITE: www.simonlewis.us; www.riseandshinethebook.com
Sandy Smolan is an award-winning director whose work spans features, documentaries and television. His debut feature film Rachel River was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. 12 Stones, his documentary about the transformation of a group of illiterate women in Southern Nepal, won the jury Prize in 2009 for Best Short Documentary at the Tallahassee and Newport Beach Film Festivals.
Smolan has directed over 50 hours of network prime-time television series, including Brothers& Sisters, Ally Mcbeal, and Northern Exposure. He has begun using the web for both corporate branding and social advocacy, directing the original web series “In Gayle We Trust” and “First Day”, and films about sustainable development for the Gates Foundation.
Untold Story
Sandy directed his first documentary in North Africa. Although robbed of all his film and cameras (later recovered) the night of his 21st birthday, the experience kindled a deep love of travelling which remains undiminished.
Rives is a poet and multi-media artist from Los Angeles, who applies new technologies to ancient art forms. He has appeared on Romanian billboards, in Scottish pubs and inside a 1964 Cadillac with a supermodel for the Bravo TV special Ironic Iconic America. He is the co-host of the annual TEDActive conference and his hobby is rooftops. Offstage, Rives designs and writes pop-up books. He has appeared on multiple seasons of HBO�s Def Poetry Jam and was a member of the Def Poetry international tour group.
Untold Story
I was kicked out of college for attending too long. I should have been kicked out for forging my high school transcript, but I never got caught.
“I like to open the doors to people’s brain.”
Philippe Starck is an internationally acclaimed French creator, designer and architect. This tireless and rebellious citizen of the world, who considers his duty to share his ethical and subversive vision of a fairer world, creates unconventional objects whose purpose is to be ‘good’ before being beautiful. Most of his designs have become cult objects and his hotels have become timeless icons, adding a new dimension to the global cityscape.
Being an enthusiastic advocate of sustainability, this visionnaire recently developed the revolutionary concept of ‘democratic ecology’ by creating affordable wind turbines for the home, soon to be followed by innovative prefab ecological wooden houses and solar boats.
Untold Story
He lives with his wife Jasmine, mostly on the airplane and in Paris, Burano and his oyster farm in southwest of France.
WEBSITE: www.starck.com
Since 1988, Nancy Duarte’s firm has created over a quarter of a million presentations. As one of the largest woman-owned businesses in Silicon Valley, her experience working with global companies and thought leaders has influenced the perception of some of the world’s most valuable brands and many of humanity’s common causes. Fascinated by presentations as the most powerful persuasive medium, Duarte determined to crack the code on why some presentations are riveting and others are unbearable. In Fall 2010 she released Resonate—Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences which identifies hidden story structures inherent in great communication.
Untold Story
Nancy does her best thinking about 40 minutes in to a demanding 3-hour hike in the foothills of the Silicon Valley. At the summit, she sits on a bench and gushes over the valley because it has been like the land of milk and honey for her.
BOOKS: Slide:ology, Resonate
WEBSITE:www.duarte.com
If Michael Foley’s behind a product, expect a technological marvel that is strong on both form and functionality.
Michael Foley first made his mark with stunning designs that gave a contemporary makeover to Titan Industries. He joined Titan Industries in 1995 as a product design intern, grew to head the Titan Design Studio in less than a decade, and later became Titan’s Chief Creative Advisor. Michael’s design experience ranges from wrist watches, sunglasses, and fashion jewelry to retail design and visual merchandising. In 2006, Michael felt the need to take design on to an even bigger platform and the studio – ‘Foley Designs’ – was incorporated with specializations in product design, packaging, graphics, space design, brand identity and more. ‘Intuitive design’ is a focus for the studio.
Untold Story
Michael draws an innate association to the purity and wonder of nature. The implicit simplicity, with which natural entities are created, inspires him infinitely.
BOOKS: A compilation across books on the creations of Leonardo da Vinci
Mami is a well-known singer in Mizoram. Her debut album, Damlai Par, released in 2007, was rated as the top selling album of the year and led to a hat-trick of awards at the Mizoram Music Awards; Best Female Singer, Best Music Video and Song of the Year for the title track. Her following three singles reached the top 10 leading to another prestigious MMA in 2008. Mami recently released her new music video Hmangaihna Vanduai Maw with her second album to follow next year.
UNTOLD STORY: I was recently invited to a school year function, I had a television appearance later on in the evening, so, feeling guilty, I made my excuses and left early, telling them to be sure to watch the telecast live on local cable that night. I got home, changed, did my make-up and waited to be collected, and waited, and waited… Eventually, I called them. The date was for the following week! I was totally embarrassed – the worst part is that when my mom got home – her advice was “Drink a glass of water and sleep on it!!”
Leonie Casanova is a London-based singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Zambia to an Italian father and Zambian mother, and schooled in Swaziland, England and the USA where she studied Economics and French Literature, Leonie�s colourful and almost nomadic background has deeply informed her approach to songwriting and to the intrinsic and essential story-telling element of this process. Leonie crosses and fuses genres and musical textures fluidly which allows exploration of what she calls �an endless work playground�.
UNTOLD STORY: Leonie thinks her obsession with mangoes and her ability to sit and �observe the world� may have something to do with days spent climbing and sitting on mango trees as a child in Zambia!
A social psychologist and marketer, Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. She is widely published in the leading scholarly journals in psychology and marketing, and her work has been featured in a variety of media, including The Economist, NYTimes, WSJ, Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and Science. A sought-after teacher in the field of marketing, Professor Aaker teaches courses, including ‘Designing Happiness’, ‘How to Tell a Story’, ‘Building Innovative Brands’, and ‘The Power of Social Technology’.
UNTOLD STORY: Jennifer, 19, was a patron at a Boston nightclub, when defending her friend from an aggressive dancer, she suddenly found herself in a dance-off. Jennifer both saved her friend and won said dance-off and now remembers the ‘80s fondly.
BOOKS: The Dragonfly Effect
WEBSITE: faculty-gsb.stanford.edu; dragonflyeffect.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
Dinh Thi Hoa grew-up in communist North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She went to university in Moscow and later returned to Vietnam to join the Foreign Service of the Vietnamese government. In 1990, she was chosen as the first Vietnamese to receive the World Bank scholarship to study at Harvard Business School. She returned to Vietnam in 1994. Hoa has been nicknamed “a serial entrepreneur” because she is the founder/manager of number of successful businesses in Vietnam, including Galaxy, the Paris Deli cafe chain, and Thienviet Securities among several others. She also supports education and art non-profit projects.
Untold Story
Hoa escaped all the atrocities of Vietnam War and had the fortune to study in the former USSR and the US. She came back to Vietnam in 1994 and since then has been trying to bring new ideas to help rebuild her country.
New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest leaders in the field of mind body medicine.
He is the Founder and Chairman of the Chopra Foundation, Founder and co-Chairman of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California and a Gallup Senior Scientist.
He regularly mentors corporate and political leaders through his “Soul of Leadership” workshops. Chopra is the recipient of the 2010 Goi Peace Award and numerous other international awards. Time Magazine heralds Deepak Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century, and credits him as “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.”
UNTOLD STORY: In 2010, Deepak spent two weeks of silent retreat in Thailand as an ordained Buddhist monk, which included begging for food with a begging bowl and understanding and embracing impermanence and awareness of one’s own death.
BOOKS: Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul; Chopra has written more than 55 books. His books have been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
WEBSITE: http://deepakchopra.com
Dr. Anita Goel is the Founder, Chairman and Scientific Director of Nanobiosym, an innovation engine and hi-tech incubator at the convergence of physics, nanotechnology and biomedicine, and CEO of Nanobiosym Diagnostics to commercialize the Gene-RADAR technology platform to empower people worldwide with rapid, portable diagnostic information about their own health.
MIT Technology Review Magazine named her one of the world’s “Top 35 Science and Technology Innovators”. Invited by Senator John Kerry to help reauthorize $1.5B for the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative, Dr. Goel is also spearheading an initiative to build a Nanobiosym innovation ecosystem in India to sustainably bring emerging technologies into emerging markets.
Untold Story
Anita grew up in the rural South, where black and white people lived on different sides of the railroad. She spent time meditating in nature and reading the Vedanta in the midst of backyard pets: chickens and peacocks. From the age of 8, she would “scrub in” on her dad’s operations.
Selected articles:
“Harnessing Biological Motors to Engineer Systems for Nanoscale Transport and Assembly” in Nature Nanotechnology.
“Molecular Evolution: a role for quantum mechanics in the dynamics of molecular machines that read DNA,” in the book Quantum Aspects of Life
Responsible for strategic planning and game-creation at Multiverse, Corey is helping build a network of interactive entertainment, which includes casual games, Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), and 3D virtual worlds. Over the past year, Corey has overseen development of games for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, as well as the ground-breaking “Battle: Realms at War,” the world’s most extensive web-based MMOG.
Corey brings experience from some of the most influential companies in the high-tech and entertainment industries, including Netscape, Netflix, Zone Labs, Borland, and The Discovery Channel. In 2003, he was invited to contribute to a U.S. Homeland Security task force on Cyber Security.
Untold Story
Corey was the editor-in-chief of the campus humor magazine at the University of California at Berkeley. At the time, he was an entomology major. Realizing he preferred story-telling to bugs, he switched majors to English. Now in high-tech, he’s once again surrounded by bugs. Go figure.
Website: www.multiverse.net
Anil Ananthaswamy is a consultant for New Scientist in London. He has worked at the magazine in various capacities since 2000, most recently as deputy news editor. He has also contributed to National Geographic News and The Independent (UK). He studied electronics,electrical and computer engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Bachelor of Technology), and the University of Washington, Seattle (Master of Science), and worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley before training as a journalist at the University of California Santa Cruz. He is the author of The Edge of Physics, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (published as The Edge of Reason by Penguin, India).
Untold Story
Anil attributes his interest in cosmology to a thin, dog-eared copy of Lincoln Barnett’s The Universe and Dr. Einstein, which he picked up one night as a cure for insomnia, only to read it by early morning, entranced by Einstein.
BOOKS: The Edge of Physics
WEBITE: www.edgeofphysics.com
Anand Kumar is ushering in a revolution in the hinterlands of India by equipping youth to dream big through his education initiative ‘Super 30’ in Patna, Bihar. In 1994, he was admitted to Cambridge University but was unable to afford it after his father, a low paid postal employee, passed away. In the last eight years of ‘Super 30’, Kumar, now a noted mathematics teacher, has coached a phenomenal 212 students, most first generation learners from rural, poor backgrounds, to pass the joint entrance test of the Indian Institute of Technology. Time Magazine selected ‘Super 30’ in the Best of Asia 2010, and Discovery Channel made a documentary film on ‘Super 30’.
Untold Story
Anand was attacked by armed men hired by coaching Mafiosi, who did not want his style of coaching. He survived, and undeterred, continued on his path to provide free food, lodging and free coaching to economically disadvantaged students.
Website: www.super30.org
Zohre Elahian has been actively involved in international development for over 10 years. With her husband, Zohre started Schools Online, a not-for-profit organization that has brought computers to schools and introduced ICT in education in many countries around the world and within the US. As the Managing Director of Global Catalyst Foundation, Zohre has also evaluated many projects, addressing critical needs in education, ICT and microfinance; and her Foundation has provided funding to such projects in many countries.
Zohre has also served on the board of directors of Relief International for over 8 years working on different developmental and humanitarian projects in countries such as Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and many other countries. Prior to her humanitarian activities, she co-managed a successful private business for 15 years.
Zohre holds an M.A. in Anthropology. In 2009 Zohre received the Unsung Heroes of Compassion award and special blessing from his Holiness, The Dalai Lama.
WEBSITE
www.global-catalyst.org
He started his career in 1980 with the German Red Cross, and subsequently moved into leading international supply chain solutions providers, e.g. Kuehne & Nagel. From 1991-1999, he held senior management positions with TNT, including Country General Manager, Switzerland, and Director of Eastern Europe & Eastern Mediterranean Region.
From 1999-2010, he was with the French Groupe La Poste, and was President and Chief Executive Officer of the GeoPost Intercontinental, the international expansion and network vehicle, and a Member of the Board of GeoPost, the express parcel holding of Groupe La Poste.
Wolfgang has been involved in major initiatives in the Courier Express Parcel (CEP) industry. Such developments include the setting up of GD Express Worldwide, the consortium of TNT and five major postal organisations (German, French, Dutch, Swedish and Canadian), in Germany, the management of the Express Mail Service (EMS) Joint Venture between Deutsche Post and TNT Express Worldwide, the development of TNT Express Worldwide in the Eastern European and Eastern Mediterranean regions, the expansion of the express parcel business of La Poste in Europe, the integration of the European parcel network DPD into the Group�s business, and the global express parcel expansion of La Poste through strategic investments combined with entrepreneurial partnerships, resulting in taking positions in key markets worldwide, including China, India, Korea and South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America, as well as establishing and managing the Group�s global express parcel network.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Having built the foundations of skills and competencies upon my roots in Germany and Western Europe, my journey has taken me in the mid-1990s to the emerging economies and later to the global market, with a bias towards the fast growing large countries. Along the way, I have become more and more a global citizen, enjoying living and working in various countries on different continents. The international experience has resulted into an enquiring mind towards social and economic challenges and solutions in the cultural environment encountered.
WEBSITE
www.wolfgang-lehmacher.com
Named by The Huffington Post as one of the “Top 10 Changemakers Under 40”, Vineet Singal is a senior at Stanford University and leads 100KCheeks, an initiative to register 100,000 new bone marrow donors using the power of personal stories and social media.
In working closely with Professor Jennifer Aaker at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a team of 12 dedicated Stanford students, Vineet helped 100KCheeks reach its goal in 1 year. Vineet is currently leading efforts to register a million bone marrow donors worldwide in 2012 and jumpstart the creation of national marrow registries in countries like India and Indonesia.
Vineet wants to use his skills as a social entrepreneur and future physician to fight for greater access to quality and affordable healthcare for the underserved. His resolve solidified in Galveston, TX during the fall of 2009, when he took a leave of absence from Stanford to volunteer full time at St. Vincent�s free clinic. Back at Stanford, Vineet co-founded Anjna, a national nonprofit organization that aims to utilize technology at free clinics. Vineet helped build a network of 250+ undergraduates, medical students and faculty and is leading efforts to create health education programs at free clinics in high need areas nationwide, in addition to conducting groundbreaking pilot studies on utilizing interactive, tablet based education and SMS technology at clinics in the bay area.
Vineet has delivered talks on his social entrepreneurship work at Stanford Business School, Techonomy, TEDxTampaBay, Medicine 2.0 and at other various conferences and events. His work has been featured in Forbes, New York Times, Huffington Post, PBS, AdAge and the Clinton Global Initiative University among others.
He has completed and published research projects at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University School of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic and has received research awards from Intel, the College Board, Sigma Xi, the Irene and Eric Simon Foundation and the National Cancer Institute. In 2011, Vineet was awarded the Barry M. Goldwater scholarship, a prestigious national award conferred to undergraduates studying the sciences. Vineet is an Staples/Ashoka Global Youth Social Entrepreneur, Ashoka Youth Venture Fellow, Donald A. Strauss Scholar, a Haas Public Service Fellow, a DoSomething/AT&T Fellow and a Pearson Prize Fellow. Vineet serves on the Stanford University Board of Trustees and on the board of directors for Clinic by the Bay, a Volunteers in Medicine affiliated free clinic in San Francisco.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Being a foreigner and stranger has defined my upbringing; I may well be one of the only people who has bathed in the Ganges, been taken hostage in a Saudi terrorist attack and walked the Lord of the Rings trail.
I vividly recall trying to protect my mother from the Saudi policeman’s whips (her hair wasn’t completely covered) or being physically and verbally harassed for having an Indian accent at the all boys’ high school I attended in New Zealand. However, I never ran away from who I was even in the face of physical intimidation.
When my family moved to the Bronx, I was yet again a foreigner, this time to America�s educational system and culture. However, I felt welcome in the United States. Graduating as my high school�s valedictorian and one of the top debaters in the country imbued me in perseverance and an ethic of compassion learned in adversity.
My experiences instill in me incessant empathy for my future patients, and an unyielding belief that no matter our differences, the things that unite us and bring us together are stronger and far outnumber those that drive us apart.
Vikram Bhaskaran is the CEO and Co-Founder of Samosa Media whose flagship product is Samosapedia: The Definitive Guide to South Asian Lingo.
Vikram has a background in strategy, operations and business development in the digital media sector. He is passionate about south asian culture and language and his goal is to build the most lovable south asian humor brand that makes people laugh out loud or perhaps break into an uncontrollable smile. He calls Bangalore and New York home.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: Samosapedia is as much about celebrating urban slang as it is about documenting and capturing words and concepts that are quickly vanishing. While the site is a great way to inspire young people globally to contribute entries, there is a whole community of older people who we probably never reach. The journey I want to take is an oral history project, where I travel around south asia with a small team of talented writers and documentary filmmakers to capture words, phrases and concepts that are quickly disappearing from the modern south asian landscape.
WEBSITE: www.samosapedia.com
Swanand Kirkire has many strings to his bow, he is a writer, song-writer, actor, playwright and director in the Hindi film industry. Graduating from the National School of Drama in 1996 he soon moved into the world of television, and then, in 2003, progressed to film, making his debut as a lyricist & singer with Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi.
Swanand has since won two National Film Awards for the lyrics of Lage Raho Munna Bhai in 2007 and again in 2009 for 3 Idiots.
UNTOLD STORY
When Swanand was in eleventh grade, students were asked to write an essay on their heroes. Whilst everybody else wrote about Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose, Swanand wrote about actor Om Puri. He achieved full marks!
Globe-trotting percussion ensemble Talavya bring tabla to the center stage, distilling its age-old classical spirit and practice into a high-energy, highly accessible performance. Composed by music maestro Pandit Divyang Vakil, the quartet of Rushi Vakil, Kaumil Shah, Sahil Patel and Rahul Shrimali with accompaniment by Heena Patel moves between rousing peaks and smooth meditative passages, revealing the colours of tabla.
Shoba Murali, CEO and co-founder of The UCAN Company, helped shape the overall manufacturing, formulation, clinical trials and marketing strategy of the company. The company markets glucose sustaining consumer-based nutritional products in sports nutrition, fitness, weight management and diabetes markets.
She was also involved from start-up to IPO, as President and Co-founder of Acorn Information Services. Ms. Murali holds a M.S in Computer Sciences from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a B.E. in Electronics from Osmania University.
WEBSITE
www.generationucan.com
An acid attack survivor herself, Shirin started the Palash Foundation to address social reintegration and livelihoods for people with disfigurement. In 1998, her husband threw acid on her after she requested divorce.
She has an MSc in Development & Human Rights and earned a distinction for her thesis, ‘Does disfigurement lead to disability due to social exclusion?’ Prior to Palash, she worked on a range of projects in the social sector.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Being burned was the best experience of my life. The many masks that I was carrying started melting one by one. The disfigurement of my face also helped in sifting out people who genuinely cared for me. Having a second lease on life, the realisation came very strong to stop complaining and enjoy what I have. I started appreciating all things made by the creator and the imperfections of life. The journey inward had begun and I am still a work in progress.
WEBSITE
doilooknormal.blogspot.com
Sheena Iyengar looks deeply at choosing and has discovered many surprising things about it. For instance, her famous “jam study,” done while she was a grad student, quantified a counterintuitive truth about decisionmaking — that when we’re presented with too many choices, like 24 varieties of jam, we tend not to choose anything at all. (This and subsequent, equally ingenious experiments have provided rich material for Malcolm Gladwell and other pop chroniclers of business and the human psyche.)
Iyengar’s research has been informing business and consumer-goods marketing since the 1990s. But she and her team at the Columbia Business School throw a much broader net. Her analysis touches, for example, on the medical decisionmaking that might lead up to choosing physician-assisted suicide, on the drawbacks of providing too many choices and options in social-welfare programs, and on the cultural and geographical underpinning of choice. Her book The Art of Choosing shares her research in an accessible and charming story that draws examples from her own life.
Ruchi is the founder and CEO of Cove – a company she started with other early ex-Facebookers. Prior to starting her own company, Ruchi was the first female engineer at Facebook.
Just a few months out of school, Ruchi is credited with building one of Facebook’s key features – News Feed, a feature users rebelled against and then eventually came to love. She then led product management and strategy for Privacy, Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect.
Her current company, Cove, is a stealth Internet startup that recently raised a seed round of financing from investors like Peter Thiel, Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook), Kraft Family (owner of Patriots) and others.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: When I was in school, I heard an impromptu speech given by one of India’s premier entrepreneurs Rahul Bajaj. He said, “I ran the race, I didn’t also run the race but I ran the race”. I’d like to embark on a simple journey. I want to run the race, I want to be an active participant. I want to build a company that creates products that impact our lives in meaningful ways.
Violinist Robert Vijay Gupta joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in June 2007 at the age of 19.
Before joining the orchestra, Robert received a Master’s degree in Music from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Marist College. Parallel to his undergraduate studies in biology, he attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School of Music, Pre-College Division. His principal teachers have included Glenn Dicterow, Ani Kavafian, and Isaac Stern.
Robert made his solo debut at the age of eleven in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. He has performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bombay Symphony Orchestra among many others. He has also performed widely as a chamber musician and recitalist on an international scale since the age of eight, and frequently appears on the Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Society and Green Umbrella new music series. Robert has also performed as a guest concertmaster with the Los Angeles Opera under James Conlon and the Orquestra Comunitat de Valencia at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia, Spain under Mehta.
Robert curates and directs a free outreach concert series for the homeless, veterans, and mentally ill on skid row in downtown Los Angeles called The Street Symphony, which brings musical activism to underserved communities throughout Southern California. The project aims to bring live musical performance to audiences without access in order to remove the stigma associated with homelessness and mental health.
Throughout his undergraduate course of study, Robert held Research Assistant positions at CUNY Hunter College in New York City, where he worked on spinal chord neuronal regeneration, and at the Harvard Institutes of Medicine Center for Neurologic Diseases, where he studied the biochemical pathology of Parkinson’s disease. He is passionate about discovering more about how music affects the brain, especially in neurological disorders. Robert is a TED Senior Fellow.
Robert recorded his debut album in July 2011 with Yarlung Records, in Walt Disney Concert Hall. The album includes solo violin works by John Harbison, Eugene Ysaÿe, and HIF Biber, as well as the premiere recordings of LA Phil principal timpanist Joseph Pereira’s Partita for Solo Violin and Gupta’s own composition upon the Indian raga “Jaunpuri”. The album was recorded on the 1716 “Milstein” Stradivarius.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: In 2008, I met Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless, paranoid schizophrenic man, that I have come to call a close friend, and certainly, amongst my most effective teachers. Nathaniel studied musical performance at the prestigious Juilliard School, where I would later attend, but he dropped out after his diagnosis with mental illness, and lived homeless in Los Angeles for 30 years. I became his violin teacher, and time after time, the music would bring him back from the very brink of a schizophrenic episode. Nathaniel showed me that music was medicine, that music was sanity.
WEBSITE: http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/artist-detail.cfm?id=3309
Rob Cook was the co-architect and primary author of Pixar’s RenderMan software, which creates photo-realistic computer images. In 2001, he and two colleagues received Oscars for their contributions, the first ever given for software.
In the last 17 years, every film that has won a Visual Effects Oscar has used RenderMan. Rob has a Bachelors degree in physics from Duke University and a Masters degree in Computer Graphics from Cornell University. At Cornell, he worked on simulating realistic surfaces, taking computer-generated images beyond the distinctive plastic look they had at the time. In 1981, he joined Lucasfilm/Pixar, where he developed the first programmable shader; programmable shading is now an essential part of GPUs and game engines as well as high-end renderers. He was the first to use Monte Carlo techniques in computer graphics, which was essential for simulation of complex, realistic lights and camera effects. The latter proved particularly important in the special effects industry, because it allowed computer-generated imagery to match the motion blur and depth of field of the live-action footage with which it was combined. In 1987, he received the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award in recognition of these contributions, and in 2009, he received the ACM SIGGRAPH Stephen A. Coons Award for his lifetime contributions to the field. In 1999, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He has been named to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Engineering.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
I grew up in rural east Tennessee, and my family didn�t have the resources or interest to do much traveling. So it wasn�t until my twenties that I took my first trip overseas. That experience got me hooked on travel and adventure. I became enthralled with other cultures and peoples, and the excitement of traveling has stayed with me ever since.
Mr. Raghavan is the Founder Chairman of Agastya International Foundation, the world’s largest hands-on mobile science education program for economically disadvantaged children and rural teachers.
In 1998 Mr. Raghavan left a career in banking in London to create Agastya International Foundation, a transformative and innovative education charity in India. Prior to Agastya, he worked as a senior executive in financial service organizations in the US, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia .
As Chairman of Agastya, Mr. Raghavan leads a grassroots initiative to support and transform primary and secondary education in India. Operating with a fleet of 80 Mobile Labs, 36 rural science centers, 2 Lab on Bikes ( 30 in the pipeline), and a 172-acre campus Creativity Lab near Bangalore, Agastya has reached creative hands-on science education to nearly 5 million poor and disadvantaged children and 200,000 teachers and pioneered innovations including mobile science, ecology and art labs, Young Instructor Leaders (children-teaching-children) and a Creativity Lab that incorporates science labs, an interactive museum, model making, teacher training, art and ecology. Under the leadership of Mr. Raghavan, Agastya’s innovative “TechLaBike Project” was announced as one of the 4 winners of the Google Impact Challenge in India on Oct 31st 2013. Agastya received a Rs 3 crore Global Impact Award, 10 Nexus tablets and support from Google to make their project a reality.
Mr. Raghavan was a member of the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission (Working Group on Attracting children to Science and Math), is a member of the board of Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi, the Karnataka State Innovation Council and executive council member of the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum. In 2009 Mr. Raghavan was elected a Senior Fellow by Ashoka: Innovators for the public and in 2011 he was conferred the People’s Hero Award by the Confederation of Indian Industry (Southern Zone). He has written articles on education for Indian and foreign journals and spoken on creativity and leadership to audiences at prestigious forums including the Education World Forum (London), Harvard India Conference (Boston), Clinton Global Initiative (New York), Peking University, Indian Institute of Science, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore,Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, National College for School Leadership (UK), the PanIIT Conference and the IIMPACT Alumni Meet (Singapore).
Rajika Puri is an exponent of two forms of Indian dance – Bharatanatyam and Odissi – which for several years she performed internationally in solo recital (including a command performance for the President of Mexico). After playing ‘Narrator/goddess Kali’ in The Transposed Heads directed by Julie Taymor (Lincoln Center Theater, ’86), she developed a form of danced storytelling in which she accompanies her dances with songs, chants, vocalized rhythmic syllables, and a narrative in English. An evening of such stories, commissioned by the Rubin Museum of Art, was also presented off-Broadway: Devi-Malika: a garland of danced stories on the feminine divine in India (Duke on 42nd, ’08).
Familiarity with other kinds of music and dance – western classical, modern, flamenco – drew her to cross-cultural ventures. She is best known for several phases of Flamenco Natyam in which she weaves Indian dance and music, with flamenco (Works & Process at the Guggenheim, NY; Kala Ghoda Festival & NCPA, Mumbai; Habitat Centre, Delhi). The Museum of Flamenco Dance in Seville recently dedicated a week – entitled Namaste – to her lectures, workshops and performances tracing the cultural connections between Andalusia and south India. With noted singer Nora York, she also explored – through American song, and Odissi music and dance – two passionate ways of relating to deity: as lover, Krishna, and as mother, Kali (Union/Severed, Asia Society, NY, ’05).
Since 2005, her company Rajika Puri and Dancers – which includes a creative team of film/opera directors, lighting designers and musician-composers – has created thematic evening-length productions of choreographed group dances and danced stories like Conversations with Shiva: Bharatanatyam Unwrapped (Joyce SoHo, ’07) and Tapasya: Ascetic Power and Tales of the Ganges (Joyce, SoHo and on film,’09).
With a Masters degree in ‘The Anthropology of Human Movement’ from New York University (which focused on forms of communication that use the body: sign languages, martial arts, dance-theatres) she brings a cross-cultural perspective both to her theatrical productions and her writings on dance, music and theatre.
For a while Rajika was active on the western stage, and also took part in films. In New York, apart from starring in The Transposed Heads at Lincoln Center Theater, she performed in Cymbeline at the Public Theater, in Phaedra Britannica at the Classic Stage Company, and Macbeth with Theater for a New Audience. In India, she played Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet. Her films include Mira Nair’s Mississipi Masala, Dev Benegal’s Split Wide Open, and Norman Rene’s Longtime Companion.
Deeply committed to the performing arts, Rajika and her husband both support and are actively engaged with several music, theatre, and dance institutions, and museums, in New York. She is co-curator of the Indo-American Arts Council’s Erasing Borders dance festival, and a member of the Board at the World Music Institute.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Born in Tanzania at the end of World War II when my father was fighting in Burma, I spent a peripatetic childhood. By thirteen I had been to eleven different schools – in Cairo, London, Dehra Dun, Delhi, and Kasauli – and spoke smatterings of Nepali, Arabic, and Swahili. Today, other than English and Hindi, I speak Spanish, French, and some Italian. My world changed when I was introduced to social anthropology and realized that I had, all my life, been ‘translating cultures’ as an amateur, – and that there was an art, and science to this, which I could learn.
WEBSITE
www.rajikapuri.com
INTERESTING FACTS
I adore traveling and reading cultural histories of different countries I visit, even picking up a smattering of language. Apart from listening to flamenco (prefer deep song to ‘new flamenco’) and watching and listening to dance, theater, and music from all over the world, I am an opera buff. Spend far too much time, though, on the computer – updating my Facebook pages: Flamenco Natyam, Rajika Puri and Dancers, and two others I manage: World Music Institute, and NY Indian Dance – and writing emails!!
Magsaysay Awardee Prakash Amte runs Lok Biradari Prakalp to provide community services to tribal people in rural Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. The project has grown into a hospital, residential school and an orphanage for injured wild animals.
Prakash Amte is a M.B.B.S. graduate by profession but the spectrum of activities he carries out ranges from performing complex surgeries, fractures, and simple eye surgeries. He has first hand experience in hand rearing of wild-life animals from leoprads to huge bears,even the deadliest snakes have been befriended by him. He heads an rare informal court where the adivasis from far away come out of love and trust that justice will be granted. The most unusual being repairing watches and radios of the adivasis which he still continues to do.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Way back in 1970 Lt. Baba urged his sons to come for a picnic in dandakaranya forest. Prakash accompanied his visionary father Lt. Baba Amte into the dense forests of bhamragad. Moved by the extreme poverty, exploitation, illiteracy and malnuitrition Baba decided to start a project for tribal development. At that time Prakash was young and freshly graduated; seeing his aged father’s enthusiasm and dedication, he promised Baba to join him in his mission. This trip was a turning point in Prakash’s life. Shortly after, he was joined by his young and able physician wife Mandakini.
WORKS
Prakashwata (Marathi Autobiography)
WEBSITE
lokbiradariprakalp.org
Tiger is one of the pioneers of the business process management industry who transformed Genpact from a unit of GE in 1997 into a leading global business process and technology management services company. Tiger began his career with the Unilever Group in India where he spent seven years in sales and marketing. He then shifted to the financial services industry and spent three years with Citibank’s Consumer Financial Services businesses, where he earned a reputation for turning around inefficient businesses. He joined GE Capital in 1994 as Head of Risk in India and went on to become CEO for GE Capital’s Global Consumer Finance and Auto Financial Services operations in India. In 2002, he was transferred within GE to the Global Commercial Lending Businesses in the U.S. as Global Head of Six Sigma and Global Operations. Tiger rejoined Genpact in 2005 and became President and CEO in June 2011.
Tiger has a degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and an MBA, majoring in Finance and Marketing, from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. By playing a key leadership role in the founding of Genpact, Tiger also spawned the business process management industry as a whole which has had an extraordinary positive impact on economic growth and workforce development in many emerging markets – opening doors to employment, training, and educational opportunities along with infrastructure and services. Genpact also indirectly contributes to the employment of an additional one million people who work in businesses that support the company and its employees.
Known for his extraordinary energy, frequent engagement with clients, and activity in social media forums, Tiger speaks at many industry and global business events including the World Economic Forum and the Wall Street Journal CEO Council. He and his wife have one son who is attending a university in the U.S.
PERSONAL JOURNEYDuring my career, I have believed in joining a company, not just taking a job. After great opportunities working in sales management for Unilever and consumer and commercial finance at Citibank, I read Jack Welch’s two books and decided that I had to work for GE. I interviewed for sales but ended up in risk management because I was so passionate about the company, and I still am. I also believe in continually taking on projects that challenge and stretch your capabilities. By doing this, you take the necessary risks that will bring you to the next level
Michael Pollack manages his family investment firm, Pollack Holdings, which has interests in a broad array of both public and private securities. He also established and now runs his private, family foundation, SCA.
SCA is active in venture philanthropy, primarily in India, where it collaborates with social entrepreneurs to scale their business models. Additionally, Michael teaches Philosophy/Ethics and Social Entrepreneurship courses as an Adjunct Professor at New York University Stern School of Business. From 2001 to 2008, Michael co-founded and was one of two general partners at Glenhill Capital, a long/short public equities investment firm. Before leaving Glenhill to form SCA and Pollack Holdings, he helped grow Glenhill into a global investment business with more than $2.5 billion under management. Michael graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1998.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Sat, Chit, Ananda. Existence, Knowledge, Bliss. These three words have become the defining philosophy of my life. I fundamentally believe that knowledge is the key to better decision making, and better decision making the key to a more fulfilled, connected, healthier life. Born the son of a social worker and teacher, I was the lucky recipient of a world class education that enabled me to achieve disproportionate financial success young in life. Three years ago I had a life changing experience, narrowly surviving 26/11. My driving aim since 26/11 is to use my good fortune to empower world-class social entrepreneurs to educate those born less fortunate.
WEBSITE
Lisa Staprans has practiced interior design and product design for 20 years. She travels the world for inspiration and to learn and study other cultures, art, architecture and lifestyles. The book she is currently writing, The Soul of Design, features art, interior design, architecture, gardens, and other soulful spaces around the world.
Lisa earned a Bachelors degree in Fine Art from the University of California at Berkeley, and later studied at the School of Visual Arts and Parson�s School of Design, both located in New York City. Her career in design began in New York City working for large and small firms. In 1992 she and her husband founded the company, Lisa Staprans Interior Design, currently known as Staprans Design. Lisa�s clients have homes in Virginia, New York, Utah, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, and many places in California.
�I entered college intent on becoming a fine artist. By graduation I�d become captivated by the idea of using interior design to make a palpable difference in people�s everyday lives. The best part is � I get to collaborate with interesting, creative and inspiring people every day. Sometimes it�s a team of architects, contractors, artisans, craftspeople and, of course, home owners. Other times it�s a small group, just me, my project manager, and the owners. Whatever the size of the team, it�s a wonderful feeling when we unite behind a vision to create a beautiful home.�
�I also have a growing passion for finding ways to make the practice of sustainable consumption an integral part of our interior design. I find fulfillment in working with artisans and firms that have integrity and a sense of social responsibility. �Green� materials take first preference, while reclaimed lumber and antiques add a sense of warmth and history. I prefer products that are not mass-produced, but instead they are made for individual spaces by individual artists. I support the small village and family with my choices of where things are manufactured. If I use products from other countries I strive to make sure that the people creating those products are not using child labor or subjecting workers to inhumane conditions.�
Lisa frequently travels the globe, making yearly visitis to her Latvian home on the Baltic Sea, always buying treasures for projects and her small showroom in the Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park. She travels the world for inspiration and to learn and study other cultures, art, architecture and lifestyles. The book she is currently writing, The Soul of Design, features art, interior design, architecture, gardens, and other soulful spaces around the world.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
My personal journey began when I was diagnosed with cancer 7 years ago with 2 young sons at home. I had been questioning my work and how I was making a difference before I got sick. I wanted to leave a legacy for my sons so they would know why I left home each day and traveled the country and parts of the world for my work. Getting cancer helped me to realize that there is a much bigger purpose to creating and living design: we can support indigenous cultures by supporting their work through design and that we can make a difference in our communities both at home and globally if we think about the cause and effect of how we consume. This seed took root during a trip to India 5 years ago with Lakshmi (the host of this wonderful conference) and a group of extraordinary women from the Bay Area of California. Being in India helped me to see the humility in humanity and the true difference we can make in someone�s life through the choices we make and support.
WEBSITE
www.stapransdesign.com
Julie Taymor is an American film, opera and theater director.
Her most recent film, The Tempest, stars Helen Mirren as Prosepra (2010). Taymor’s previous film, Across The Universe, a re-imagining of 35 Beatles songs starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Musical/Comedy (2008). Her film, Frida (2002), starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, earned six Academy Award nominations and won two. In 1999, Taymor made her feature film directorial debut with Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. The hour-long Fool’s Fire, which she both directed and adapted from an Edgar Allan Poe short story, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on PBS (1992).
Taymor is best known for her direction of The Lion King on Broadway (1997), which has presented in over a dozen countries worldwide and opens in Madrid in 2011. The Lion King garnered Taymor two Tony Awards: for best direction of a musical (making her the first woman to receive this award), and for her original costume designs, among numerous other awards. Her many other theater productions include Carlo Gozzi’s The Green Bird on Broadway (2000); an original visual music-theater work, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, presented at Lincoln Center (1996) which received five Tony nominations including best director, and numerous Shakespeare plays. Most recently, Taymor directed Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark on Broadway with music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge.
Taymor’s many opera directions include Mozart’s The Magic Flute, currently in the repertoire of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; Oedipus Rex which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Jury Award at the Montreal Festival of Films on Art and an Emmy; The Flying Dutchman for the Los Angeles Music Center in a co-production with the Houston Grand Opera; and Salomé for the Kirov Opera in Russia, Germany, and Israel. Most recently, Taymor directed an original opera, Grendel, based on James Gardner’s darkly comic retelling of the Beowulf tale. Composed by Elliot Goldenthal and co-commissioned by The Los Angeles Opera and New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, the opera was one of two finalists for the Pulitzer (2006).
Taymor graduated from Oberlin in 1974 Phi Beta Kappa and was presented with a Watson traveling fellowship, allowing her to travel to Japan and Indonesia (1975-79). In Indonesia, she developed a mask/dance company, Teatr Loh, which toured throughout Indonesia with two original productions, WAY OF SNOW and TIRAI (subsequently performed in the United States).
In addition to her two Tony awards, she has also received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two OBIE Awards, the first Annual Dorothy B. Chandler Award in Theater, and the Brandeis Creative Arts Award.
WORKS: An illustrated book on her career, Julie Taymor: Playing With Fire, was recently expanded and revised by Harry N. Abrams. Her book, The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway, is published by Hyperion. Taymor’s adapted screenplay for TITUS is published in an illustrated book by Newmarket Press. An illustrated book, Frida: Bringing Frida Kahlo’s Life and Art to Film, is available from Newmarket Press. An illustrated screenplay of Taymor’s adaptation of THE TEMPEST is also on the Abrams imprint.
Joi is a contemporary music band that mixes the sounds of rock, soul, folk and worldbeat. Their debut album, Joi – Looking out of the Window, was released December 21, 2010. Group members include Joi Barua, Pawan Rasaily, Ibson Lal Baruah, Manas Chowdhary and Partho Goswami. Their lead singer, Joi Barua, was an INK2010 Fellow and returns this year with his band to bring down the house at INK2011.
WEBSITE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joi_Barua
Jewelry designer John Hardy co-founded the extraordinary Green School in Bali, where kids get a holistic and green education. At the Green School, students learn in open-air classrooms surrounded by acres of gardens that they tend; they learn to build with bamboo; and meanwhile they’re being prepared for traditional British school exams. The centerpiece of the campus is the spiraling Heart of School, which may be called Asia’s largest bamboo building.
WEBSITE
www.greenschool.org
John Frame has been making sculpture in the Southern California area of the United States since the early 1980s; his work has been exhibited extensively in the US as well as in Europe, Japan, and Taiwan. From the beginning of his career, he has undertaken an in-depth exploration of the human condition. Those who review Frame’s work frequently suggest that its appeal lies in his propensity to probe the deep questions of life without arriving at easy answers. One critic captures this tension thus: �In Frame’s work the meaning eludes us while the search for meaning captivates us.�
John twice has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and received the New Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1995 he was awarded the J. Paul Getty Museum�s Individual Artist Fellowship. He received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle in 2009.
A survey of the artist�s work was held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1992. In 2005 the Long Beach Museum of Art organized a retrospective exhibition, �Enigma Variations: The Sculpture of John Frame, 1980 to 2005.� In 2011 the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino, California, mounted a major exhibition, �Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame� The exhibition consisted of more than thirty-five pieces of sculpture, a theatrical stage, multiple sets and a short animated film using the artist�s works that had been specifically designed for that purpose. Frame also created the score for the film.
His work can be found in more than 300 public and private collections, including the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the Palm Springs Desert Museum, the Renwick Gallery of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of Southern California. In 2011 he was invited to guest curate an exhibition of rarely seen works by William Blake at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Frame has been artist in residence, visiting artist, or guest lecturer at more than 50 museums, universities, and art-related institutions around the United States. He has also taught at the University of California at Los Angeles, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and at the Claremont Graduate University. He lives and works in Wrightwood, California.
In the year 2000, after working for more than twenty years as a successful sculptor, I found that I had arrived at what appeared to be the end of my exploration of my chosen territory. After five years of failed attempts to find my way into the next phase of my work, I finally gave up completely and hopelessly. Almost immediately, I was awakened in the middle of the night with a vision of a vast world complete with multiple characters, scenes and a complete �Tale.� My journey since that day has been to bring that world into this.
WORKS
Films: “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale” , 2011; “Happy Medium” Film, 2011
Books: Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame, published by the University of California Press and the Huntington Press in 2011; EnigmaVariations: The Sculpture of John Frame, 1980-2005 published by the Long Beach Museum in 2005
WEBSITE
www.JohnFrameSculpture.com
Having completed doctorates in Ecology at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia (2003), and in the History of Science at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2011), John Mathew is currently lecturing a freshman seminar on Science, History and Theatre at the latter. He hails from Kerala and remains an Indian national although he has spent significant periods in Iraq, Jordan, Libya, the United States of America, France and England. He obtained his Bachelors, Masters, and M.Phil. degrees in Zoology at the Madras Christian College, Tambaram, Madras (now Chennai). He also holds a Masters in Medical Anthropology from Harvard and has benefited from many scholarships in his educational journey, including the French Governmental Bourse Chateaubriand, the Harvard Sheldon and Krupp, and the Harvard Academy fellowships.
Blurring lines between the curricular and co-curricular, John co-founded the Scrub Society, the Madras Christian College�s environmental organisation in 1990 (still extant 21 years later) and served as the Secretary (1990-1992) of the Students� Sea Turtle Conservation Network in Madras that ran an active hatchery for olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) sea turtles.
John is also an avid theatre enthusiast. His association with drama began at eight in Libya playing an angel in a Christmas pageant. He proceeded to perform regularly on stage at school and college, winning the prize for best actor, and with his co-cast and crew, best performed play at one of the largest collegiate cultural competitions in India in 1992, Oasis at BITS, Pilani, Rajasthan. In 1994, his musical on sea-turtles, Olive was performed for over 3, 500 people at the prestigious Music Academy, Madras (Chennai). In 1995, his effort, Grave Affairs won best play in the category ‘English as a second language’, for a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) international radio-drama contest and was broadcast worldwide the following year. Grave Affairs was adapted to stage and premiered at Harvard in 2001. That same year, John co-founded SAATh (South Asian American Theatre) with Tara Deshpande (a Bollywood actress) and Sudipto Chatterjee (a drama professor then at Tufts University), the first South Asian theatre company in Boston, and served as its Artistic Director from August 2002 to August 2007. Apart from Olive and another musical, B Minor Blue, John has written five full-length plays and four short plays and co-scripted a street-play. Recently, he won the Calcutta (Kolkata) based Oxford Bookstore e-author prize for best novel (2008) in an all-India competition for his manuscript Origins and Descents.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Travelling in a traditionally hostile neighbouring land, I countenanced my most different, challenging and memorable trip anywhere. Pakistan was extraordinary. There were lathi-charges avoided at the Wagah border, receptions at Lahore airport by machine-gun wielding security guards, deflected bribery in Karachi, feudal familial fiefdoms with an army of domestic helpers, an assumed other national identity (Sri Lankan) to see Mohenjodaro of the Indus Valley Civilisation, and through it all, there was the countenancing of such unstinting hospitality, laughter in the cracks, and in the dust of little bus-by villages, the sheer pleasure of dances in the now.
WORKS
Though They Be Red (New York: Playscripts Inc. 2003)
OTHER
Whilst at college in Madras, 16 species of snake went through my room (actively procured from the 373 acre campus). One of them (a baby cobra) bit me once through my mother�s sent kitchen gloves, and four hours later, sans anti-venom (among the most foolhardy decisions I made) and through a cytology lab experiment, I survived, relatively unscathed, to tell the tale. Unfortunately for the cobra, it didn�t, perishing of unknown causes two days later.
Itay Talgam worked as a conductor with some of the world’s best musical ensembles and orchestras and assisted great Maestri such as Leonard Bernstein and Claudio Abbado.
As a native Israeli, he studied at the music academy of Jerusalem and Philosophy at the Hebrew University. Later he continued his studies in Italy and the United States.
Talgam’s unique approach to the understanding of music-making and conducting as a metaphor for leadership, communication and relationships, made him a desired keynote speaker in many of the most significant global conferences, including Google’s Zeitgeist, TED Global and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Besides his keynote speeches Talgam works with many organizations, universities and governmental institutes all around the world, incorporating workshop elements and live chamber music, and, in some events, conducting symphony orchestras.
MAESTRO PROGRAM The “Maestro programs” were founded on the belief that, in the orchestra as in the work place, music has the power to create community and reinforce shared values. Music embodies knowledge and innovation, individual effort and collective achievement, and offers a work-environment that is full of opportunities for excellence and self-actualization – same as in any successful business. These programs, based on continuous dialogue and active participation, offer a unique learning experience that explores relations between conductors, players and audiences to achieve inspiring new insights into leadership, management, and teamwork.
Internationally renowned conductor Itay Talgam turned to developing these programs when he observed how the elements essential in achieving excellent orchestral performances could be transformed into powerful metaphors for the corporate world.
Since 1996, the “Maestro programs” have been successfully employed across a wide spectrum of local, International and multi-national companies, including Intel, Apple, Google, Motorola, Philips, HSBC, ING, Credit Suisse, Accenture, McKinsey, KPMG, PwC, WPP, Orange, Stanford University, Cambridge University, and many Governmental organizations and NGOs all over the world.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: As a young person, I often experienced the transformational power of music, listening to my beloved Brahms or Beethoven. That made me want to conduct, to have direct access to ‘the force’. But as a conductor I often sensed a strange discrepancy between the nature my own experience and that of my players: even when we joyfully shared the interpretation, their engagement in the music was different then mine. Having to physically create the sound while infusing it with spirit, they knew the secret lies in balancing control and ‘letting go’. I am still learning today how these two faces of creative work are best combined, working with different groups of professionals, in music and in other fields, in search for ways leading to magical infusion.
WEBSITE: www.talgam.com
The Mentor and Chairman Emeritus of one of India�s leading hospital chains, Fortis Healthcare, Harpal Singh is also the Founder Chairman of the Nanhi Chhaan Foundation, an initiative in support of the girl child and the environment. Harpal is also currently the Chairman of the Save the Children, India. He has chaired the second and third India Health Summit and delivered the prestigious �Friday Lecture� at the Royal Institute of Great Britain on Integrating Global Healthcare.
WEBSITE
www.nanhichhaan.com
GBS Bindra, Global Director of Innovation at Logica, is responsible for driving Logica�s innovation and new business models. He has been working as an innovator for more than 20 years, leading design teams to create new products and services that leverage technology to improve business outcomes. He is also a committed community leader and a vocal advocate of children and women�s education in underprivileged societies.
WEBSITE
twitter.com/gbsbindra; www.logica.com
Having spent the first fourteen years of her life in Bali and the following fourteen in the United States, Elora left her position as the sole print designer at Donna Karan International in New York, returning to Bali to found Ibuku, an international design/build team providing fully functional homes and furniture made from natural substances allowing the occupants to live in an authentic relationship with nature. Her key realization was that with the right nurturing, Asia’s creative minds, skilled hands,growing global perspective and unique natural materials will provide the force for positive change in our global future.
Composer Elliot Goldenthal creates works for orchestra, theater, opera, ballet and film. Most recently he scored Julie Taymor’s film version of The Tempest, starring Helen Mirren. In 2003, he was honored with the Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the score to Taymor’s film Frida. Goldenthal was nominated for his third Grammy Award for co-producing the platinum soundtrack album for Across the Universewhich featured 35 Beatles songs, he also composed the original score for the film.
In 2006, Elliot’s original two-act opera Grendel, directed by Julie Taymor, premiered at the Los Angeles Opera. The opera had its east coast debut as the centerpiece of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, and was added to the Los Angeles Opera’s permanent repertoire. Elliot was named one of the two finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in music for his work on Grendel.
Elliot’s large-scale symphonic piece, Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio, was commissioned by the Pacific Symphony to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It was released in 1996 on Sony Classical Records and featured soloist Yo-Yo Ma. Fire Water Paper debuted at the Pacific Symphony and was later performed at Carnegie Hall and at The Kennedy Center, with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Goldenthal was commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre to compose a three-act ballet of Othello, which debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in May 1997. Othello was co-produced by the ABT in partnership with the San Francisco Ballet and was choreographed by Lar Lubovitch. In June 2003, PBS’s series Great Performances broadcast a two-hour special of Othello, filmed with the San Francisco Ballet and Goldenthal’s original score was nominated for an Emmy Award. To date, Othello has been performed at The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, The Kennedy Center, Den Norske Opera & Ballett in Oslo and the Opéra National de Paris in Paris. In October 2009, the Joffrey Ballet showcased Othello in nine performances in Chicago.
Dibakar Banerjee is a National Film Award winning filmmaker, best known for films like Khosla ka Ghosla and Love, Sex aur Dhokha. The films went on to receive not just accolades for him but brought him in the list of new filmmakers who were bringing about a marked shift in Bollywood themes, which typically focuses on stories and characters from in and around Bombay.
WEBSITE
twitter.com/DibakarBanerjee
Drumjam, the pioneer of interactive rhythm-based activities in India, and the record holder for the largest drum circles in the country, has introduced over 450,000 people to the joys of group drumming.
The benefits of group drumming are varied. Drumjams are a highly effective form of stress release, and bring people closer together. Barriers to communication are broken down, and interpersonal relationships improve. Participants discover their creative and musical potential. Drumjams are energizing, inspiring and fun.
DRUMJAM activities can be geared to a variety of purposes to suit specific needs, from corporate to community and children to adults.
The Drumjam team is headed by Roberto Narain, whose talent and experience as a drummer is complemented by his advanced training in drum circle facilitation and strong people skills. Trained by the founder of the World Drum Circle Movement, Arthur Hull, Roberto has facilitated programmes for many of the country’s best-known corporate houses and is one of India’s leading trained corporate drum circle facilitators.
Roberto’s musical credentials are impressive. He has been playing the drums for close to thirty years now and has performed in a variety of styles on stages across India and the world. Roberto has worked with musicians such as L. Subramaniam and his Carnatic music studies with T.A.S. Mani of the Karnataka College of Percussion have added depth and richness to his drumming. From Heavy Metal, Jazz, Fusion to Electronica, his performances on the Acoustic and Virtual Drums have given audiences a chance to experience the delights of textual drumming enhanced by eye-catching visuals.
Drumjam’s co-founder, Vasundhara Das is a singer, songwriter, composer and actress. She has starred in several films in various languages, and has worked extensively as a playback singer in Bollywood, as well as in South Indian regional language films. Vasundhara is also a qualified drum circle facilitator, having trained with Arthur Hull. She spearheads Drumjam’s community and children’s programmes.
Vasundhara Das is a dynamic stage performer, with her band. She is one of the most popular performing stars in India, and has entertained delighted audiences at a variety of events on a global scale. Vasundhara’s current focus is on music composition, and she creates original sound tracks for films as well as working on collaborative music projects.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
What you see or hear is not what you get. With Drumjam, the medium is music, toned down to just drumming and the life force of all things living, your heart beat as well as your voice. The two most primitive of instruments know to mankind. To make music go beyond the traditional format and perception of musicians and non-musicians.
This is about the essence of true human expression and celebration. To believe, to do, to express, communicate, and connect with each other as well as celebrate life and living as long as the heart beats.
WEBSITE
www.drumjam.in
Claire Kremen is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at University of California, Berkeley, and an Associate Conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. She is an ecologist and conservation biologist whose work focuses on understanding and characterizing the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services, and utilizing this information to develop conservation and sustainable management plans, considering both protected areas and the working lands matrix around them.
Claire’s current research focuses on exploring the ecological, social and economic benefits, costs and barriers to adoption of diversified farming systems, and on restoring pollination and pest control services in intensively farmed landscapes, using both predictive modeling and field studies. Her work reaches from theory to practice and includes hands-on conservation action such as, for example, the design and establishment of one of Madagascar’s largest national parks within an integrated conservation-development framework. She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2007 for her contributions to ecology, agriculture and biodiversity. She is a scientific advisor for several conservation organizations and sits on the Editorial Boards of Conservation Letters and the Quarterly Review of Biology.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
In high school I wanted to solve the world hunger problem. A counselor urged me to train in basic sciences.. so I studied biology, but ended up far from my original goal, studying developmental evolution. But then an epiphany! It’s futile to unravel the miracles of evolution through science, when the fabric of life itself is unraveling. I abruptly changed course, to conserving biodiversity by establishing parks in Madagascar. However – we also need to live sustainably around those parks. 20 years later I am doing what I first set out to do – looking for a sustainable solution to world hunger.
Chris Meyer’s mission is to anticipate and shape the future of business. He has pursued this goal as an entrepreneur, executive, consultant, author, and the leader of a think tank.
Chris has created new capabilities for each of the organizations he has served. He founded Monitor Networks, a Monitor Group company, and was Chief Executive from 2004 to 2009, when he became Founder of Monitor Talent. Prior to joining Monitor Group, he was the Director of the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, from 1995 until its closing in December 2002. The Center fostered the conversation of leading issues among the business community, developed public conferences, established new services and businesses, and shared what it learned with business practitioners. At the CBI, he founded and served on the Board of the Bios Group, a venture that invested in applications of complexity theory to business. Earlier, he was a Vice President and Group Head at Mercer Management Consulting (Now Oliver Wyman), where from 1984 to 1995 he founded and built the firm�s practice in the information industries, comprising telecommunications, hardware, software, and information services and media. And at Data Resources, an econometrics-based consulting firm, Chris developed the product offering for financial institutions.
Chris has published three books about adaptive enterprise and network-based innovation, including the BusinessWeek Best Seller Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, Future Wealth – the book on which Monitor Talent is based, and It�s Alive: The Coming Convergence of Information, Biology and Business. He blogs on the Harvard Business Review site, and has contributed to publications including Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. Chris’s fourth book, Standing on the Sun, will be published by Harvard Business School Press in January, 2012.
Chris holds BAs in both Mathematics and Economics from Brandeis University and a M.B.A. (with Distinction) from The Harvard Business School. In addition, he held a University Predoctoral Fellowship in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He attended Dalton, in New York City, and The Hotchkiss School.
He serves on the Boards of Icosystem, the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, the Business Innovation Factory, and the New Rep Theater, and the Advisory Boards of Innocentive and LaunchCyte.
Chris lives in Boston with his wife, Mary, and has one Spanish- and Arabic-speaking musical daughter, at an undisclosed location.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: Every second year for the past 25, my father, my sister’s family, and my family have taken literal journeys, traveling together somewhere in the world for two to four weeks. This has created a kind of flip book, snapshots of the family as my niece grew up enough to bring a friend, then a boy friend, then my father died, then my daughter began bringing friends, my brother in law began aging.
The real journey has been in watching relationships change and seeing them in the context of individual growth and family evolution.
WEBSITE: www.christophermeyer.com
INTERESTING FACTS: I played baseball for my high school and college teams. I have a mad crush on linear algebra.
And I think the following story contains important wisdom: On my first trip to Beijing I was shown around by the son of a business colleague, a bi-cultural Chinese who had grown up in California. On our way to the Great Wall, we passed a gated community of enormous Tudor-style houses–they’d have cost $2 million. I asked him how this could be in a Communist country, and he replied: “In China, we’re very pragmatic. If it works, we call it Communism and move on.”
Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard, is one of my favorite plays. Stoppard manages to make an engrossing, entertaining drama out of an explanation of complexity theory, and includes a statement that I often affirm: “It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.”
I try to look for weak signals that things we believe are no longer valid and imagine what might have caused them and what could result.
I live in Boston with my wife, a consultant to NGOs. My daughter, a recent University of Chicago graduate, is looking for work with a social justice NGO in Cairo.
One of the most internationally well-known Turkish artists, Bedri Baykam was born in 1957, in Ankara. His father Dr. Suphi Baykam was a famous deputy in the Turkish parliament and his mother Mutahhar Baykam an architect-engineer. He started to paint when he was only two years old, and has had several exhibitions since the age of six in Bern, Geneva, New York, Washington, London, Rome, Munich, Stockholm, etc. during his childhood years, when he was known as a child prodigy, (wunderkind) throughout the world. Baykam also won prestigious titles as a tennis player throughout the 70s at Turkish Championships.
He studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris from 1975 to 1980 and got an MBA degree. During this time, he also studied drama in L’Actorat, Paris. He lived in California during the years 1980-1987, studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland between (1980-1983). He had several shows in New York, California and Europe in the 80’s. He returned to Turkey in 1987 and has been living in Istanbul since.
He has had 117 one-man-shows in various countries in addition to participating in numerous group shows. One of his most well-known books, Monkey’s Right to Paint, brings to light the rights of non-western artists and severely criticizes the one sided prejudiced attitude of the western art establishment that keeps building a one sided, all western art-history. Baykam is also the writer of a controversial bestseller The Bone, published in December 2000. A turn of the Century novel around sex, death, philosophy, technology and spying, The Bone predicted the events of September 11, ten months before it happened in full details!
Baykam is one of the pioneers of the New-Expressionism movement and of multi-media and photo-painting oriented political art as well as “4-D lenticular works that he has been exhibiting worldwide in the last five years. Since the beginning of the 80’s, he directed several 16 mm. films and has acted in several parts in feature films in Turkey as an actor. He is the author of 23 books.
Baykam has been working actively for several institutions as a political activist, taking the defense of Turkey as a secular democratic country respecting fully human rights. He has been one of the main spokesmen of the Kemalist movement in the last decades, and has been writing in the leftist-democratic daily Cumhuriyet. He is one of the central characters of the tormented Turkish intellectual and political milieu since the 80’s. Besides being a political activist struggling for democracy, human rights and peace, Baykam was a candidate for the Presidency of the Turkish social-democrat Party CHP in 2003 after being a Party Assembly Member in the 90’s.
Baykam is the founder of the production and publishing company Piramid and Piramid Art Center. Located in the heart of Istanbul, Piramid hosts several shows and daring panel discussions year round.
He married journalist Sibel (Yagci) Baykam in 1997, and they had Suphi, their son, in January 1999.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: This year at the General Assembly of world art associations in Guadalajara, as the Turkish Committee we suggested that Leonardo’s birthday became “world art day”. It was accepted unanimously. Coming back from Mexico, we celebrated that enthusiastically. A week later, I was attacked and stabbed on April 18… I almost died and the killer missed my main blood artery by two milimetera. My surgeon had miraculously befriended me a month ago at the LA Airport and he happened to save my life! He said, “This is your second birthday”. It did change the way I look at daily life and even the hours in a day.
WEBSITES: www.piramidsanat.com
WORKS: The Brain of Paint, 1990; Monkey’s Right to Paint, 1994; May 27 Was Our First Love, 1994; Mustafa Kemals on Duty Now, 1994; Turkey Without Concession, 1995; His Eyes Rest Always on Us, 1997; The Years of 68, The Revolutionaries, 1998; The Years of 68, The witnesses, 1999; Che the Condottiere of the Millenium, 2000; The Bone, 2000; When the army Plays Chess, 2001; Oh Wish They Made Ilhan Play, 2002; End to the Empire of Fear, 2003; The Bridge of Kemalism to the New Century, 2004; On the roud to Teheran with a European Ticket, 2007; Democratic Revolution at the CHP, 2010; No to Civil Dictatorship, 2010.
In 2007, Bhavik rowed single handed across the Atlantic, from Spain to the Caribbean island of Antigua, spending an106 days alone at sea in a 23 ft rowing boat. It was an epic 5000 km voyage which began with the battle to leave land resulting in 3 failed attempts and 2 years of preparation. It was a journey that sometimes became a living hell, stretching his mind to the breaking point as he deals with with gale force conditions, water leaks, a broken rudder, an Atlantic hurricane season, sharks, extreme isolation, sleep deprivation, muscle fatigue, a near collision with tankers, and finally a capsize.
Pushed physically, psychologically and emotionally to the limit, Bhavik survived without food rations for 2 weeks, lost the few clothes he had, hallucinated, wept, fought fear, grew a beard and nursed blisters while discovering to focus more on the beauty of the ocean and less on the hardship. Bhavik demonstrates that sometimes although a record may have been the objective, the experience gained through seeking that record becomes the reward.
Bhavik’s overwhelming positivity and ‘go for it’ attitude are contagious. Often very emotive, he shares his highs and lows, personal battles and victories, to help illustrate in a very human way that we are all capable of the extraordinary. His philosophy of ongoing personal growth will inspire his audiences to aspire, achieve and advance towards their goals both individually and collectively.
Bhavik is one of the rising sporting personalities in Endurance Sports. His other achievements in endurance include:
Cycling solo 3000 km across Europe, from Stockholm to Istanbul and a 9000 km treck across Eurasia from Helsinki to Hongkong, thru Siberia and Mongolia in the winter. He is one of the elite few athletes in the world who have ever crossed an ocean and a continent under human power and was voted amongst the ‘Top 5’ sports personalities of the Year 2007 by Outside Magazine.
�Although a record may have been the objective, the experience gained through seeking that record becomes the reward.�
WEBSITE: www.bhavik.com
Ayesha Khanna is Founder and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory think tank focused on the intersection of technology trends, data intelligence and geopolitics.
A technology and innovation strategy expert, Ayesha has over ten years of experience advising clients on scenario analysis, new product development, market entry, digital branding and customer experience. Her clients have included Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, American International Group, and Deutsche Bank. Ayesha is frequently interviewed in the media and was recently featured by the New York Times. She is a regular speaker at industry, marketing, and academic conferences related to emerging technology trends and intelligent cities.
Ayesha is the author of Straight Through Processing (Reed Elsevier, 2007), and was series editor of The Complete Technology Guides published by Reed Elsevier. She has also written for diverse publications such as BusinessWeek, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Policy. She also blogs on human technology co-evolution at Big Think.
Ayesha is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and one of the organizers of TEDxGotham. In 2010, she co-chaired the Innovation Advisory Board for the New York City congressional campaign of Reshma Saujani.
Ayesha has a BA (honors) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University and is writing her PhD in Information Systems and Innovation at the London School of Economics.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
My journey started in villages in Lahore doing micro-finance and jails in Rawalpindi advocating for women’s rights. But after college, I took a sharp turn and became deeply immersed in technology and innovation strategy on Wall Street for many years. A life-long city dweller, I expanded my work from finance to entire cities, seeing the potential of how city-wide technology platforms could give citizens better government services and access to education, healthcare and information. But the path is riddled with the challenges familiar to me from my days in development economics: the need to protect civil rights, privacy, justice and equitable access. As cities become the center of all human activity in the early 21st century and countries rush to add urban intelligence to their crumbling infrastructures, one must tread surely but carefully towards technology-enabled �smart cities�.
WORKS
Straight Through Processing (Reed Elsevier, 2007), and was series editor of The Complete Technology Guides published by Reed Elsevier.
WEBSITE
ayeshakhanna.com
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
Anand Agarawala is an entrepreneur and product designer.
He created BumpTop, an innovative 3D desktop user interface powered by physics and multi-touch gestures inspired by real desks and driven by a more expressive, human vision for computing. BumpTop was Anand’s Masters thesis in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Toronto. It became a viral hit on YouTube and as Founder/CEO built a venture-backed startup company around it. Google recently acquired BumpTop and Anand is now Product Manager of Android System UI, trying to dream up the next big user interface ideas. Anand loves to help early-stage entrepreneurs and has become an advisor and investor to startups such as Qwiki, Glooko and Tagstand. He speaks on entrepreneurship and user interfaces around the world from Tokyo to TED. He was named to BusinessWeek’s Top Tech Entrepreneurs list and has been featured in various press (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Le Monde, Forbes).
Described as the ‘Paulo Coelho of the East’ by Business World and a ‘People’s author like Jeffrey Archer’ by The Telegraph, Amish’s unique combination of crackling story-telling, religious symbolism and profound philosophies have made him an overnight publishing phenomenon.
Released in March 2010, Amish’s Shiva Trilogy (of which two books, The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas have been published) has over 350,000 copies in print. Amish is a graduate of IIM-Calcutta and worked for 14 years in the financial services industry before turning to full time writing.
WORKS
The Immortals of Meluha; The Secret of the Nagas
WEBSITE
www.shivatrilogy.com ; www.twitter.com/amisht
Amar Sen’s devotion to the arts has brought him fame for various specializations at different stages in his life; now the world knows him for a number of things including but not limited to singing, acting, magic, graphic arts, poetry and obviously his pet art, handShadowGraphy. The field of performance knows him better for his hardcore professionalism at whatever he does.
WEBSITE: AmarSen.com; www.handshadowgraphy.com/amazing_duo.html
Alexander Asseily is founder and Executive Chairman of London startup State, a global opinion network. Alexander was founder CEO of Jawbone (Aliph) and continues to serve as Chairman.
Alexander was born to an Anglo-Russian mother and a Lebanese father. His parents relocated permanently from Beirut to London in the midst of the Lebanese civil war and Alexander completed his schooling in England before attending Stanford University in California. At Stanford, he received a BSc. in Product Design and a MSc. in Mechanical Engineering, where he focused on user-centered design & engineering.
In 1998 Alexander founded San Francisco consumer technology company Jawbone (aka Aliph) with Hosain Rahman and continues to serve as its Chairman. As Jawbone’s founding CEO, Alexander directed the development of Jawbone’s core products and built the defense business with DARPA. In 2004 he launched the first Jawbone headset to critical acclaim, followed by the industry-changing Jawbone Bluetooth headset in 2006. Today, Jawbone is the world leader in mobile lifestyle products including Jawbone Icon & Era headsets, the Jambox speaker and UP personal health solutions. Jawbone is one of the most highly valued private consumer electronics companies in the world, with approximately 100,000 points of sale globally.
In 2010 Alexander returned to London to create State with his brother Mark Asseily. State is a global opinion network founded on equitable principles; a platform for people anywhere to get counted for their opinions and connect to the world instantly through them.
Alexander advises a number of startup technology companies and charitable organizations in the US and Europe and has produced two short documentaries on forgiveness & conflict resolution in the Mideast.
He owns a bicycle and some mediocre artwork.
PERSONAL JOURNEY: I’ve spent a decade at Jawbone creating products that radically improve the experience of communications. But while the web has liberated data access, the nature of these communications has not radically changed: our cultural and political programming is still in tact because media and governments can’t accurately render the reality of our views. The discovery of shared values, of like-minded people and of humanity in our ‘enemies’ is limited by the richness of the information that is shared. A nomadic lifestyle taught me there is far more that unites communities in the world than divides them – all we need is a safe, neutral space to share and explore ideas. So I took the leap from Jawbone to create State: a way to voice your opinion on anything, large or small, and to see what the world is thinking at any moment.
WORKS: Alex has produced two short documentaries on forgiveness & conflict resolution in the Middle East. He is also executive producer of ALUNA, a feature length documentary on the respected indigenous Kogi of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada mountains, due for release in 2012.
WEBSITE: jawbone.com; http://state.it
Yann Vasnier was born in Brittany, France and from an early age he was drawn to appreciate the nuances of fragrances. He trained as a perfumer at ISIPCA, the prestigious Versailles perfumery school and he graduated Valedictorian in 1999. During his studies, Yann also worked as a trainee perfumer for Quest International in Paris. Upon graduating, he was offered a position as a junior perfumer with the Fine Fragrance team in Paris, trained by Francoise Caron. In 2001, Yann was the recipient of the International Young Perfumer Award. In July 2003, Yann joined the Quest New York as a perfumer and in 2007 joined Givaudan.
His creative vision as a perfumer is that every fragrance should represent a dimension of subtlety and an aspect of definitive character. Fragrance composition should not be shy. And for him, the most evocative fragrances are the ones worn by people you love or have loved.
His intense love of travel lends him cultural and environmental inspiration for his scents, he believes that inspiration can come from everywhere. His life as a New Yorker has put him at the center of renowned creatives from the world of art, design, fashion and technology. His most recent collaboration with Visionaire Sixty Religion, he scented the limited edition volume. Amongst others, he has crafted fragrances for Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Donna Karan, Comme des Garçons and Tommy Hilfiger.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
Becoming a perfumer has certainly been quite a journey: from the first smell of my parents’ roses or noticing the intense change in odors as we drove to the South of France on summer holidays, to working in a beautiful lab on 57th Street in New York for the most prestigious designers. The journey still takes a lot of time, will power, luck, navigating, rejection, and competition. It’s a never ending game of trial and error, always trying to imagine and create the next masterpiece and the next success. For me, the journey of perfumery never ends.
WORKS
Fragrances created or co-created: TOM FORD PRIVATE BLEND SANTAL BLUSH (2011) MARC JACOBS BANG BANG (2011) MARC JACOBS OH LOLA! (2011) VISIONAIRE SIXTY RICCARDO TISCI RELIGION (2011) NAUTICA DISCOVERY PURE (2011) MARC JACOBS SPLASH CURACAO (2011) MARC JACOBS SPLASH GINGER (2011) TOM FORD PRIVATE BLEND LAVENDER PALM (2011) DELRAE PANACHE (2010) TRUE RELIGION DRIFTER (2010) SIX SCENTS SERIES THREE OHNE TITEL (2010) TOMMY HILFIGER LOUD FOR HIM (2010) TOMMY HILFIGER LOUD FOR HER (2010) MARC JACOBS BANG (2010) DELRAE COUP DE FOUDRE (2010) MARC JACOBS SPLASH APPLE (2010) SIX SCENTS SERIES TWO DAMIR DOMA (2009) TOM FORD PRIVATE BLEND URBAN MUSK (2009) ELIZABETH ARDEN 5TH AVENUE STYLE (2009) MARC JACOBS LOLA (2009) DIVINE EAU DIVINE (2009) LYNX SUMMER EDITION (2009) IMPULSE ROMANTIC SPARK (2009) DELRAE MYTHIQUE (2009) EDDIE BAUER ADVENTURER II (2009) SJP ENDLESS LOVELY COLLECTION (2009) DIVINE L’ETRE AIME HOMME & FEMME (2009) AXE INSTINCT (2009) MARC JACOBS SPLASH FIG (2008) PUMA FREE FLOWING MAN (2008) BABY PHAT FABULOSITY (2008) LE LABO ALDEHYDE 44 (2007) BBW SWEET PEA EDT (2006) DONNA KARAN GOLD (2006) AXE CLICK (2006) BBW PECAN PASSION (2006) AVON MIDNIGHT FOR MEN (2006) CERRUTI 1881 COLLECTION CERRUTI (2005) JACK BLACK SIGNATURE BLACK MARK (2005) AVON FLORAL PRINT MAGNOLIA (2005) APOTHIA L (2005) DIVINE L’HOMME SAGE (2005) KEIKO MECHERI GOURMANDISES (2004) DIVINE L’AME S’UR (2004) DIVINE L’INFANTE (2004) DIVINE L’HOMME DE C’UR (2003) KANGOL 38-83 (2003) COMME DES GARCONS RED SERIES PALISANDER (2001) COMME DES GARCONS RED SERIES ROSE (2001)
Will Travis is a leader of infectious passion, drive and tremendous insight, gained from leading creative agency ATTIK, which he helped expand into London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney, and most recently with the US division of the world’s largest agency Dentsu, where he held the post of CEO of Dentsu America. A long-term creative entrepreneur, with a hell-bent focus on creating unique brand experiences with the energy to deliver.
Vinita Bali is the Managing Director of Britannia Industries. She is among 27 global leaders appointed by the United Nations to help improve maternal and child nutrition, an investment which some of the world’s leading economists believe would be the most valuable for human well-being and productivity.
Vikram Gandhi is the award-winning director and star of Kumaré, a film in which he impersonates a wise guru from the East and starts a following of real people in the West. Kumaré won the Audience Award at SXSW Film Festival in 2011 and was released theatrically in North America in 2012. Vikram lives in New York and is developing his next feature film
V.V.S. Laxman, is a former reknowned Indian cricketer. Laxman represented Hyderabad in domestic cricket and has played for Lancashire in English county cricket. He was the captain of the Deccan Chargers team in the Indian Premier League in its first year. In 2011, Laxman was awarded the Padma Shri award, India’s fourth highest civilian award from the Government of India. He announced his retirement from international cricket in August 2012
Rob Manning is the Chief Engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Project that successfully landed Curiosity Rover on Mars on August 5, 2012. Rob was responsible for ensuring that the design, the test program and the team working together would result in a mission that would work.
An Engineering Fellow at JPL, Rob has been designing, testing and operating spacecraft for 32 years. In the 1990’s, Rob was the Mars Pathfinder Chief Engineer where he led the Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) team.
After successfully landing and operating the first airbag lander and rover on another planet, he co-conspired the idea to modify the Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover designs to become the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Spirit and Opportunity. On MER he led the system engineering and EDL teams.
After MER he became the Mars Program Chief Engineer where he helped plan and integrate the various Mars missions like Phoenix and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as well as plan for MSL and beyond.
As a result of his luck at JPL, Rob has received two NASA medals and is in the Aviation Week Magazine Space Laureate Hall of Fame in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. In 2004, SpaceNews magazine named Rob as one of 100 people who made a difference in civil, commercial and military space since 1989.
I am a neonatologist (baby doctor!) and love high altitude trekking and mountaineering. I am an associate professor of pediatrics at New York Methodist Hospital, and love to use innovative methods to teach medical students. I am constantly humbled and amazed by what love and compassion can do to heal little premature and sick babies! I have also been leading a research project in the Himalayas, including the Mt. Everest region, involving ultrasound of the eye(optic nerve) and the body, to predict mountain sickness, and have also looked at the effect of meditation in acclimatizing the body to high altitude. I constantly encourage my students to break the rules, rearrange the paradigms with which they run their lives, and therefore to re-invent themselves every moment! I also volunteer as an art guide at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City, and this is a reminder to me that medicine is so much of an art as well as a science!
Malavika Sarukkai is a dancer and choreographer. Her dance is described as intense, extraordinary and luminous and helps distinguish her form other dancers. She is acclaimed globally for her creative dance choreographies, which transport the viewer to the heart beat of dance, taking dance beyond specific geographies.
Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator and teacher and found they are very much alike.
She is the inimitable creator behind Ernie Pook’s Comeek featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy. The Good Times are Killing Me was adapted as an off-Broadway play and won the Washington State Governor’s Award. Her bestselling and acclaimed book, the creative writing how to/graphic novel/memoir What It Is, won the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel and R.R. Donnelly Award for highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author. Lynda recently created the companion how to draw/graphic novel/memoir PICTURE THIS. In both, Lynda explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself.
BOOKS: Picture This, What It Is, One! Hundred! Demons!, The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and The Good Times are Killing Me
James Stark, M.A., F.E.S., is the co-director of the Regenerative Design Institute (RDI). He co-founded and co-directs the Ecology of Leadership program which creates powerful circles of change-makers by rooting them in deep nature connection, inner transformation, and leadership skill development in order to revolutionize their life and service in the world. James is also a senior trainer in the 3-year, full-time Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness training program, preparing young global community leaders for the “Great Turning” of our era.
James has committed his life to exploring how we – our communities, and our entire species – might move into harmony with our selves and the natural world. He considers the programs at RDI a nursery for growing visions of the new era, and provides skills and tools to bring those visions to life. After earning a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica James turned his attention towards helping people explore and tend their inner garden. Like the natural systems and patterns that guide permaculture, his focus is to help others compost their constraints while creating healthy soil for their world visions to grow.
Links:
www.regenerativedesign.org
Jaaved Jaaferi is an Indian actor, voice artist, dancer, comedian, impressionist known for his work in several Bollywood films and Indian television shows. Jaaferi has distinguished himself as one of India’s most versatile and popular entertainers with his flamboyance, quirky sense of humor and his incredible dancing ability. The son of legendary actor/ comedian Jagdeep, Jaaferi seemed destined for a career in showbiz.
He has hosted several popular television shows such as Vidoecon Flashback, Timex Timepass and Boogie Woogie, and has acted in over 35 films, including massive hits such as 3 Idiots and Salaam Namaste
Gurcharan Das is an Indian author, commentator and public intellectual. He is the author of The Difficulty of Being Good: On the subtle art of dharma which interrogates the epic, Mahabharata and the international bestseller, India Unbound, a narrative account of India from Independence to the global information age.
Francesca Rosella is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director of CuteCircuit, a fashion company based in London pioneer in the field of Wearable Technology. Founded in 2004, CuteCircuit has introduced many ground breaking ideas to the world of fashion by creating new beauty and functionality through the use of smart textiles and micro-electronics. Working alongside Ryan Genz, CEO of CuteCircuit, Francesca has built the first fashion company that creates haute couture with LED illumination worn by international stars on the red carpet and that has been also the first to sell illuminated fashion using LEDs in leading stores like Selfridges in London.
CuteCircuit revolutionised the common way of thinking about Fashion, creating innovative and fashionable interactive collections, that are now sells online all over the world. Francesca’s early career began as designer for Valentino in Italy. Ryan is formally trained as an artist, anthropologist and ultimately Interaction Designer focusing on Wearable Technology and holds patents and patents pending for wearable technologies. CuteCircuit designs frequently include digital technology or interactive capabilities that give the garments and the people that wear them abilities beyond traditional fashion.
The CuteCircuit product line includes the Prêt-a- Porter Collection, the Haute Couture Collection and special designs for unique performances by Katy Perry, U2 360° Tour, and Laura Pausini World Tour 2012. They also designed the celebrated Galaxy Dress (now part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago), and the award- winning M Dress and the Hug Shirt (awarded as one of the best inventions of the year by Time Magazine). Francesca and Ryan share their passion for fashion worldwide by participating in many conferences and events where they speak on subjects of innovation, the future of fashion, and design. Always endeavouring to create something resonant, fashionable and special, visually and emotionally attractive; their work is frequently featured in books on design, fashion and innovation.
WEBSITE: www.cutecircuit.com
Los Angeles-based multi-media visual artist, painter and curator Dianna Cohen is best known for her two-dimensional and three-dimensional works using recycled plastic bags – sewn together – ranging from small hanging pieces to room-sized installations. Since graduating from UCLA she has shown work in solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums in the USA, Europe, Australia, and Africa. Dianna Cohen is Creative Director & co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance of individuals, organizations and businesses working together to stop plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals and the environment.
WEBSITE: www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org, www.DIANNACOHEN.com
Alan Wagstaff, currently Learning Manager and concept designer of Green School, Bali, is a director and co-founder of RAW Education Ltd. Alan has had forty years experience in the education sector as a primary and secondary school teacher, a special education teacher, a school principal, and for the last decade, as an independent consultant, mentor and school developer.
He has worked and advised in the U.K., New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia, and Australia. He assists schools interested in developing holistic, student-centred perspectives with policy formation, curriculum innovation in all key learning areas (years 1 – 10), parent education and liaison, behaviour management, co-operative learning, student assessment, learning support, values education, literacy and literacy support, teacher development, mentoring, appraisal, and lesson preparation, and facilitative school management. Over 3,000 educators in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia have transformed their practice as a result of working with Alan. All participants report unprecedented levels of inspiration and practicality springing from the seminars, workshops, documents, and mentoring offered.
Neeru Khosla is currently the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit organization, which aims to provide K-12 learning materials that is customizable, aligned to requirements, and free for all, in the US and worldwide. Mrs. Khosla currently serves as a member on several advisory boards, including The Nueva School’s Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors for High Tech High School’s Graduate School of Education, the Advisory Board for the Wikimedia Foundation, the Advisory Board for DonorsChoose, the Advisory Board for Stanford University’s School of Education, the Advisory Board for IDEO.org, and is one of the founding members of the K-12 Initiative of the Design School (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) at Stanford University.
Matt Groening created the longest-running comedy in television history, The Simpsons. It exploded into a cultural phenomenon in 1990 and has remained one of the most groundbreaking and innovative entertainment franchises, recognizable throughout the world. He followed it with his creation of the hit sci-fi series FUTURAMA, currently one of the top rated shows on Comedy Central. As a cartoonist, Groening began his Life in Hell weekly comic strip series in the 1980’s which continues to this day in newspapers nationwide.
Ritika holds an MBA in Rural Management from School of Rural Management, KIIT University- Bhubaneswar and has extensive professional experience working with a number of bilateral, multilateral development think tanks & organizations. In addition to her non-governmental experience, she’s also worked with the Govt. of Thailand in developing and understanding replicable rural development strategies. She’s extremely passionate about human capital development in the social enterprise space that has such a huge potential for solving world problems.
As an explorer Ritika immerses herself in new experiences like travelling to offbeat places and doing community work with the locals. She’s also been into theatre arts as a director and actor for several years. Going forward she wants to work on influencing policy for Human resource development in development sector. She’s also the brain behind Social Rockers and Hawkers a bi-monthly social meet up for accelerating the social enterprise ecosystem development in Hyderabad
Dinesh Sonak is an entrepreneur at the intersection of creativity, commerce and culture, specialized in design-thinking, concept development and innovation ventures. He is currently active in product strategy and design (frog), creative leadership & social innovation (THNK, the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership) and waste design for India’s public spaces (Saaf India Foundation). He is the founder of Banyan Tree, an agency leading the strategic and creative direction for various concepts and projects, including product and experience design in food and beverage, electric mobility, contemporary art and sports fashion. His previous experience includes assignments for Heineken in Central Africa, Bertolli in Western Europe and IMD Business School in Switzerland. Dinesh has studied international economics, strategic management and creative arts. He enjoys tennis, jazz, street photography and the books of PG Wodehouse
Tatjana Dzambazova is a trained architect with 12 years of experience in architecture and design in Vienna and London. Always fascinated by the impact that technology has on our lives, she decided to continue her career in the digital design technology world, where, working for Autodesk for the last 13 years , she has been passionately whispering and teaching technology, leading product development of exciting new digital design tools and authoring books.
An avid believer that we are all born with a sense for creativity and innovation and the need to express it, Tanja focuses her energy on helping make and promote powerful design technologies accessible to wide range of audiences as well educate the world about the cultural and sociological changes that technological developments can bring.
Vasundhara Das is a singer, songwriter, composer and actress. She has starred in several films in various languages, and has worked extensively as a playback singer in Bollywood, as well as in South Indian regional language films. Vasundhara is also a qualified drum circle facilitator, having trained with Arthur Hull. She spearheads Drumjam’s community and children’s programmes.
Vasundhara Das is a dynamic stage performer, with her world music band Arya. She is one of the most popular performing stars in India, and has entertained delighted audiences at a variety of events on a global scale. Vasundhara’s current focus is on music composition, and she creates original sound tracks for films as well as working on collaborative music projects.
She is co-founder of Drumjam, a company that introduces individuals to the joy of group drumming and hosts drum circles.
ABOUT SHAH HUSSAIN PROJECT:
The Shah Hussain Project is a collaboration that features the vocal and musical composition talents of popular singer Vasundhara Das and Sufi singer Mir Mukhtiyar Ali. Celebrated musician Roberto Narain is producer as well as drummer on this project.
The music draws inspiration from the 16th century Sufi poetry of Shah Hussain. Five hundred years ago, this poet from Lahore wrote mainly in Punjabi, Saraiki and Sindhi. These poems, called kafis, are a glimpse into the social setting of Shah Hussain’s time; with thoughts and ideas still fresh and relevant in today’s 21st century social fabric.
The music is a meeting of traditional and contemporary styles, based on the poetry and focused on live performance.
More Info: theshahhussainproject.com; iTunes
Lavanya Sankaran is the author of the celebrated short story collection The Red Carpet, which spent two years on the best-seller lists and collected praise world-wide. Her debut novel The Hope Factory, just released, has been selected by Amazon UK as a Top Pick. Compared to Charles Dickens by the British press, Lavanya’s writing has own several awards, including Barnes and Noble Discover New Writers, and Poets and Writers’ Best First Fiction Award.
Her opinion pieces and fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and The Atlantic, among others. She has been invited as a guest speaker at the Hay Literary Festival, UK.
Lavanya sponsors the annual Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship at the Sangam Writers Residency which she hopes will encourage new writers in India. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and currently lives in Bangalore with her husband and daughter.
Joichi Ito is the Director of the MIT Media Lab. He is the Chair of Creative Commons, on the Board of The New York Times Company, on the Board of the MacArthur Foundation, on the Board of Trustees of The Knight Foundation, and co-founder and board member of Digital Garage an Internet company in Japan. He is on board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Mozilla Foundation and WITNESS. He is a member of the IT Strategic Headquarters of the Japanese Cabinet. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Flickr, Last.fm, Kongregate, Fotonauts/Fotopedia, Kickstarter, Path, Pinwheel and other Internet companies.
He is the Guild Custodian of the World of Warcraft guild, We Know (http://weknow.to/). He is a PADI IDC Staff Instructor, an Emergency First Responder Instructor and a Divers Alert Network (DAN) Instructor Trainer. Ito was named by Businessweek as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web in 2008. In 2011, Ito was chosen by Nikkei Business as one of the 100 most influential people for the future of Japan and by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers”. In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute in recognition of his role as one of the world’s leading advocates of Internet freedom.
There are zillions of benefits in being human. Our life is complex, our problems are complex, the world around us is complex. So Simplify. It is beautiful to be Simple. Simplification leads us to being human.
Complexity is one of the things that lead us to unannounced dangers including obesity. I survived. But, it wasn’t an easy journey. Having done the full circle, I realized there is no rocket science. The secret is Realization and once you realize you can run the last mile.
I was 192lbs and I was perfectly fine with it. Being an Indian and from a family that weighs 200lbs, I thought growing obese was an extension of my family genes. I was so wrong.
My fitness revelation came as a result of losing 51lbs in 8 months. The world around me changed in 8 months. I was much more energetic, much more enthusiastic and I began to approach life in a much more simpler manner. Since then I realized fitness and all things healthy being my passion. And you give your love your best shot. I did the same.
I already was a yoga instructor since 1998 and Les Mills certified me in 2009. That gave me the triple edge. I was making the mind, soul and the body fit together. Yoga has helped me maintain harmony between my mind and soul by simplifying complexities including challenges on the body fitness front. Simplifying through innovative variations helps exemplifying a complete workout for the whole body, including the mind and the soul.
Wellness is a way of life. I am so glad, I got to embrace early in my life to share my experiences, create awareness and train people on how to achieve their wellness goals and enjoy life.
Keep Believing, Keep Sweating, Keep Inspiring, Keep Simplifying !!!
“All that matters is being a good human.”
Sri Tatwamasi Dixit, a successful Family Business Advisor by profession, specialises in working with business owning families. He founded FABRIC (Family Business Research International Centre), a boutique consulting firm, offering family business advisory services and coaching to Family Business Entrepreneurs.
The firm advises on succession planning, family business governance, articulating the family charter & constitution, professionalizing the family business, conflict resolution & communication, leadership development and strategic advice. Depending on the underlying complexity of the relationships and family business challenges, he crafts an appropriate unique solution for transformation and harmony.
He is internationally recognized for his knowledge and application of the ancient Indian wisdom of the Vedas and well versed in modern day Business Models and Management practices. He has perhaps uniquely mastered the integration of Vedic principles with Contemporary Psychology and Business Management.
In addition, he draws an extensive experience of commercial and management practice to help Family Businesses to work on balancing and blending family and business priorities. This unusual combination of experiences, exceptional insight and intuition has helped him to become a successful family business advisor helping families and businesses to manage growth, change and transitions.
He has been successfully working with Indian, Arab, Jewish, and English families across the globe for more than a decade in multi-cultural environment. He brings the rich experience of working with more than 70 families globally.
He is a talented natural mediator and facilitator. His intensive studies and training have enabled him to develop deep understanding of people, relationships and structure. He uses this to help individuals explore about their identity.
He weaves a fabric of togetherness between family members, business professionals allowing renewal and re-generation of Emotional bonds. He has the ability to take the ‘heat’ of family tensions and ‘undo the knots’ as he brings to the table a calming influence and a light touch that helps people deal with their difficult issues. He firmly believes that ‘The foundation of any successful family business is a successful family’. He also coaches founders and entrepreneurs, working with them in what can often be a lonely space to overcome obstacles and work more effectively with their business and their family.
In particular, his outstanding talent and contribution was recognized when he was awarded the “Maharishi Badrayan Vyas Samman”, the highest civilian award in 2007, by the President of India for his work on the ‘synergy between modernity and tradition’. He is often invited to speak at conferences and institutions around the world on Vedas and Family Business Management. He is co-authoring a book on Indian family business along with Mr. Peter Leach who is a leading family business advisor in UK.
“All that matters is unleashing the potential of human being.”
Rekha Parameswaran is a healer, educator and writer. She is currently the chair of the Hemostasis Study group of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, the largest multidisciplinary organization of its kind. Rekha has special expertise in taking care of people with genetic bleeding and clotting disorders by working closely with the highly skilled surgeons at Memorial Sloan Kettering to ensure that people can safely undergo extensive cancer operations.
Rekha believes that medicine is as much an art as it is a science. She combines her passion for listening to people’s stories in her work as a physician. Rekha pursued her medical training in India and different parts of the United States, from the Midwest to the East Coast. Today, she lives and works in New York City, where she specializes in the care of cancerous blood diseases at one of the foremost cancer centers in the world, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She has also been honored with a prestigious Hematology Attending of the Year Teaching Award chosen by the Hematology-Oncology Fellowship program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Rajeswari Kannan heads Media Technologies Lab at Nokia Research Center, Bangalore, which focuses on computational imaging research by exploiting novel camera optics, sensors and signal processing techniques to capture and visualize information in new ways. She firmly believes that research cannot exist in silos, there needs to be a constant flow to core businesses. She pushes hard for building a strong ecosystem for the future of imaging by spending quality time collaborating with vendors, technology as well as design schools.
In 2011, she received Pillar of Research award at Nokia Research Center 25th anniversary celebrations and Nokia Innovation Oscar award for performance as the best manager driving patents. She has also been the recipient of various awards in her career at Nokia for areas varying from innovation, product excellence, customer satisfaction and technology transfers to business units.
She likes to meet people with disparate views and diverse backgrounds, and to participate in innovation workshops with student communities. She is also passionate about painting, storytelling, philosophy and culture.
“All that matters is that I made you smile.”
Mahesh Kale, based in San Francisco Bay area, is an accomplished vocalist of the new generation in the North Indian Classical style. Honed in the Gurukul system of learning from the legendary Padmashree Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki, he has an illustrious pedigree, and his thrilling performances bear this out.
Mahesh has established his presence firmly, as a popular artist and has performed extensively in India, USA, Europe, UAE, Southeast Asia. Mahesh continues to play the central character in a popular Sangeet Natak (musical), Katyar Kaljat Ghusli, for which, he has been honored with an award by the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Parishad (2010). Mahesh has also performanced at the prestigious Sawai Gandharva Music Festival which received a generous appreciation.
Mahesh maintains an open outlook towards music to reach out to the new generation, while retaining the traditions. He has performed with world percussionists including Trilok Gurtu and Sivamani, and instrumentalists like Pedro Eustache, George Brooks and Frank Martin, in fusion and collaborative works, ably demonstrating his versatility as a composer and singer. In an effort to spread awareness and education about Indian classical music in the western world, Mahesh has given lecturedemonstrations and talks at various academic institutions including Stanford,
Harvard and the Commonwealth Club. He was also profiled as Artist of the Month by Harvard Sangeet in March 2008.
Founder of ICMA Foundation, a nonprofit organization geared towards helping young professional musicians and retired veterans, Mahesh is also a teacher and an inspiration for a motivated student body of over a hundred fifty students in the San Francisco Bay Area.
He also has a Masters degree in Multimedia Engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara and in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University, but has chosen to follow his passion for music full time.
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
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.
William leads Google’s Education Outreach efforts in Emerging Market countries where he and his team are responsible for empowering educators and students with the tools, skills and knowledge to enhance and extend learning. William champions open and equal access to information, the web as a learning platform and the ability for technology to help mankind reach its full potential. Before establishing the Education Outreach function, William led the Education Sales team in EMEA that launched Chromebooks for Education and supported the growth of Google Apps for Education in both schools and universities throughout these regions.
Prior to joining Google, William was Head of International Sales and Marketing for Blackboard Collaborate, a leader in education technologies. At Blackboard Collaborate, William and his team were intimately involved with the growth and widespread use of real-time collaboration solutions around the world with leading institutions such as The Open University in the UK, the National eLearning Centre in Saudi Arabia, and many schools and Universities in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
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
Team Indus is a non-conformist, unconventional alliance of entrepreneurs and explorers who will not stop short of asking for the moon. Team Indus is India’s only entry to the Google Lunar XPRIZE.
Team Indus’ Advisory Board features some of India’s revered thought leaders from various industries, who truly believe in the ability of this team to succeed.
Over 24 engineers & managers with diverse experience and skills form the core of Team Indus, ably supported by a team of 9 retired ISRO scientists, several academicians and subject matter experts.
The founding team features a former Air Force pilot, a management guru, a branding expert, a serial entrepreneur and an aerospace engineer with a passion for space.
The common thread for all is their passion and determination to deliver technology from India to land a robotic craft on the Moon by 2015.
Team Indus is on a mission to lead India into the next generation of space exploration, precision engineering and aviation technology. In the process Team Indus will help redraw the boundaries of private initiative possibilities, inspire an entire generation of entrepreneurs and much more
Susan Peret is a humorist, storyteller. She graduated from NYU’s Stern School of Business and previously worked as a consultant at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. She studied writing under Charles Salzberg and at Upright Citizens’ Brigade, among others. She currently produces, curates and performs at live music, art and comedy culture concept shows throughout NYC.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a film producer and journalist who has worked on 14 films for major networks in the United States and Britain. Her films include Children of the Taliban (with Dan Edge), The Lost Generation (about Iraqi exiles) and Afghanistan Unveiled. Her work has taken her around the world, where she has filmed and worked with refugees, women’s advocacy groups and human rights defenders. By bringing their voices to the outside world, she has often helped them bring about a critical change in their community. Obaid-Chinoy helped found the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, a nonprofit, volunteer organization that fosters and promotes community-wide interest in the culture and history of Pakistan. Citizens Archive works with thousands of children, teaching critical thinking skills and instilling a sense of pride about their history and identity
Dr. Shroff-Mehta has over 25 years’ leadership, management, and teaching experience in the field of democratic governance, civil society strengthening, and institutional capacity development. She has taught graduate courses in citizen leadership, policy advocacy, and good governance at World Learning’s SIT Graduate Institute and at the School for International and Advanced Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins. She served as the global director for civil society and governance programs at World Learning in Washington, DC and has developed and managed projects in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America.
She specializes in grassroots leadership in civil society and governance sector capacity development, public policy advocacy and reform, multi-stakeholder coalition building, community driven development for local livelihoods and life-skills education, women’s economic and legal rights, and indigenous governance. She has lived and worked with indigenous communities around the world and has received numerous awards from the leading academic institutions in India, England, and the United States of America.
As Founder and CEO, Naveen is responsible for the overall vision, strategy and execution at InMobi. Prior to founding InMobi, he worked at Charles River Ventures and a Silicon Valley startup. He started his journey with McKinsey & Company. Naveen holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur. He is the founder of the U.S. based non-profit India School Fund that sets up schools in rural India
Liv Arnesen’s rich life experiences, both on and off the ice, have made her an internationally recognized leader and role model for women and girls. A self-proclaimed “keen” but not fanatical outdoors enthusiast, Arnesen is most interested in the development of adults and children. Through her diverse roles as a polar explorer, educator and motivational leader, Arnesen ignites passion in others to reach beyond their normal boundaries and achieve their dreams by sharing her own stories about exploring some of the most remote places on earth.
She has been named among Glamour magazine’s “Women of the Year” (2001); selected for the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame’s “Trailblazer” award (2001); presented with the Norwegian-American Chamber of Commerce “Achievement Award” (2001); and recognized by the Russian Geographic Society with a “Diploma of Honor” (1999).
Mahesh Samat comes with over 25 years of experience in Marketing, Sales and General Management with some of the biggest companies and had worked across India, Asia-Pacific and Europe. An Alumni of IIM-Calcutta, he worked with Johnson & Johnson as managing director for southern Europe, based out of London. His last assignment was as Managing Director of The Walt Disney Company India, a position he held for 5 years where he was responsible for managing all the lines of business for Disney including television, films, digital and consumer products.
Prior to that, he worked with Kellogg’s, Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis and Boots in India.
An online pioneer and respected business leader, Ellen has worked in Silicon Valley since 1981, driving innovation and growth for Apple, NeXT, Google, and early-stage mobile, social, and B2C technology companies.
In 1985, Ellen catalyzed Apple’s first online community, creating a pre-Internet digital movement that bridged millions of users worldwide to Apple information and resources. Her work won industry acclaim and measurably shifted Apple loyalty and engagement across global markets. Later, she developed one of Facebook’s first apps, led global marcom for Google Enterprise, and founded and sold two “Maker” businesses sparked by her passion for design and art.
Ellen has worked with rural entrepreneurs in Latin America and Africa and advised teams worldwide on building cultures of innovation. She serves on the board of D-Rev, a non-profit innovation incubator that increases global access to life-changing (and life-saving) technologies through affordable design.
Today, Ellen writes and speaks on entrepreneurship, gender, community, and ethics while guiding growth and leadership for a portfolio of technology companies. The mother of three grown sons, Ellen lives and works in San Francisco, California.
Serial entrepreneur and a Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeon, Dr. Shriram Nene’s life has made a full circle, back to the land of his forefathers. Dr. Nene developed a passion for science and technology at a very young age that led him to medical school. Today, Dr. Nene is combining his passion and his education to spur innovation in healthcare delivery. He is currently developing a medical platform and apps system to scale the reach of medical care to 7 billion people on the planet. Apart from this, he along with his wife, Madhuri Dixit, an accomplished actress and dancer in India, have created RnM Moving Pictures which is a platform agnostic, digital media and content creation company.
Dave McClure is a venture capitalist and founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. He has been an investor in over 250 companies including Mint.com, Twilio, Wildfire Interactive, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, SlideShare, Mashery, CreditKarma, KISSmetrics, and MakerBot, among others.
Dave has been in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twilio, Mint.com, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, and Microsoft.
Craig Johnson is the Superintendent of the American School of Bombay. Craig has returned to India (where he spent 12 years of his childhood) after 15 years in Brazil. While in Brazil, Craig served as the High School Principal, at Graded School in Sao Paulo; and more recently as the Headmaster of the American School of Brasilia, Brazil. Craig’s roots, as a classroom teacher, are in Middle and High School English and Social Studies. Craig continues to stay engaged in student life, by coaching soccer, and trying to teach or co-teaching an English class as often as possible. A regular presenter and workshop facilitator on a variety of Leadership and School Improvement topics, Craig has also published a novel (Wave Watcher), and has a second novel on the way
Regarded as one of the country’s leading experts on healthcare systems and delivery, C Balagopal is the founder of Terumo Penpol Limited(TPL), which operates the largest blood bag manufacturing facility in the world. Now retired from TPL, he divides his time between mentoring and investing in startup ventures, especially those engaged in healthcare, community development activities, and writing.
A graduate of Loyola College, Madras University, Balagopal is also a published author, penning the book ‘On A Clear Day You Can See India’ which chronicles his past experiences working as an IAS officer in Manipur.
Ben Nelson’s goal in life is overthrow Harvard. That’s right – Ben is revolutionizing the world of education, starting with his affordable, relevant, and elite online educational scheme. In 2011, Ben founded the Minerva Project, a four-year undergraduate educational platform that is reinventing the university experience for the brightest, most motivated students in the world. After working at Snapfish since 1999 and leaving as CEO a decade later, Ben decided to build a 21st-century school from scratch, designed to offer the ideal education for our tech-saavy and converging world. Ben is poised to press the reset button on the college experience – in his curriculum, all incoming students will be taught how to think and to use practical skills in the professional world, not just the classroom.
Abhijit Bhaduri is the Chief Learning Officer of Wipro. He has worked in India, South East Asia and the US where he led teams for Microsoft, PepsiCo, Colgate and Tata Steel. He is on the Advisory Board for the CLO program run by University of Pennsylvania. SHRM lists him as a top influencer on social media.
Abhijit’s writings have appeared in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, ORMS magazine and The Conference Board. He writes regularly for The Economic Times, People Matters Magazine and blogs for the Times of India. He is the author of two bestselling works of fiction and a much acclaimed book on how to hire for the right fit.
Rajan Anandan began his career with Mckinsey & Co., after which he held top leadership positions in companies such as Dell and Microsoft. Under his leadership Dell has profited from increased revenues of $250million to $800million in just three years. Anandan earned his Bachelors degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Master’s degree in Engineering from Stanford University.
Neil Mehta’s got your back when comes to business and investing. Neil is the co-chairman of Greenoaks Global Holdings Ltd. and the founder of Greenoaks Capital. Prior to Greenoaks Capital, Neil was responsible for real estate and special situations investments in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia for Orient Property Group. Neil has previously invested in private businesses at Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors in Los Angeles.
Neil serves as a board member to Greenoaks Global Holdings Ltd, Coupang, Sol Republic, Lolli & Pops, and other Greenoaks portfolio companies. He serves on the Harvard Business School Alumni Advisory Board. Neil holds a BSc in Government and Economics from The London School of Economics
Ghatam Suresh Vaidyanathan is a top ranked Ghatam and multi-percussion artist internationally acclaimed and respected for his in-depth knowledge of Indian rhythm and technical supremacy. Working in the company of renowned drummers and musicians in world music and jazz genres besides carnatic music for many decades, Suresh has acquired the rich experience and authentic knowledge of the International music systems.
Suresh has had his tutelage under illustrious gurus like Shri T R Harihara Sharma, Sri T H Vinayakram, Sri T V Gopalakrishnan and Sri Umayalpuram Narayanaswamy Iyer – all legends in their own respect.
As a Ghatam player, Suresh has gained preeminence and Star value with his unique fingering techniques, sound modulation in robust solos and aesthetic accompaniment. He is also proficient in a variety of Indian percussion instruments like, mridangam, kanjira, tavil, konakkol and morsing and a few Latin percussions.
Parag Khanna is a leading global strategist, world traveler and best-selling author. He is Managing Partner of Hybrid Reality, Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, Senior Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, and Adjunct Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
He is co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012), and author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008) and How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011).
In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” Parag is regularly featured in media around the world such as the New York Times, TIME, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal, and appears regularly on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, PBS, and NPR.
He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born in India, Parag grew up in the United Arab Emirates, New York, and Germany.
He has traveled to more than 100 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Choy Peng Wu is the Group CIO of Singtel, where she is responsible for the Group’s IT vision and roadmap. She has served as the Singapore Government’s Chief Information Officer, and has also held a range of IT management roles in the Singapore Civil Service.
Out of the multiple feathers in Wu’s hat, a few include — Deputy Chairman of IDA International Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, Board member of the National University Health System (NUHS), Chairperson of the NUHS Information Technology (IT) Committee, and Board member of the Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore.
In 2011, She was named the “IDC-Enterprise Innovation Asia/Pacific CIO of the Year”. Before joining Singtel, Wu was the Group CIO of Neptune Orient Lines Group from 2006.
Charles Cadell is the President – Asia Pacific at McCANN. He has been working across the Asia Pacific region for the last 19 years, including time as CEO of Lowe Lintas India, and time in Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Malaysia, amongst others, with Leo Burnett. At Lowe Lintas, he became one of the only foreign CEOs in the history of the Indian advertising industry.
Balakrishnan G. Iyer (Balki) is the Chief Operating Officer of Bharat Light and Power Group. He is responsible for driving growth and leads Operations of all BLP’s Renewable Power Projects in India. Previously, Balki led Business Development for GE’s Global Research Center, based in New York, with responsibility for driving new technology development in the Renewable Energy portfolio (namely Wind, Solar) & Smart Grid.
Recently, he worked in GE Capital as Senior Vice President, Business Development, where he had responsibility for developing and driving new growth opportunities by identifying new markets and product solutions for Working Capital Solutions. He is Six Sigma Black Belt certified and is a graduate of the GE Operations Management Leadership Program.
Balki is a Director at Iyer Educational Institutions that runs schools focussed on kids with Autism which he co-founded with his wife; he is a Strategic Advisor for Indus Pharmaceutical Services and is part of the Dean’s Strategic Advisors, Binghamton University. Balki also sat on the Executive Board for GE’s Asia Pacific American Forum, a diversity group focussed on Asian leadership talent within GE
Alok Shetty is Principal of Bhumiputra Architecture, an internationally acclaimed architecture and design firm based in Bangalore City. Operating across many scales, Shetty’s firm consistently works towards new built environments that improve the quality of life in emerging economies.
Alok started his practice at the age of 19 by completing a multispecialty hospital while still in architecture school. He later pursued his Masters’ degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York where he was the youngest recipient of the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Award for Design Excellence.
Notably, the work of Bhumiputra and Alok has been exhibited and published extensively by several international publications. Alok has been featured on the “30 under 30” young achievers list by Forbes Magazine, one of “India’s Future Leaders” by National Geographic Magazine, one of six “International Next Generation Leaders” by Time Magazine, one of ten “International Young Architects Changing Skylines Around the World” by Complex Magazine, one of twenty “Young Achievers to Watch in 2015” by Elle Magazine and was recently the awarded the “Top 50 Young Architects” award by Architect & Interiors Magazine.
WEBSITE: bhumi-putra.com
Scott Knox is a Boston based architect who is creating pop-up housing solutions for the sadhus of the Ujjain Kumbh Mela in India.
Seema Kamble’s journey of educational achievement began when she was a student at the Akanksha Foundation, a nonprofit organization which provides underprivileged children with access to quality education. Flourishing with the foundation’s support, she went on to earn her Bachelor’s in Commerce. When granted admission into an MBA program, however, she declined–opting instead to focus on educational service. Seema has taught third and fourth grades and is currently a principal with Teach for India.
Young Sandhya Kola has been studying violin nearly all her life—since she was four. Residing in an area with limited opportunity to study Western Classical traditions, Sandhya fed her passion through self-study and through Skype-based lessons. She is currently a grade 12 student at The International School Bangalore and plans to focus on music at university. Sandhya believes music is not only a means of self-expression but also a unique means of self-realization and introspection.
Ronojoy Adhikari is a scientist at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. His research focusses on two main areas, investigating the physics of materials and designing algorithms that make machines mimic human intelligence. Ronojoy is the recipient of the Faculty Research Award from Google Inc and the DAE-SRC Outstanding Investigator Award from the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
He has been Hamied Visiting Lecturer at Cambridge University and Indo-US Science and Technology Fellow at Princeton University and New York University. Ronojoy earned a doctorate in physics from the Indian Institute of Science and then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
Ronojoy’s research has been covered in national and international media, including the BBC and Time Magazine. Ronojoy is deeply interested in Indian music and in his free time is either playing sarodes badly or taking them apart to study their physics.
Priyamvada Natarajan is a professor in the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University. She is a theoretical astrophysicist interested in cosmology, gravitational lensing and black hole physics. Her research is focused on making dark matter maps of clusters of galaxies, the largest known repositories of dark matter. She is also exploring a new channel for the formation of the first black holes and its observational consequences at high and low redshift.
In addition to her academic position at Yale, she also currently holds the Sophie and Tycho Brahe Professorship of the Dark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She has been recently elected to an Honorary Professorship for life at the University of Delhi, India. She has won many awards such as the India Abroad Foundation’s “Face of the Future ” Award, academic achievement from the Global Organization for the People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), India Empire NRI award for Achievement in the Sciences. Priya was also elected a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Explorers Club in 2010. Priya currently serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Astronomy Department and is actively engaged in developing strategies to enhance numerical and scientific literacy for the public at large and writes for the New York Review of Books. Her first book aimed at the public, “Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmos”, will be published in April 2016.
Pranay grew up in India but right after his education, he moved to New York to join Mitchell Madison Group, a strategy consulting firm that advised clients in media and finance industries. Two years into the country, he launched a startup which he later merged with Walker Digital, Priceline’s incubator. The startup focused on helping small businesses convert online leads into paying customers. His work at Walker Digital earned him a US patent in the area of matchmaking between buyers and sellers. Subsequently, Pranay helped large US media companies such as movie studios and publishers evaluate and launch new digital businesses as a Principal at Booz & Co. in New York.
Pranay is an avid follower of films. He likes them enough that he learnt film making at the New York Film Academy and made a new-format feature film that also turns into a game. The film encouraged the audience to be a part of the narrative and the story of the film unfolded based on their actions. The film was made with the bet that some day internet would dominate video distribution, sending video to intelligent devices, and that will give rise to new entertainment formats that cut across films and games. While making the film in New York, Pranay used Craigslist to audition almost 100 actors, recruit 50+ cast/crew members, hire software developers, and even rent his apartment in New York while he sat in India editing its final cut. That is when he realized that nothing like Craigslist existed in India which led to the birth of Quikr.
Pranay graduated from IIM Calcutta with a Gold Medal in 1996, and earned a B.Tech. from IIT Delhi prior to that.
Mastering more than one musical instrument is no easy feat, but Meagan Pandian has won acclaim on the piano, the violin, and the concert pedal harp. Named the Young Musician of the Year in 2014 by the Olga and Jules Craen Foundation, Meagan has performed all over India. Furthermore, she has taken part in music study and festivals in England, Scotland, and France. In addition to performing as an instrumentalist, Meagan also sings in choral productions and teaches children and adults.
Born into a shepherding family, Madhukar Dhas has a keen understanding of the struggles of rural farmers. Motivated by the need to conserve water, in 1995 Madhukar banded with like minds to found Dilasa. To date, this NGO has benefitted more than 110,000 farmers with sustainable initiatives such as holistic watershed management, mixed cropping strategies, and seed banks. Diliasa received the National Rural Innovation Award from the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development for its work in water channeling.
M.R. Rangaswami is a software executive, investor, entrepreneur, corporate eco-strategy expert, community builder and philanthropist. In 1997, he co-founded Sand Hill Group one of the earliest “angel” investment firms and was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. He produced the prestigious Enterprise and Software conferences that were held in Silicon Valley. He was also listed on the Forbes “Midas” list of investors.
He is also the founder of Corporate Eco Forum, an invitation-only membership organization for Global 500 companies that demonstrate a serious commitment to environment as a business strategy issue.
In 2012, M.R. founded Indiaspora (a non-profit) to unite Indian Americans and to transform their success into meaningful impact in India and on the global stage.
Imaad Shah is an Indian actor and musician. He is one half of Madboy/Mink, India’s leading Electro Cabaret-Disco-Funk duo. He is also a theatre actor, and works with theatre company Motley, founded by Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani.
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Vice Chairman & CEO of Zensar Technologies, a leading firm that optimises technology and processes for Fortune 500 companies. Natarajan’s industry responsibilities include leadership of the HBS Club of India, Chairman of the National Committee on Knowledge Management and Business Transformation and the Western Region Committee on Skills for the Confederation of Indian Industry. He was Chairman of NASSCOM in 2008 and is a member of the Chairmen’s Council of NASSCOM. He is also a fellow of the Computer Society of India. Ganesh is a Director of Social Venture Partners India and Convener of SVP Pune.
Natarajan has been appointed the Chairman of NASSCOM Foundation for 2014-16. He is also a Founder and Board Member of Global Talent Track, a pioneer in Employability Skills Training in Asia
Balan Ayyar is the chief operating officer of Sevatec, Virginia-based technology contractor. Prior to joining Seratec, Balam has served in the US Air Forces. A retired brigadier general, Balan has more than two-decade veteran in the areas of nuclear weapons, intelligence, national security and supply chain management. He has led the Air Force’s sales, advertising and marketing arm and oversaw a multi-service interagency effort aimed at establishing rule of law as well as protecting U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The Air Force Academy graduate also serves as a White House Fellow and on the Council on Foreign Relations. He finished the senior fellow program at Harvard University and earned a master’s degrees from Auburn University and the National Defense University.
Arunabh Kumar, featured in Fortune “40 Under 40” List of India’s Business Leaders of 2015, is the Founder & CEO of The Viral Fever (TVF Group), a new age media company, with the philosophy of “Lights…Camera…Experiment !”. He is hailed as an expert on Youth Entertainment and a driver of Online Content Evolution in India. TVF’s Online business entity “TVF-ONE” got featured in top 20 Start Ups in India of 2014.
He created India’s 1st YouTube Channel for original content to cross a Million Subscribers. He has diversified ‘TVF Group’ into a cluster of media businesses in Branded Content Solutions, Live Entertainment, Distribution platform and intends to make ‘TVF’, India’s answer to Disney.
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.
Annamma Spudich will blow your mind when it comes to connecting art, biology, ethno-botany and ancient scientific traditions. Annamma received her Ph.D and pursued postdoctoral work in molecular biology at Stanford University, and then carried out cell biology research at Stanford for 25 years – but something was still missing for her. After her work at the University of California, Anna left to devote her time to her life-long passion for ancient Indian scientific traditions in the natural sciences. With her extraordinary ability to connect the dots of seemingly separate fields, Anna curated a groundbreaking exhibit entitled “Such Treasure and Rich Merchandize: Indian Botanical Knowledge in 16th and 17th Century European Books”, and wrote several influential research papers about ethno-botany.
Amanda is founder and CEO of Artisan Connect, providing market access for high quality home décor products from artisans in developing countries to help them thrive. She conceived of Artisan Connect while she was recovering from injuries sustained in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Previously, Amanda was VP Marketing and Communications at AOptix, a leader in wireless communications infrastructure. As VP Corporate Communications at Splunk, Amanda helped prepare the company for its successful IPO in 2012. Before that, Amanda served as Global Head of Energy and Environment for Porter Novelli. As VP Corporate Marketing, Amanda prepared Calico Commerce for its public offering in 1999. In addition, Amanda led two highly regarded branding and web design agencies, as President of Studio Archetype (acquired by Sapient) and Managing Director of Sequence. Early in her career Amanda ran the Desktop Publishing Group at Apple.
Amanda is a private pilot. She serves as a mentor and has been entrepreneur in residence at Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefits Institute. She is on the steering committee of the Alliance for Artisan Enterprise. Amanda is a trustee of Business Today Magazine (Princeton University) and sits on the board of Sustainable Travel International.
Vikas Agarwal is the General Manager of OnePlus India and was instrumental in the Chinese smartphone company’s expansion into India. Agarwal was responsible for setting up OnePlus’s operations, building a local team and launching the OnePlus One in the country. Prior to this, Vikas served as Corporate Excellence Director at Ibibo Group for about a year and half and was also the co-founder and CEO of Paras Softcom, an online retailer of lighting and electrical products. He is also a founding member of PE fund SITQ India and has had stints at Trikona Capital, Ocwen Financial Solutions and i2 Technologies.
Suresh Shankar has over 28 years of experience working in a variety of roles ranging from large enterprises to start-ups, setting up new companies or divisions and launching or turning around brands or businesses. His latest venture is Crayon Data, a company that powers enterprises with the big data capability to offer ultra-personalized choices to consumers. Founded in Singapore in 2012 with a development center in Chennai, Crayon’s vision is symbolized by the seven tangrams in basic colors in its logo, with the idea to solve the perplexing data problem in a minimalist, simple, visual way.
Shubhendu Sharma, an experienced industrial engineer turned eco-entrepreneur, is the Founder & Director of Afforestt, a company which creates urban forests. Developed using the Miyakwaki methodology for growing saplings from Japan, backed by robust management, intensive research and cutting edge technologies, Afforestt can create a “100 year old natural forest” in just 10 years. Shubhendu is an INK Fellow from the class of 2012.
Ronak is the co-founder of NowFloats, a start-up aimed at make the internet relevant for India’s innumerable small businesses. NowFloats helps business owners without access to the internet or a computer set up and update their own websites entirely by SMS. An inventor at heart, this 2013 INK Fellow is also the co-inventor and chief advisor of Bolt, the world’s first smartphone charger for bikes, and the co-designer of a ‘Speech Glove’ which recognises finger gestures and converts them to speech
Robert Amjärv (bass, guitar) is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, and filmmaker. His musical pursuit began at an early age, primarily engaging himself in the self-taught route. Soon after graduating high school at 14, he attended the Academy of Entertainment Technology in his hometown of Los Angeles. Rob involves himself with a wide variety projects in LA, and continues to travel the globe as an active performer.
Ramprasad Sundar is a sound designer, mixer and composer who has been writing music and editing sound for films and TV since 2009, both in Hollywood and India. Fluent in sound editing, mixing (Surround) in multiple formats and music composing, he also teaches music and sound to students around the globe. He has worked on several sound design and surround sound mixing projects including Bradford Young’s installation piece ‘Funk God Jazz and Medicine’. He has worked with Gingger Shankar, Mali Elfman, Anisa Qureshi, Santosh Sivan, Mandolin U. Srinivas, Shankar Mahadevan, Ilayaraja to name a few.
Pulkit Jaiswal, 22, is an entrepreneur, roboticist and Founder-CEO of SwarmX. At 18, Pulkit designed and implemented a medical device at Stanford University that can recognize viral infection signatures in real-time from DNA samples. At 20, Pulkit founded Garuda Robotics, a company that is the regional leader in aerial drone fleet applications and services in Southeast Asia. Now 23, Pulkit is spearheading SwarmX, a startup building the world’s first fully autonomous drone platform for governments to tackle terrorism, respond to disasters and address poaching.
Peng T. Ong is a Managing Director at Monk’s Hill Ventures, a technology venture fund. He sits on the boards of YY Inc. and Singapore University of Design & Technology; and, also on the advisory board of the Chancellor of the University of Illinois. Until recently, Peng was also on the boards of SingTel and Singapore’s National Research Foundation; and, chaired Infocomm Investments. Peng founded Match.com (bought by IAC), Interwoven (now part of HP), and Encentuate (acquired by IBM).
The businesses he created now generate annual revenues that total more than US$1 billion. He has a master’s in Computer Science from UIUC and a BSEE from UT Austin.
Gingger Shankar is a singer, virtuoso violinist, composer, model and songwriter, and was born into one of the world’s most influential musical families. Her accomplishments include working with top producers and film composers, and recently contributing to Katy Perry’s album “Prism” on the single, ‘Legendary Lover’. Gingger is an INK Fellow from the class of 2015. She is also the only female in the world to have mastered the 10-string double violin, an instrument that covers the entire range of the orchestra’s double bass, cello, viola and violin, and of which there are currently only two in existence.
Deepak Ravindran is the Founder and CEO of Lookup, a free and secure messaging app that connects shoppers with local businesses. A serial entrepreneur, Deepak has founded three mobile messaging companies in a decade: Innoz, Quest and Lookup. A 2011 INK Fellow, he has been recognized as one of the outstanding innovators under 35 by the MIT Technology Review and one of Asia’s 21 emerging leaders under 40 by the Asia Society. Recently, Business Insider described Deepak as the “Mark Zuckerberg of India”.
Cheryl heads the strategic planning department at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and together with a team, is building the futures research and teaching capabilities at the School with the “Future Ready Singapore” project. Her work focuses on the intersection of technology, economic and regulatory policy and on capability development in futures thinking for policy makers.
Before joining the School in 2015, Cheryl worked in the Singapore Government where she led futures projects across several ministry portfolios for 8 years. She entered the world of public policy futures as part of the pioneer team for the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s Futures Group. There, she led projects exploring the industry development potential of trends such as big data, and 3D-printing. After MTI, she moved to the Strategic Policy Office, under the Prime Minister’s Office, where she co-led the Emerging Strategic Issues Project v2.0 and led research work on the Evolving Role of the State. She also designed, developed, and delivered their in-house training programme, Futurecraft, specialising in foresight communication. Cheryl’s most recent ministry posting was to the Ministry of Transport where she helped to start the Ministry’s futures team and led the development of their policy framework for Autonomous Vehicles.
Cheryl trained as an economist and graduated with a first class honours degree from the University of Melbourne in 2002. Cheryl graduated with a Master of Public Administration from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2013. Outside her day job, Cheryl consults for the social sector as Project Director for Conjunct Consulting and is a co-founder of Quad Research, a non-partisan collective that believes in expanding the space for data-driven discourse and assisting in better collective decisions for Singapore’s future.
Bennett Bay is a composer and musician from Singapore whose music reflects everyday experiences and evokes emotion using pastoral imagery. His debut single ‘Komorebi’ was officially released to rave reviews in April this year on Spotify, iTunes and Bandcamp. Bennett has been playing music since he was eight, when he first picked up the suona in primary school, and has been writing his own music since 2011. He will now be recording his debut album in the coming months while he also heads to university to further his music studies.
Poornima Sukumar is a Bangalore based muralist, artist, illustrator and documentary photographer. She uses public spaces – through wall art – to empower youth voice, engage the youth in peacemaking and to create awareness.
Most recently and with the assistance of the daughters of sex-workers, she painted a wall on the streets of Mumbai’s red light district. Last year,In Nepal, she co-painted a wall-art project with children orphaned by the 2015 Earthquake. She has also worked with schools and policy makers of Bangalore, including juvenile facilities, for at-risk young boys and girls. She is a TEDx speaker and has also spoken at the LITMUS festival – creating meaningful experiences by combining arts, literature, and creating opportunities in the social sector.
Poornima is also the founder of Aravani Art Project, which aims to embrace the transgender community and other marginalised populations by creating consciousness and well being through art, awareness, and social inclusion.
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.
Luke is a user experience designer with a deep interest in math and maps. He focuses on simplifying complex networks and is the founder of Numadic IoT. Numadic builds sensors and software for logistics and supply chain management.
He has previously built telematics and product design companies in Canada and the UK. Luke now lives in Goa where he is also the head of Start-Up Goa and start-up incubator, DCCPER.
Kazuhiro has two callings; launching IT platforms and connecting people to bridge more innovations between Japan and other Asian countries. He has worked for McKinsey, Google, Rakuten and 8 other companies in the New biz dev sector.
Kazuhiro has also contributed TEDTokyo auditions, Burning Man Japan and so on. He now lives in Bali and is the author of the bestselling book “Principles of IT Biz”.
Acting comes naturally to Jitendra Kumar who is known and recognised for his work in some of TVF’s most popular videos – Munna Jazbaati, remembered for his hyperactive emotional state, Kejriwal in Bollywood Aam Aadmi Party which is by far the most popular TVF video and that of a role as an impatient son engaged in a tech conversation with his Dad!
He played a confused groom in India’s first and highly successful web series Permanent Roommates and finally the lead in TVF Pitchers which is ranked #21 in IMDb’s top TV series in the world.
Hemmant Jha is Chief Design Officer at Godrej & Boyce.
Prior to establishing the Godrej Design Center, Hemmant was Design Director at IA Collaborative, responsible for the concept, design and development of products and built environments for IA’s global clients.
Hemmant was Founder and Principal of industrial design and technology development companies Thinkmore and Think/Thing. Before that, he was Senior Designer at Sony Electronics Design Center working across Los Angeles and Tokyo, and designer at the Harman International Advanced Research Group in Los Angeles.
Hemmant is also Founder of Wheelwell, a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of products and technologies for people with physical disabilities; serves as the Executive Director.
He received his Master of Architecture degree from Yale University, and his undergraduate degree from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.
A firm believer in the superiority of vinyl over other media, he is the proud owner of eleven turntables. He is also a supporter and collector of well designed objects.
Harsh Songra is the founder of MyChild, an Android app that uses artificial intelligence to track and inform parents about any delays in the child’s growth and development. Today 1 out of 6 children suffer from one or the other developmental disorder and 16 million children out of 100 million born every year, go undiagnosed.
Harsh created the app because he himself suffered from a developmental disorder and it took his parents 9 years to figure that out. With MyChild, he says it would take parents today, less than 10 seconds to do it.
Rickshawali is a girl-centric comedy channel and the host of the channel is Anisha Dixit. Every Friday, she dons her unique Ricksha Topi and plays an Uber-effervescent alter-ego known as Rickshawali. On Tuesdays she does skits and comedy vlogs, with a funny twist to Indian daily behaviour.
Together, they bring a new spin on the day to day activities of Indians and most importantly, women’s issues. Her most popular series is about making foreigners do Indian things, that is why she is also known as the Hajmola Girl, for she is famous for making foreigners eat Hajmola.
This year she performed at the prestigious YouTube fanfest alongside IISuperwomanII, Connor Franta, AIB, Kanan Gill and more
Trained in dance forms like ballet, bharatnatyam, contemporary, contact improvisation and martial arts like Kalari-payattu from the Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts in Bengaluru, Abhay Mahajan has been a part of more than 30 plays of which he has performed around 400 shows.
He found wide fame with the role of ‘Mandal’ in the hit Youtube TVF series “Pitchers”. In 2015, his Marathi movie RINGAN(The Quest) was officially selected at the prestigious 12th Stuttgart Indian Film Festival.
If you have a loving connection with Aamchi Mumbai, there’s hardly a chance that you’ve missed the boldest, wittiest, most influential voice on the airwaves.
When you talk about radio, Mumbai Ki Rani Malishka is the first name to pop into your head. Malishka not only enjoys the position of being the top radio-name in the country, but has also received the most number of awards in the radio and tv industry.
She currently hosts her celebrity chat show on Hotstar called M Bole Toh – where she entertains and grills the stars, and, they love it.
Best known for her stand-up and sketch comedy, Sumukhi Suresh is an actor, writer, and comedian from Bangalore. She currently stars in a leading role on Them Boxer Shorts’ new web series, “Better Life Foundation”.
Sumukhi describes herself as a motor-mouth Hindi speaking Tamalyali who has an annoying need to show off her dimple.
Kaneez Surka is an improviser, comedic actor, sketch artist and a stand up comic.
She is India’s first improviser and is a member of “The Improvisers”. In 2014, Kaneez began conducting improv workshops all around the country and is an integral part in expanding the improv scene in India. She is also part of the popular show “The Week that Wasn’t With Cyrus Broacha” on CNN IBM.
With a keen interest in visual design, human behaviour and technology , Anushka founded Thought Over Design – a studio based in Mumbai that creates positive experiences and memories through design.
She aims to change the definition and scope of what we consider ‘design’ in this country and brings to the forefront successful design practices that shape businesses today. Through curiosity, research, empathy and detailed execution, she has built a team of designers that compliment each other and help clients build better businesses.
Amit is a visionary and technology evangelist with a penchant for mobile apps and games. He has over 15years experience and has consulted with Fortune 500 organizations across domains such as travel, defense, healthcare, banking & mobile.
After 12 years in the IT industry, Amit now heads the game production house of TechTree, Nukebox Studios. With a strong production team, Nukebox Studios is working on developing and publishing innovative and entertaining IPs for the global market. Counting a combined experience of 200+ years across a team of 45 who all have an undying passion for gaming, Nukebox Studios is on a mission to ‘create awesome’ with games crafted with the utmost care and unrelenting commitment to perfection
Aman Jain is the Head of Learning & Development at VF Corporation, India, well known for their iconic brands, The North Face, Timberlands, Vans, Lee, Wrangler & Nautica. He is a passionate, energetic and highly experienced trainer in diverse domains like behavioral interventions, experiential learning, youth and women empowerment.
Subodh Kerkar was born in a small picturesque village of Keri on the northern border of Goa in 1959, just 2 years before the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese rule.
He spent his childhood, walking on the beaches with his artist father, Chandrakant Kerkar. These walks consolidated his relationship with his father and with the ocean.
Subodh qualified as a doctor, ran a hospital for 7 years before giving it up to pursue his passion, Visual Arts.
Subodh Kerar’s installations are heavily washed by the ocean, both literally and metaphorically. He creates his ephemeral installations using thousands of mussel shells, coconut shells, recycled tyres, boats, bamboos, fishermen and sand.
The ocean is both inside and outside his works, his master and his muse.
Dr. Subodh creates large works on the seashore, which are often infused with politics and history.
Dr. Subodh is the Founding Director of the Museum of Goa (MOG) and has exhibited widely in India and abroad in galleries and in museums.
Samim is an international cyclist and the first Indian to qualify and compete in Race Across America – a 5000 kilometer race that spans across 12 days.
He believes all Indians need to bike more, to help with the growing amounts of pollution in the country. Some of Samim’s other adventures include riding his bike 600 kilometers from Ooty to Bangalore and back in 27 hours.
Samim previously worked as an engineer in Mumbai and a perfumer, but quit his jobs to pursue his love for cycling.
Dr. Karanth is Chief Conservation Scientist and Director at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Adjunct Faculty at Duke and National Centre for Biological Sciences. She has a Ph.D from Duke (2008), a M.E.Sc from Yale (2003), and, B.S and B.A degrees from the University of Florida (2001). Her research in India and Asia spans 22 years, encompassing many issues in human dimensions of wildlife conservation. She has conducted research assessing patterns of species distributions and extinctions, impacts of wildlife tourism, consequences of voluntary resettlement, land use change and understanding human-wildlife interactions. She has published over 100 scientific and popular articles. Karanth served on the editorial boards of journals Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters and Frontiers in Ecology and Environment. She has mentored over 200 young scientists and engaged 700 citizen science volunteers in her research and conservation projects.
Her work has been covered by nearly 150 international media such as Al Jazeera Television, BBC, Christian Science Monitor, GQ India, Harper’s Bazaar, Mongabay, Monocle, National Geographic, NPR, New York Times, Scientific America, Time Magazine and Indian outlets such as All India Radio, Deccan Chronicle, Deccan Herald, Down to Earth, Kannada Prabha, LiveMint, New Indian Express, Prajavani, The Hindu, and Times of India. Karanth’s conservation and research work has been featured in 3 award-winning BBC Series – The Hunt, Big Cats and Dynasties, and documentaries by CBC and PBS. She has co-produced 3 documentaries Wild Seve, Humane Highways and Wild Shaale.
Kriti Karanth is National Geographic Society’s 10,000th grantee and 2012 Emerging Explorer. Her more than 40 awards and recognitions include World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, University of Florida’s Outstanding Young Alumnus, INK Fellow, India’s Power Women by Femina, Women of the Year by Elle India, Vogue Women of the Year and Seattle Zoo’s Thrive Conservation Leadership Award. In 2019, she received the WINGS Women of Discovery Award for Conservation, GQ Man of the Year- Environmental Hero and was awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise.
Kalyan Varma is a wildlife photographer and filmmaker specializing in environmental issues in India. He is a freelancer with many of the world’s leading magazines and channels like National Geographic and BBC.
He has co-founded India Nature Watch, the largest online community of wildlife photographers, and also shares his knowledge of photography and wildlife with people in various platforms.
Kalyan is a BBC earth explorer, and freelances with BBC Natural History unit and National Geographic Channel. His work has appeared in many publications worldwide, including National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, GEO, Smithsonian, Lonely Planet and other magazines.
WEBSITE: Kalyan Varma Photography
BBC DOCUMENTARIES: Mountain of the Monsoons, Million Snake Bites
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTARIES: Secrets of Wild India
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.
Bala is based in Mumbai and responsible for creating and building the NEA India platform. She serves on the board of several NEA portfolio companies such as Financial Software and Services, GOQii Inc, Nova Medical, IndiaWorld Technologies, Panacea Medical, etc.
Prior to this, she was Senior Director of Investments at ICICI Venture where she used her operational experience to identify opportunities for investment and to play a key role in shaping the future of investee companies. During her tenure at ICICI Venture, she was a Director on the Boards of several companies including Future Retail, Nagarjuna Construction, TechProcess Solutions, Info Edge amongst others, and continues to serve on the board of Future Retail and Info Edge as Independent Director.
Bala’s private equity experience has seen the full cycle from nurturing young companies to executing multiple exits, including IPO’s, buy-backs, strategic sales, and capital market divestments.
Trisha is a social activist, lawyer and UN Young leader for Sustainable Development Goals. Her work focuses on working with and for the youth towards the advancement of the UN’s SDGs by bringing a gender specific approach to multiple disciplinary areas.
SheSays is a youth-led NGO that stresses on civil society engagement to promote gender equality. SheSays functions are in the domains of sexual violence, education, healthcare and sanitation, security and public policy. The organisation has been leading the movement to eliminate sanitary napkin tax, under the viral campaign #LahuKaLagaan that got bipartisan political support.
So far, SheSays has successfully engaged more than 150,000 people. She has also mentored youth in the Arab region and Singapore in response to the SDGs. For her work, Trisha was recently recognised by President Obama as a civic leader and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Class of 2017 listee under the Social Entrepreneurs and Pioneer Women categories.
Sunil Kanoria is a Kolkata-based Indian businessman with over 28 years of experience in infrastructure sector including infrastructure leasing & finance. He is the co-founder and Vice Chairman of Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited and also a trustee of Kanoria Foundation, which has as asset base of USD 10 billion.
His other ventures include Quippo, which was launched in 2002 as an equipment rental business. He also formed a joint venture with Tata Teleservices in 2009 to form Viom Networks, a telecom tower company. In 2016, Srei’s stake in Viom Networks was acquired by American Tower Corporation. Sunil’s career highlights include membership to the group involved in the development of the 10th Five Year Plan (2002–07) of the Planning Commission, Government of India.
“A visionary, mentor and passionate humanist who is driven to make Hyderabad one of the top 10 startup cities in the world”
Srini, as he is fondly called, is the Founder & Chief Operating Officer of T-Hub – India’s fastest growing startup engines catalyzing innovation, scale and deal flow. A thought-leader with in-depth knowledge of the startup ecosystem, he has successfully built a strong community that includes startups, incubators, accelerators, seed funds, angel networks, VCs and other startup ecosystem players. Under his stewarship, T-Hub has emerged as a force to reckon in the startup ecosystem across India. It has garnered attention from domestic as well as global investors, corporates and governments. He has been instrumental in launching several key initiatives that has taken T-Hub and Hyderabad to global map as one of the fastest growing and dynamic startup communities in the world.
Srini is also an angel investor and Hyderabad Director for the Founder Institutre, the world’s largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program. He sits on the Executive Council of the IIIT-H Foundation, the Industry Advisory Board for the Centre for Management Studies, NALSAR University of Law and serves as Mentor and advisor to many organizations and startups.
Sheelika has nearly two decades of experience building and managing high performance human capital organizations both as an executive and an entrepreneur. At Team Indus, India’s only entry to Google Lunar XPRIZE, she enables the people organization and facilitates a culture of collaborative innovation and execution.
Team Indus is on a mission to lead India into the next generation of space exploration, precision engineering and aviation technology. In the process Team Indus will help redraw the boundaries of private initiative possibilities, inspire an entire generation of entrepreneurs and much more.
In January 2015, Team Inuds won a $1M milestone prize from Google Lunar XPRIZE after competing in the landing and imaging categories.
Sashi is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader. He founded 4 start-ups over the last 20 years. His last company AppLabs, a software testing firm with 2,500 employees, was acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC).
He is the founding president of TiE Philadelphia and a member of the Wharton Entrepreneurship advisory board. he is also a member of the boards at T-Hub (Hyderabad) and Ben Franklin Technology Partners (Philadelphia) and runs a charitable organization that supports 650 school kids in Hyderabad.
Sanjay Swamy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Prime (previously AngelPrime) a seed-stage VC firm based out of Bangalore. Sanjay leads the charge on helping shape companies that have a specific focus on mobile applications, banking, financial services and mobile payments, with a firm philosophy of partnering with banks and financial institutions.
Sanjay has played a dual-role of investor and co-founder in Prime’s first two companies, ZipDial, a mobile marketing platform recently acquired by Twitter, as well as Ezetap, a smart-mobile POS company. Sanjay also is a key investor in happay, KredX and NiYO and is also actively involved in various policy-shaping initiatives that are redefining banking and payments in India including being a volunteer with iSpirit.
Prior to Prime, Sanjay played a key role in Aadhar (Unique ID project) where he worked on the authentication platform and its relationship to payments, banking, insurance and telecommunication services. Earlier he was the CEO of mobile payments startup mChek, a large-scale mobile payments provider that had massive distribution to more than 300M users across the Airtel and DoCoMo networks. You can follow Sanjay on Twitter @theswamy
Samir Sood is founder of Venture Highway. In addition, Samir has helped grow and diversify India Forge, a family run auto parts manufacturing business. Prior to this, Samir was the Head of South Asia, Australia – M&A and Investments for Google Inc., and in that capacity, he has led Google’s investments in several first time seed stage funds in India: Erasmic Venture Fund (Accel India), SONG (Soros, Omydiar, Google Fund), Seedfund, and Ventureast TeNet Fund II. Additionally, Samir was part of the team that coordinated the $750 million acquisition of AdMob.
Earlier, Samir was part of the Corporate Business Development team at Cisco Systems, Inc. where he led wireless acquisitions and investments, which included the $450 million acquisition of Airspace. Samir executed the first venture investment in India (India Games) for Cisco Systems, Inc. among many other acquisitions and investments.
Ravi Mantha is one of India’s more prolific Angel Investors, with investments in several startups that he also actively helps with capital raising and business strategy. Ravi also has a very high-end and niche wellness advisory practice based in London and Mumbai. He is highly recommended as one of India’s leading nutritional and wellness experts, and is author of two best-selling books on these topics.
Raju is the Founder and CEO of Sierra Atlantic, a company that grew to be a best-in-class global services company over a period of 17 years. Under his leadership, Sierra Atlantic grew from a startup to over 2400 employees with operations in several countries and was consistently ranked amongst the best managed companies including the top 75 most admired companies in Silicon Valley, Top 25 great places to work in India and Top 10 best employers in South China.
Sierra Atlantic was acquired by Hitachi Consulting in December 2010 and it is the largest ever acquisition by Hitachi Consulting to date. Prior to founding Sierra Atlantic in 1993, Raju spent 10 years at Intel in software development, marketing, and general management. Raju currently serves on the board of Hitachi Consulting and GharPay, a fast growing consumer internet company based in India.
Raju is active in not-for-profit initiatives and is currently Chairman of BITSAA Intl, the alumni body of BITS Pilani, India’s #1 private university. He enjoys working with young entrepreneurs in a mentorship role and was instrumental in starting the TiE Chapter in Hyderabad. Raju also serves on the Board of India community center in Milpitas, CA. He previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Puente, a Wharton School non-profit program which helped under privileged communities worldwide gain access to technology. He also co-founded SIPA (Silicon Valley Indian Professional Association) in 1987.
Raju holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and electronics engineering from BITS Pilani and a Master of Science degree in computer science from Virginia Tech.
Rajesh is a pioneer in investing in direct-to-consumer companies in India. His investment interests span consumer categories in retail, education and mobile. Rajesh returned from the US in 2006, drawn by the immense potential that India presents for entrepreneurs in reshaping the country. He has been a part of the startup ecosystem ever since.
In a career spanning over 20 years, Rajesh has had a broad set of experiences in the technology industry across product development, sales, M&A, equity research and private equity. He currently serves on the boards of several companies. Rajesh has an MBA (Hons) from the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, a Master’s in engineering from Marquette University and Bachelor’s in Engineering from BITS, Pilani.
Radha Basu is widely recognized as a leading technology entrepreneur and mentor, and as a pioneer in the Indian software business. Radha grew Hewlett Packard’s electronic software division from ground zero into a $1.2 billion business. She then held the position of Chairman and CEO of Support.com, a Nasdaq-listed company. Radha and her husband subsequently launched Anudip Foundation to generate livelihoods for India’s unemployed and marginalized youth through digital and workplace skills development.
In 2012, Radha founded iMerit, a technology –enabled services company that delivers digital data services for machine learning, content and support while effecting positive social and economic impact by employing marginalized youth and women. Radha has received numerous awards including the Silicon Valley Business Journal Women of Influence Award, the UN Women-ITU Gender-Equality Mainstreaming Technology Award, Top 25 Women of the Web, and CEO of the Year. She serves on the boards of NetHope, Jhumki Basu Foundation, and Santa Clara CSTS.
Prakash is a business focused technology executive with 21 years of international experience. He has built multidisciplinary engineering teams and grown business operations in Fortune 500 companies. He has a strong background in Product engineering, IT & Operational Excellence. Excelled in matrix leadership role, he has steered the organizations for product innovation and strong performance ethics & integrity. He has worked in US for 9+ years and has many International Publications t his name.
Prakash Mallya is responsible for developing new growth areas in the region. He was most recently the Director for Intel Asia’s Data Center Group, and managed the region’s data center strategy for cloud service providers, communications service providers, enterprise and government infrastructure, spanning server, storage, and network solutions. Prior to that, Prakash was the Managing Director of Southeast Asia at Intel where he led all of Intel’s sales, marketing and the enablement of Intel products across Southeast Asia, one of the world’s most dynamic markets for computing technology. Besides achieving strong business results, under his stewardship, Southeast Asia team won the Global ECOC Award for exemplary leadership in Ethics and Compliance.
Nitesh K. Jangir is a co-founder of Coeo Labs, a medical device company solving unmet clinical needs in the field of emergency and critical care. VAPCare is one of the products which he has developed at Coeo. VAPCare is a patented device to reduce chances of contracting ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), a fatal lung infection which kills more than 250,000 patients in India alone. His work has won many awards including MassChallenge Boston, Millennium Alliance, 3M Young Innovators Award, ASME I-Show, American College of Cardiology, 1776, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge etc.
Miki is Director of 01Booster (Zero One Booster), top accelerator of Japan. Miki is passionate about 01Booster’s vision, ‘helping Japan make businesses that may impact the world.
She takes care of Partnership and Program Development for technology driven startup teams while managing an acceleration program. Before 01Booster, Miki was in charge of corporate venture capital and corporate accelerator program at Corporate Strategy Division at Nikon. Also, she was involved in cross border technology transactions including M&A and joint ventures as Legal and IP.
Lux Rao has spent over 25 years in the industry, taking on roles like Sales & Marketing, Branding and Communications, Channel & Product Management, Product Support, Pre-sales, Competency Development and Customer Service. He has contributed extensively in developing new services, value-proposition and transforming programs into business lines.
As a passionate technology evangelist, he has authored several whitepapers on Green IT, Cloud Computing and have been invited at various forums for emerging technologies as chairperson, moderator and speaker. He has also been recognized by various institutions and has been the proud recipient of 7 National and International awards during his current role.
Karthik Reddy is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, one of India’s leading early stage Venture funds. Blume focusses on seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over a 100 investments across its 7 year history.
Karthik’s stints at American Express, Reuters Instinet and Bennett Coleman (Times Group) have given him a breadth of experience across the US and India in Financial Markets, Technology and Media. He is an alumni of IIT (Roorkee), IIM (Bangalore) and The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.
At Blume, he has led the majority of the investments, and advises and serves on the boards of some of the leading investments at the firm – Zopper, Belong, Exotel, Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Chillr, Healthify, Mettl, Nowfloats, Railyatri amongst other emerging stars. Blume has had early success through significant exits in companies such as Taxiforsure (to Ola), Promptec (to Havells) and Zipdial (to Twitter).
Jayesh Ranjan is the Principal Secretary of the Industries and Commerce (I&C) and Information Technology (IT) Departments of the Telangana Government. His assignment involves developing policy frameworks, attracting new investments, identifying opportunities of utilizing IT in various government processes, and promoting digital empowerment of the citizens. His last few assignments have been in the Industrial Promotion sector as Commissioner and MD of the Industries Department, Secratary in the Tourism Promorion Department, and Vice Chairman of the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (HUDA) all for 2-3 years each and various rural assignments in different parts of the state for over 12 years, working in diverse sectors like Tribal Development, Natural Resources Management, Poverty Alleviation, and other related Social Development Sectors.
Anthony is an ophthalmologist by passion, an innovator by choice and a maker by evolution. His specific interests include Ocular Trauma, Community Ophthalmology and is pursuing research in the field of Whole Eyeball Transplantation. He is an Associate Director & Consultant Ophthalmologist at LVPEI and Chief Architect of eyeSmart EMR, a revolutionary Electronic Medical Record and Hospital Management System developed in-house at LVPEI and has checked in over 4 Million consultations. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians, Glasgow.
He is also the Founder of REPORT (Rural Education and Prevention of Ocular Trauma) addressing rural children in the prevention of Ocular Trauma. He is a Member of the International Task Force for Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning at the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO). He co-directs the Srujana Center for Innovation at LVPEI in collaboration with the Camera Culture Group, MIT Media Lab, USA. He is a TED Senior Fellow and is named among the Top 35 Innovators under 35 years in the world ( TR35 2012) by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. His current work focuses on Machine Learning models in healthcare and Augmented reality applications for education.
After investing in about 75 technology companies as a venture capitalist, Asha is currently a top Silicon Valley angel investor, social entrepreneur, global philanthropist, speaker, a mentor to Stanford entrepreneurs, and mom to her two daughters. She lives in Palo Alto and New York.
Her current mission is to free up learners of all ages to pursue learning that is relevant to their local contexts, their personal hopes, dreams and relationships. She is creating a vibrant network of “Makers” in India and CA through Fablabs and Maker Faire. Both enable students of all ages to transform their ideas and imagination into products using a simple combination of software and digital fabrication tool. Asha and her partners in India are also launching 6 School in the Cloud pilots with help from Prof Sugata Mitra and his team.
Anil Nanduri is Vice President in the New Technology Group and General Manager of the UAV segment at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for establishing Intel’s unmanned aviation systems business and pursuing opportunities for growth in this segment. This group provides ingredients and end to end systems for the drone ecosystem. Additionally, this group has been developing innovative new usages such as the Drone 100 aerial light show and providing technology to Volocopter, a person carrying drone copter. He also served on the FAA’s Micro UAS Aviation Rulemaking Committee.
Amit Lodha is a 1998-batch IPS officer of the Bihar cadre. He is presently the Deputy Inspector General of the Border Security Force, posted in Jaisalmer. He has been honoured with the Excellent Contribution Award for successfully initiating a police-public partnership for better policing in Bihar’s Nalanda district during his tenure as the superintendent of police there.
He launched SAMBHAV- an organization under the aegis of the Nalanda district police to tap the power of the youth towards community development. The organization successfully engaged the youth in tackling important social issues. Showcasing exemplary leadership, he has played an instrumental role in a number of successful police operations. He has been the recipient of various awards and commendations, including the acclaimed President’s Police Medal of Gallantry and the Internal Security Medal.
Amit heads the India business for edX – world’s largest open-source free learning platform founded by MIT and Haarvard University. edX is not-for-profit organization with a mission to provide free online access to high quality education for everyone.
Amit has managed various executive roles in building million dollars for Telco and Ed-Tech products across UK, Europe and India. Amit is a firm believer of frugal innovation and his profile includes projects that have disgrupted the markets such as Tab based learning solutions for Test Prep, K12 and Higher-Ed, while heading education solutions business for Samsung India. He is also credited for launching the cheapest Tablet PC of the word ‘Aakash’ with the Govt. of India.
Varun Sivaram is the Philip D. Reed fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a professor at Georgetown University, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, and a member of the advisory boards for the Stanford University Institutes for Environment and Energy. Forbes named him one of the 30 under 30 in Law and Policy, Grist selected him as one of the top 50 leaders in sustainability, and Rise ranked him as one of the top 5 global thought leaders on solar energy. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Taming the Sun (MIT University Press, February 2018).
Varsha Patra is the CEO & Co-founder of Homegrown. She comes from a marketing background spanning over a decade in both digital and traditional media, having worked in both India and Los Angeles. Her experience in marketing started out in a cloud-computing technology startup, continuing to build the Kraft-Foods (Cadbury India) account at Ogilvy Mumbai, and further continued to develop the brand and business strategy for a startup online video entertainment platform in Los Angeles. She holds a Master’s degree in marketing from the University of Southern California.
Tarun is pioneering the use of agricultural produce as building materials in India, making farmers economically relevant to the construction industry. He recognises the impact of construction on climate change and the importance of farmers in its mitigation. As the Founder and Managing Partner of GreenJams Infrastructures LLP, Tarun manages product innovation and the commercial scale development of carbon-negative bio-aggregate building materials from hemp stalks in collaboration with CSIR-CBRI, Roorkee. He hopes to see these miracle walls adorning everyone’s homes in the days to come. Tarun is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and holds degrees in Civil Engineering and Environmental Science.
Sneha Khanwalkar is an Indian music director who works in Bollywood. She is best known for her score for the film, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, and also for Gangs of Wasseypur Part 1, Part 2; the latter earned her a nomination in Best Music Director category at the 58th Filmfare Awards.
Pulkit Garg is a civil engineer by training and a civil servant by profession. Graduating from IIT Delhi in 2014, Garg went on to become one of the youngest individuals to clear the prestigious Civil Services Examination at 23. An IAS Officer of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) cadre, Pulkit has served as an Executive Magistrate of Bulandshahr district for a year, handling over 150 government departments ranging from development areas such as education, health, PDS (Public Distribution System), ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) to regulatory bodies like mining, armaments and land for a population of 2 million residents. His field of special interest is urban development and unlocking the land’s potential as a tool for economic development. He is currently posted as Executive Magistrate in Baghpat District, Uttar Pradesh.
Pranav Kothari is the head of the Large Scale Education Programmes division at Educational Initiatives (EI). He leads EI’s work in student assessments and the implementation of their adaptive learning software (Mindspark) in vernacular languages in government and affordable private schools across India. He has spoken on various platforms advocating the need to leverage the twin levers of cutting-edge educational research and technology-based solutions to revolutionize how children in the K-12 space learn. Pranav is an alumnus of Georgia Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School and has previously worked with GTI Capital and Boston Consultancy Group.
Serial Entrepreneur; Board member XPRIZE Foundation
A silicon-valley entrepreneur and philanthropist, Paresh Ghelani is focused on creating large-scale impact through innovation and entrepreneurship. Alongwith Ratan Tata and Naveen Jain, he brought XPRIZE Foundation to India to resolve challenges in public amenities and raise the quality of life. With his years of hands-on management experience Ghelani co-founded the 2020 Company LLC, building it into a massive endeavour, providing the US government advanced technology in education, defense, and healthcare space (now acquired by a private equity firm). True to his own motto, “work hard in silence and let your success be the noise”, Ghelani is currently engaged in enterprises like Moon Express, Viome Inc, DTV Motor Corporation, Ferrate Treatment Technologies, Casepoint, Radimmune Therapeutics.
National Awardee Nitin Sisodia is the Founder and CEO of Sohum Innovation Lab, a social enterprise working at developing solutions to improve health and income of people living in resource-poor settings. A 2010 Stanford India Biodesign fellow, Nitin was named one of the top 20 Indian innovators by MIT Tech review in 2013. He received NASSCOM ICT led Healthcare Innovation Award in 2016, Indian Merchant Chamber Inclusive Innovation Award in 2015 and the Sankalp India Award in 2016. He has received several grants including the Grand challenges Canada Star in Global Health, Center for Innovation in Global Health award, BIRAC Biotechnology Ignition Grant & Siemens grant for his research in developing an innovative hearing screening device for newborns. Nitin has a degree in Electrical Engineering from NIT Bhopal, and Industrial Design from NID Ahmedabad, India.
Nirupa Rao is a botanical illustrator based in Bangalore. Her illustrations are inspired by field visits into the wild, and are informed by close collaboration with botanists. In 2017, she was named a National Geographic Young Explorer, and received a grant to pursue her work. She has been published in Harper’s Bazaar India, and named in their list of Indian Women to be Proud of; in Chickpea, USA and Medicor (published by the Karolinksa Institutet, Sweden). Her first book, Pillars of Life, with 80 beautiful illustrations of trees native to the Western Ghats rainforests, has been published by the Nature Conservation Foundation and authored by botanists Divya Mudappa and Shankar Raman.
Director at the Power of NeuroGaming Center at Qualcomm Institute, Chukoskie is working to understand the human brain through gaming.
Working at the intersection of neuroscience, social science and education, Leanne Chukoskie is working to understand the human brain through gaming, to aid children with developmental and learning disorders. She is the director of the Power of NeuroGaming (PoNG) Center at the Qualcomm Institute at the University of California, San Diego, an Assistant Research Scientist in the Institute for Neutral Computation Associate at the centre, as well as Director for the Research for Autism and Development Laboratory (RADLab) at UC San Diego. She is a distinguished professor of Social Sciences at Minerva Schools at KGI, and co-founder of BrainLeap Technologies working at widening the reach for training games. Widely-acclaimed, her ground-breaking research has found space in multiple neuroscience journals, while her mentorship skills continue to help students pave their learning path.
Yamuna Sastry is Founder & CEO of Cab Dost, a tech-based social enterprise that serves the taxi drivers’ community in India, helping them gain financial dignity and inclusion, by filing their income tax returns. Previously, she worked with INKtalks for 3 years where she designed the INK Masterclass, an interactive learning experience connecting experts to rural colleges. Prior to this, she was an Assistant Professor at REVA University and a Senior Consultant in Risk Consulting Practice at KPMG, where she worked with Fortune 500 companies like Shell, Century Link, Emerson. Sastry represented India twice at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in 2017 and 2019, in Hyderabad and The Hague, Netherlands, and at OECD’s Tax Morale Conference in January 2019 in the area of reducing informalities in the unorganized sector. She has been recognized among the Top 15 Women Entrepreneurs and was awarded Women Transforming India Award 2018 by Women Entrepreneurship Platform – NITI Aayog and UN India which was felicitated by honourable Vice President Venkaiah Naidu.
Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao (https://www.elviscao.com/) is a Ph.D. Candidate at Cornell University working on converting CO2 into solar fuels. Past awards include: Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy (2018), EarthX 30 Under 30 (2019), AACYF 30 Under 30 (2019), BP Advancing Energy Scholar (2019), WEF Global Shaper (2019), and UN SDSN-Youth Local Pathways Fellow (2018-2019). Past degrees include: M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell (2019), M.Eng. (thesis) in Materials Engineering from McGill (2016) with joint training in Nuclear Engineering at MIT (2015-2016), and a dual bachelor’s degree (B.Eng. in New Energy & B.A. in English Literature) from Xi’an Jiaotong University (2013).
Venk Varadan is the Co-founder and CEO of Nanowear, a New York-based connected-care and companion diagnostics technology platform built upon first-of-its-kind cloth-based nanosensors and closed-loop machine learning algorithms. Prior to this entrepreneurship venture, Varadan spent seven years in Investment Banking, focusing exclusively on venture-backed software and communications technology in which he successfully closed $3bn USD worth of transactions at UBS, Citadel, and Wells Fargo. Prior to his finance career, he spent 3 years in product marketing and sales at Eli Lilly and Sanofi Pharmaceuticals. Varadan received his MBA from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Science and Engineering from Duke University.
Tammy Redpath is the president of Bengaluru-based Target India, an extension of the U.S. retailer Target’s headquarters operations. In this role, Redpath leads a team of more than 3,000 in fields ranging from technology, e-commerce, and marketing to human resources, finance, data science and analytics. A 29-year veteran of the company, Redpath started her Target career in stores management and advanced into leadership roles within marketing. Prior to becoming the President of Target India, she was a Senior Vice President of marketing, leading a global creative and operations team with disciplines in strategy, digital, project management, production and experiential marketing. Redpath received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
A musician of note, Tagaram Bheel plays the algoza. A double flute made of bamboo, an algoza works on the same principle as a bagpipe, and is an extremely tricky instrument to master. In this, one of the two flutes usually plays a continuous drone while the other plays different notes. The player has to master the art of breathing without letting the sound of the algoza break.
A filmmaker and storyteller, Shekhar Kapur is a Padma Shri awardee, credited with directing some of the most iconic and award-winning films, that have made waves in the international cinema. His real love is exploring the relationship between man and the universe. According to Kapur, fundamental mythologies (and therefore all stories) are our attempt to come to terms with the infinite within our finite imaginations. He believes this to be the basis of all art. In Hollywood, he won many accolades for his Cate Blanchett starrer movie series, Elizabeth, on Queen Elizabeth I. Since all perception is virtual, Shekhar is now looking to find new forms of storytelling with technologies such as VR and AI. Along with music-composer AR Rahman, Kapur co-founded an early digital start-up, Qyuki; and was at the forefront of advocating grass-roots digital access as a means of economic development in India, serving on the Innovation Council for the Indian Prime Minister. Kapur divides his time between Mumbai, London and at MIT in Boston.
Shayamal Vallabhjee has over 12 years of experience in the sports industry, working with the world’s best creatives, personalities and industrialists. Some include: the South African High Performance Cricket Team, Indian National Cricket Team, Indian Olympic Association, and many others. He has authored 5 books on sports science and motivation. Also, Shayamal is the director of Speed Kids — a program that caters to the bio-mechanical gross motor development of children between the age of 3-8 years.
Hailing from Dabari, a non-descript hamlet of Jaisalmer, Sawan Khan, is an internationally- recognised folk singer. Belonging to the Manganiyar sect of musicians, Khan has been performing for over four decades and is one of the most sought-after Sufi singers, having travelled across the globe to perform with his troupe.
Sarah Elizabeth Chawla co-founded Delhi based online music magazine and events company Wild City in 2011. Over the last 8 years the company has evolved into a brand that champions alternative music culture in the region through events, concerts, parties, workshops, skills development platforms, cultural collaborations, and consultancy projects. In 2013 Wild City co-founded Magnetic Fields festival – an annual music and arts festival now going into its 7th year. Growing from a small gathering of 400 guests to 4000 attendees in its last edition, the festival has organically evolved to represent India’s emerging creative community seamlessly marrying this alongside traditional Indian culture.
Rochelle Nembhard is a British-Jamaican, South African raised Creative Director and Filmmaker living between Africa, Asia and Europe. She is the Co-Founder of Noirwave – a borderless, free- thinking movement with Pan-African roots that pushes the boundaries of music, art and culture, by promoting and facilitating diversity, access and inclusion in typically elitist spaces, such as galleries and museums.. Her construction of imagery translates ancient knowledge into a contemporary landscape. Nembhard has a Masters in ‘Museums, galleries and contemporary culture’, a TATE-run programme at the University of Westminster in London.
Priya Rajan is the Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank. As the Market Lead for India, SEA, and Africa, she provides international market entry advice and introductions with a focus on technology and innovation, cross-border companies, entrepreneurs, and venture capital funds in emerging markets. Prior to this role she was Director of Early Stage Practice where she oversaw enterprise-wide university engagement strategy and closely worked with top-tier incubators and accelerators. She helped founders create strategic partnerships with those who can accelerate the way forward. Rajan also spent several years as the group controller for SVB Financial Group, where she led financial and accounting functions for 8+ global entities. Through her work at SVB, Rajan supports entrepreneurs who strive to make the world a better place, and she echoes that commitment in her free time as well. She’s on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters and of Women Who Code, an organization dedicated to helping women to excel in technology careers. In addition, Rajan is a charter member of TiE, Indiaspora, as well as a venture partner at XFund and advisor at Entrepreneurship at Cornell University. In addition to a bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras and a master’s degree in International Business from Queen’s University, Priya holds an MBA in business administration from Cornell University and a California CPA in accounting and business administration.
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).
Nishith Desai is the founder of the research-based strategy driven international law firm, Nishith Desai Associates with offices in Mumbai, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Singapore, Mumbai – BKC, New Delhi, Munich and New York.
Nishith himself is a renowned international tax, corporate, IP lawyer researcher, published author and lecturer in leading academic institutions around the world. He specializes in Financial Services sector and assisted Government of Mauritius and Government of India in establishment of their offshore financial centers. Soon after India opened up its economy to the outside world in 1991, he established the first five India Focused funds and pioneered the roots of asset management industry and the firm has now worked for over 900 funds across all classes of asset.
Neil Gaikwad advances the field of societal and urban computing, through the lens of human-centered machine learning, design, and evidence-informed policymaking for sustainable development. His research at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology seeks to understand and reform broken urban systems and markets (e.g., financial, gig-economy, and agricultural) that continue to endanger socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. His human-centered machine learning research is targeted to improve global food security by helping marginalized farmers and policymakers mitigate the impact of meteorological disasters and institutional breakdowns. His honors include the Facebook Research Fellowship, MIT Arts Scholar, and Karl Taylor Compton Prize, MIT’s highest student award.
Monishwaran Maheswaran, age 18, is one of the youngest Computer Scientists working in the field of Deep learning, Cognitive Computing, and Quantum Computing. Monishwaran excelled in several Olympiads and went on to pursue research in Mathematics at Harvard University. Over the past several years, Monishwaran has developed numerous projects, using Artificial Intelligence, ranging from accelerating the diagnosis of Schizophrenia to combating Malaria using blood diagnosis. He has collaborated with several companies in the hopes of building a better world. His most recent collaboration was with Microsoft QuArC, where he has been developing Quantum Algorithms alongside the QuArC team. He has also collaborated with MIT to provide content for the MITx 6.00.2x course on the edX platform. Being a leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Monishwaran Monishwaran has been invited by several universities to give Master Classes and Guest Lectures in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing. Monishwaran was selected as the Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero India 2019 from a pool of teenagers all over India for his innovation and ideas. Monishwaran aims to spread the knowledge of computer programming and guide novice developers and children through his books and lectures. His book C++ Simplified has become an all time favorite for teachers and students alike. The book uses a new approach to teach students the C++ programming language. Monishwaran’s aim is to educate 1 billion people with programming. He believes programming needs to considered as a primary language, and should be taught to everyone. He is currently involved in bringing the power of Quantum Computing to the hands of common people
Manvendra Singh Shekhawat’s love lies in hotels, heritage conservation, design, experiential real estate and social entrepreneurship. His work is a representation of a unique way of life, carefully preserving the traditions of the past yet framing them in a modern idiom. His hotels take the path less travelled and his NGO, I Love Jaisalmer, was responsible for launching the city’s largest cleanliness and conservation drive. Manvendra is currently working on building experiential hotels known for their intuitive and genuine hospitality, development of a renaissance township and the restoration of a 350 year old military fort.
Manu S Pillai is the author of the critically acclaimed The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore (2015), Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018), and The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History (2019). Formerly chief of staff to Shashi Tharoor MP, he is also a winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2017). His other essays and writings on history have appeared in Mint Lounge, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Open Magazine, The New Statesman, and other publications.
Kiran, who performs as Madame Gandhi, is a Los Angeles-based musician, activist and music industry thinker who was recently listed as Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2019. Madame Gandhi holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and Women’s Studies from Georgetown and an MBA from Harvard. Her 2018 TED Talk “Own Your Voice” about making music that is purposeful has been viewed over 200K times. Having gained recognition as the drummer for MIA, and as the viral free-bleeding runner at the London Marathon 2015, Madame Gandhi’s mission is to elevate and celebrate the female voice.
Ketaki Sharma is the Founder and CEO of Algorithm Research, a bespoke analytics and research firm based out of the UAE. Algorithm Research was a part of Y-Combinator startup school as well as past winner of various regional entrepreneurship awards.
Ketaki Sharma is a senior economist tracking MENA and India for over a decade. Prior to founding Algorithm Research, she was involved in setting up the research desks from scratch at two of the leading banks in the UAE and has worked with Nomura Securities as India Economist in Mumbai. She has a sovereign rating background, having worked with Standard & Poors’ as a rating analyst covering the EMEA region
Dr. Jayant Ratti, Ph.D. is an Experienced innovation leader, engineer and roboticist with extensive business development experience focused on engineering, Intelligent Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Unmanned autonomous systems and aerial vehicles. Founder and CEO of NAYAN INDIA Science and Technologies (“NAYAN”); He is a Council Member of Dubai Future Council of Community Security. He has over 30 Publications in the Field of Robotics & Intelligent Machines and over 40 Patents around the world in the Field of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. He has a Ph.D. in Robotics & Intelligent Machines and a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and is a University of Delhi, Alumi.
James Sebastiano is a documentary filmmaker. He He has spent the last 3 years exploring the root causing of anxiety and mental health issues which has resulted in the making of ” Chasing the Present”. In addition to filmmaking , he is also a marketing expert, conscious entrepreneur, passionate about ethical and environmentally sustainable business and is currently studying psychology.
George Jacob is the President & CEO of Bay.org in San Francisco, which oversees six institutions – Aquarium of the Bay, The Bay Institute, Sea Lion Center, Eco Center at Heron’s Head Park, The Bay Model Alliance, and the Bay Academy – with a unified mission to protect and conserve the San Francisco Bay and its fragile ecosystems from the Sierra to the Sea. He currently leads the landmark transformation of the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39 into an iconic $260 million living immersive ecotarium. Trained at the Smithsonian, educated at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, University of Toronto, Getty Leadership Institute, and Yale School of Management, he is internationally renowned for spearheading stellar museum design-build projects and is one of the leading museum thinkers of our times. His portfolio of over 108 museums, 8 books, and his work on museums and science center projects, have been visited by millions around the world. In 2008, he was the Project Director for the 1812 Star Spangled Banner permanent exhibit – the Smithsonian’s most treasured national icon. He is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and recipient of the 2019 Louie Kamookak Medal. He serves on the Board of International Council of Museums USA, and is the Chief Advisor to UN Environment on Climate and Ocean Conservation Museum initiatives.
Fashion entrepreneur Gayatri Jolly’s brainchild MasterG, a design and skill development ecosystem based out of Delhi, UP and Haryana. She is a qualified Fashion Designer from Parsons, New York and a Business Graduate from Babson College, Boston. She worked for about two years in the fashion industry in New York with companies such as Armani, Diane Von Furstenberg, Dennis Basso and has designed costumes for clients of international acclaim such as Dana Fuchs, Jay Hill etc and worked on costume design for Lady Gaga at Diane Von Furstenberg. She divides her time between designing and training of individuals who aspire but lack access to quality training and opportunities. MasterG enables women from low-income communities to question the baggage of societal norms and to empower themselves financially through the vocation of fashion design. Through its emphasis on safe and labor laws-compliant factory space and wages, and an empathetic and equitable gender dynamic, MasterG aims to humanize the garment manufacturing supply chain and uphold dignity in the industry through a three-pronged approach – MasterG Training Centers, the MasterG Studio, and the in-house brand, HEIMA.
Gautam is an inspiring teacher skilled at reaching global audiences, creating meaningful connections, and artfully guiding people through self-awareness exercises to reach a higher purpose.
He brings the right balance of experience, empirical evidence and anecdotes to his audience.
At the very core of everything he creates, lies the playful, adventurous, and passionate energy that Gautam brings to the table.
With his vision of building the Disneyland of Learning & Education, Gautam has built an international reputation as a high-performance entrepreneur, community architect and Keynote speaker.
He has spoken at stages such as Mindvalley, TEDx, UNESCO, AIESEC, IIT etc and his TEDx Talk has over 7 Million views”
Farhana Haque is the Group Director for Devices at Microsoft India, responsible for all OEM business and relationships. As a global sales strategist and new-age technology enthusiast, Haque has been driving thought-leadership in the IoT space, that included setting up an IoT line of business for Vodafone India. An active mentor for start-ups, she champions unlocking human potential. Outside work, Haque is passionate about philanthropy and supports several non-profits, with a particular focus on women and children. She is also an avid painter and enjoys travelling.
With over three decades of experience in revival and rejuvenation of ecological systems, Farhad Contractor has worked extensively in the Thar desert, as well as north, south, and central India. He has revived over 9,500 water structures and systems in these regions, and river systems in Alwar and Jaisalmer districts of Rajasthan. He is currently working on the revival of the Noyyal and Bhawani rivers in Coimbatore region of Tamil Nadu. His diverse portfolio covers conserving and reviving forests, and strengthening communities with sustainable agricultural practices both in India and abroad. His work has benefitted over 600,000 people. He also works with various institutions, government, and non-governmental organizations to build ecologically sustainable long-term models that can be replicated. Contractor adopts a systems approach that works from building on-ground models to influencing and changing policies at the state level.
Originally from a small farming village outside of Detroit, Michigan, Sarah now calls Chennai home. Her professional career includes extensive experience as a teacher and administrator in various international settings – most notably as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, travelling school teacher/administrator with Ringling Bros. Circus, director of an English school in Vietnam, primary school curriculum reformer in Qatar, and an English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State. Most recently, Sarah was the Director for Professional Learning & Research at TESOL International Association, the premier education association for EAL teachers. She has an MA in ESOL Leadership, as well as a Doctorate in Education Administration and Policy. Her research interests include online communities of practice/professional learning networks, teacher self-efficacy, and combating teacher isolation. She is a certified ashtanga yoga instructor, an avid reader, and a novice runner. Sarah has an amazing husband and dutiful cat who, thankfully, follow her around the world.
Dr. Gopichand Katragadda is the Group CTO and Innovation Head for Tata Sons. In this role, Gopi drives technology and innovation for the Tata Conglomerate leveraging cross-company synergies. He is a director on the boards of Tata Elxsi, Tata Communications, Tata Teleservices, Tata Autocomp Systems and Flisom AG.
Deepthi Sasidharan is an art historian, curator and founder Director at Eka Archiving, a cultural advisory and works on heritage and museum projects across India with the government, private and corporate clients. Deepthi has led Eka projects have been path-breaking in India, including setting up museums, seminal exhibitions and the creation of archives like those for Kalakshetra at Chennai, City Palace at Udaipur, Mumbai Police and Tata Trusts, Mumbai.
Atul Jalan is the founder-CEO of Manthan and permanently, an entrepreneur. Manthan, his fourth successful technology venture, creates pioneering AI solutions for the world’s leading retailers and consumer connect businesses. Atul is a sought-after voice to understand how technology is transforming man and the institutions he has created, changing how we do things and reshaping us as humans. And this is the perspective on technology that he usually speaks and writes about – not as an application of science but as a way of life. As an entrepreneur, as a futurist and as a thought leader, Atul is always on the lookout for the story that will develop next. His latest book, Where Will Man Take Us? is a bestseller on Amazon and on the shelves and deals with the intersections of biology and technology and the probable outcomes. He is an incurable traveler and persistent amateur poet and can always be counted on to recite a few verses when camaraderie sets in.
Anusha Ravi is the CEO of Park Group of Institutions, Coimbatore and Chennai. Prior to this she worked with Onair communications (an Airbus subsidiary), and Annheuser Busch, USA. Anusha is an active Rotarian, and is also the president elect for 2010-11 for the all-women Rotary Club AAKRUTHI of Coimbatore. She is the trustee of ‘Aravanaippu’ which helps motherless or fatherless children with school and college fees. Till date 1000 children have benefited. The goal is to have 25,000 children benefit over next five to 10 years. She is also a member of the TED community, actively spreading new ideas to the world. She is also an organizing committee member of ASTIA.org which is a US-based organization entering India for facilitating venture capitalists for women entrepreneurs.
Anurag is a Delhi based musician and social worker singing verses of Kabir and Gandhi in folk fusion form for last 10 years. Anurag is one of the co-founders of a Delhi based choir band and non-profit Manzil Mystics. Manzil Mystics as a band write and compose songs based ideas of Kabir poetry and as a non-profit they setup music classrooms in government and low-income schools to create demand of music in education setting. Manzil Mystics believes that music creates a happy and safe space for everyone specially children in learning setting. Music is not just a piece of entertainment.
Alok Medikepura Anil is Founder & Director of Next Big Innovation Labs (NBIL) and Member of World Economic Forum’s Expert Network and Global Shapers Community. Alok is passionate about using 4TH Industrial Revolution technologies such as 3D Printing, to create large scale societal impact. Team NBIL have been successful in their mission to bring Made-In-India bioprinting technology to the labs of large global conglomerates such as the Merck Group in Germany. NBIL is working towards its vision of developing novel 3D Bioprinted solutions to revolutionise the fields of personalised testing and precision medicine. NBIL through its patented technology and proprietary 3D Bioprinting platform, has already developed products such as InnoSkin (3D Bioprinted Skin), to be used across industries developing skin products and applications, as an alternative to animal testing.
Ajith Mohan Karimpana is the Founder and CEO of Furlenco, India’s fastest growing furniture and home living Subscription Company. He is a versatile entrepreneur with a great knack for spotting transformational business opportunities, a trait that also led him to establish Furlenco. Ajith’s vision for Furlenco was based on two key 21st-century trends: rising disposable incomes; and a preference for experiential lifestyle among millennials. He decided to cater to this dynamic market using his core competencies and technology with Furlenco. Ajith has focused on creating award-winning designs that give Furlenco’s customers the best of aesthetics and utility. Under his leadership, Furlenco has grown at a CAGR of 130% year-on-year. Ajith is a BTech graduate in Industrial Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar. He has an MS in Computer and Information Science from Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Apart from being a successful and inspirational business leader, Ajith is a voracious reader and has a penchant for languages. He also loves watching Bollywood movies.
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He helped launch Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor for its first seven years. From 1984 to 1990, Kelly was publisher and Editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers Conference, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He is also a charter board member of the Long Now Foundation, which is building a monumental clock to tick for 10,000 years. He is currently Editor and Publisher of the popular websites Cool Tools and The Quantified Self. His newest book What Technology Wants was released in October, 2010.
UNTOLD STORY: Kevin’s first job as a kid was at the local library. It was the only job he should have been fired for; instead of working he would hide in the stacks reading old magazines.
BOOKS: What Technology Wants, Out of Control, New Rules for the New Economy
Alexander is a renowned technologist, artist, journalist and author. As an artist and technologist, he has participated in developing scientific visualization software to enable him to “paint” the anatomy using volume data.
Alexander taught himself mathematics and physics and developed his own lenses, including one for a microscope that was used to photograph the first images of human eggs in an in vitro fertilization program. The images resulting from this became cover stories for Life Magazine.
UNTOLD STORY
At the age of 19, Alexander returned to his parents’ village and spent a year herding 2,000 goats from the Macedonia Albanian boarders down to his mother’s village near the base of Mount Olympus, where he remained to produce his first book, Death Rituals of Rural Greece. Later, he also trained for the Olympics in the 400 meter intending to run until the boycotts of the Moscow Olympics.
NEWEST ENDEAVORS
Alexander has started a new website called TheVisualMD.com where he is using real scanned data and his skills as an artist, story teller and technologist to tell visual stories of the marvels of how the human body is designed, when things go wrong and compellingly explain pathways back to health.
WORKS
Death Rituals of Rural Greece; From Conception to Birth; Architecture and Design of Man and Woman; Guide to Lifeblood; Guide to Sexual Health; Guide to a Healthy Heart; Body Voyage
Prior to forming Emotiv, Nam Do co-founded and ran SASme, a pioneer in providing SMPP platforms to telecommunication carriers and content aggregators in Australia and Asia. In 1995, Nam won one of Vietnams most prestigious study abroad scholarships. Nam came to Australias RMIT University under a full merit scholarship, and started his first technology company in his final year. A regular guest-lecturer at Harvard Business School, HAAS Business School and Stanford University, in 2007, Nam was voted as one of Australias Top 10 Digital Entrepreneurs.
UNTOLD STORY: In 2003, Nam Do had dinner with Professor Allan Snyder FRS. They discussed at length about Allans work on non-conscious mind with autistic savants. At 4am, Nam told Allan, you know what, the last 20 years have been the era for DSP (digital signal processing), the next 20 years will be the era for ESP (emotional signal processing). Allan loved it and thats how Emotiv was formed.
Dr. Mussaret Zaidi heads the research laboratory at the Hospital Regional de Alta Especialidad in Yucatan, Mexico. During the last decade, she has studied anti-microbial usage in animals and the human health impact of anti-microbial-resistant bacteria in the food chain and environment.
Mussaret specialized in Pediatrics in Mexico, and completed a fellowship in Clinical and Public Health Microbiology at Mount Sinai and a MSc in Infectious Diseases at LSHTM. She is an advisor for the WHO Advisory Group on Integrated Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance.
Her recent research focuses on the control of food-borne diseases, food production and distribution, and community well-being in highly endemic settings.
UNTOLD STORY: My ancestors moved from Iraq to India in 990 AD. Throughout centuries, the Zaidi clan has been committed to social justice. A staunch believer in the family legacy, the goals of my own work are greater opportunities for children and their communities worldwide.
BOOKS: “A perspective on the role of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for Salmonella surveillance in Mexico� in Calva JJ, Calva E (Eds): Molecular biology and molecular epidemiology of Salmonella infections. Research Signpost, Kerala, India. 2009
Raghava KK is a renowned Indian artist and a tech entrepreneur, named by CNN as one of 10 most remarkable people in 2010.
He was inducted into the National Geographic Society as an Emerging Explorer for bringing together science, art, and technology in the field of exploration in 2013 and he recently wrote the foreword for Mass General Hospital’s textbook on psychiatry, in which he discusses the importance of cultural sensitivity, perspectives, and empathy in psychiatry
A four time TED speaker, his iPad art book Pop-it, launched at TED, shakes up the concept of the ideal family and presents children with multiple perspectives at the earliest stage. The book won several awards, including a Best of 2011 award from Kirkus.
Currently, he is the CEO and co-founder of Flipsicle, a tech startup out of New York and Sweden, which brings together creativity, technology, and empathy.
UNTOLD STORY: As a school kid, Raghava used to perform magic shows at children’s birthday parties to earn pocket money.
Sophie Morgan was born in the south of England, then educated in Scotland, before she returned to study at the University in London, where she now lives and works managing her own company. She is a product designer, a television presenter, a model, a campaigner, an artist and, as a result of a car accident seven years ago, a paraplegic wheelchair bound for life. Her work is centered on changing how disability is perceived and considered within society.
Deepti Naval is an artiste in the true sense of the word. Deepti is an acclaimed Indian actress who migrated to the US for university. She debuted in the Hindi movie, ‘Ek Baar Phir’ (1979), and has acted in over 60 films, including ‘Mirch Masala’, ‘Main Zinda Hoon’, and more recently, ‘Leela’. She wrote and directed ‘Thodasa Aasmaan’, a TV serial about women, produced a travel show, and made her directorial debut with ‘Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish’. ‘Lamha-Lamha’ was her first poetry compilation, followed by ‘Black Wind and Other Poems’. Coming up is a poetry collection from wanderings in Ladakh. She runs the Vinod Pandit Charitable Trust, in memory of her late companion, for the education of the girl child.
Untold Story
Deepti is a seeker of beauty, an explorer of wilderness. She is a professional painter and photographer and enjoys trekking in the remote mountains of Himachal and Ladakh.
Books: Black Wind, Lamha-Lamha
Gayatri Ganjawalla is a classically trained vocalist both in Carnatic and Hindustani styles and is currently training under the tutelage of Pt. Shri Babanrao Haldankar. She was the first Indian woman to play the leading role in the London West End musical The Far Pavilions where her acting and singing abilities received critical acclaim. Gayatri has sung for several Bollywood films and in regional languages. She travels extensively, either as a solo performer or with her husband, multiple award winner Kunal Ganjawalla.
UNTOLD STORY: In school, Gayatri wanted to be an astrophysicist. Her high point was when she won a book on how to make a telescope. She was also a national level volleyball player but didn�t grow tall enough to continue the game.
Making the adage, ‘necessity is the mother of all inventions’, ring true is C Mallesham, who, moved by his mother’s suffering, innovated an automatic loom, that is also reviving the dying tradition of the Pochampally silk sari weaving. Laxmi Mallesham is now perhaps the happiest mother in Sharjipet, a village of handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh. She, and many women weavers, is now free from pain and stress that consumed her for hours on the manual loom.
British writer and director Shamim Sarif is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and feature film director. She has published three novels and one non-fiction book and has written and directed three feature films and a documentary.
Shamim recently completed Despite the Falling Snow, which had its market premiere at Cannes in May 2015. The movie stars Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible 5 and The White Queen) and Charles Dance and is an epic story of love and betrayal in cold war Russia based on her second novel, published by Hodder Headline and St Martins Press to universal acclaim.
Her first feature film ‘I Can’t Think Straight’ won 11 awards and is currently under option with Aaron Kaplan of Kapital Entertainment for development as a TV series in the US. Her follow up movie ‘The World Unseen’ had its debut at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival before going on to garner 23 awards internationally, including 11 SAFTAs (South African Film Awards). Her third film, a documentary called The House of Tomorrow, was shot on location in Israel and Palestine and had festival debuts in New York and Sarasota in 2012 and won its first award this year in France.
The World Unseen book won the Pendleton May First Novel Award, and then the prestigious Betty Trask Award. It was selected for inclusion at all the major UK book festivals, including Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham and Edinburgh and sold out of its initial print runs.
Shamim is currently completing the screenplay for her latest project, Hidden Agenda, an intelligent action thriller with female protagonists, based on her own forthcoming book. She is also developing the concept as a TV series with Left Bank Pictures.
Rick Smolan is a former TIME, LIFE and National Geographic photographer best known as the co-creator of the “Day in the Life” book series. He is currently CEO of Against All Odds Productions, a cross-media organization which utilizes the skills of hundreds of the world’s leading photographers, writers, filmmakers, designers and programmers to merge creative storytelling with state-of-the-art technology. Rick’s global crowd-sourced photography projects combine creative storytelling with state-of-the-art technology and have generated hundreds of millions of media impressions and have been featured on the covers of Fortune, Time, and Newsweek.
Alexander is a renowned technologist, artist, journalist and author. As an artist and technologist, he has participated in developing scientific visualization software to enable him to “paint” the anatomy using volume data.
Alexander taught himself mathematics and physics and developed his own lenses, including one for a microscope that was used to photograph the first images of human eggs in an in vitro fertilization program. The images resulting from this became cover stories for Life Magazine.
UNTOLD STORY
At the age of 19, Alexander returned to his parents’ village and spent a year herding 2,000 goats from the Macedonia Albanian boarders down to his mother’s village near the base of Mount Olympus, where he remained to produce his first book, Death Rituals of Rural Greece. Later, he also trained for the Olympics in the 400 meter intending to run until the boycotts of the Moscow Olympics.
NEWEST ENDEAVORS
Alexander has started a new website called TheVisualMD.com where he is using real scanned data and his skills as an artist, story teller and technologist to tell visual stories of the marvels of how the human body is designed, when things go wrong and compellingly explain pathways back to health.
WORKS
Death Rituals of Rural Greece; From Conception to Birth; Architecture and Design of Man and Woman; Guide to Lifeblood; Guide to Sexual Health; Guide to a Healthy Heart; Body Voyage
WEBSITE
TheVisualMD.com
Raghu Dixit is a unique and popular composer, song-writer & singer from India. His music is a seamless amalgamation of ethnic music and styles from across the world. His lyrics, though intense, are simple and speak about every common man�s emotions and experiences. Inserting Indian ethnic folk, Sufi and classical music phrases cleverly into his songs, Raghu�s singing style can be described as unique. Being a completely self- taught guitarist and singer, his vocal range and versatility has been appreciated with awe and has become one of the most recognizable voices in the country!
UNTOLD STORY: Raghu is a gold medalist in Masters in Microbiology from the prestigious University of Mysore and a professionally qualified Indian classical dancer.
The alarm bells first rang back in 1984 for Marc when he read a newspaper article predicting the spread of HIV through re-using medical syringes. Appalled at the prospect of such an avoidable catastrophe, Marc decided to do something about it. Some 26 years later his solution the K1, an Auto Disable (AD) syringe, not only physically prevents re-use, but can be manufactured inexpensively, by using existing machinery and is now under license to 14 global manufacturers. Conservative estimates credit Marc with more than five million lives saved and 10 million diseases prevented. In 2006, after realizing that simply manufacturing a safe product was not enough, he identified a gap in the market between producing a product that would save lives and a lack of knowledge of the benefits such a product can bring. He established The SafePoint Trust, a UK based not-for-profit, that produces hard-hitting, public information films. Marc now spends all his time working with SafePoint lobbying for legislation change at government level, spreading public awareness and ensuring adequate healthcare worker training is in force to complete the changeover to a safe healthcare system.
WEBSITE: www.marckoska.com, www.safepointtrust.org
With a wide range of passions including music, poetry, and art, Adrianna Svitak studies piano and violin as well as singing.
Her musical interests range from Michael Jackson to Mozart, Beethoven to Beyonce. Nine years of practice have led to awards from events, including the Seattle Young Artists� Festival, the Performing Arts Festival of the Eastside, the Music Teachers� National Association and the Bach Festival competition. In violin, her accomplishments include being named Concertmistress for the Redmond Junior High Honors Orchestra as well as the Junior All-State Orchestra.
Untold Story
Adrianna co-authored Dancing Fingers, a volume of poetry, with her sister Adora. Her poem �Minnie� was inspired by her pet guinea pig of the same name.
A software architect at Wipro Technologies, Bangalore, with geek credentials going back two decades, Ramachandra Budihal drew from his work in digital image processing and multimedia to co-found the Mahabharata Samshodhana Pratishthanam (Mahabharata Research Foundation), a non-profit organisation on a mission to digitize and protect works of Indian heritage and make them relevant to the contemporary society.
One of the foundation’s projects focuses on the Mahabharata, India’s most famous epic. Budihal is helping develop and compile an encyclopedia of the Mahabharata – 18 volumes – that’s set to debut in 2012. With the foundation, he also devised and built Samanveshak, a digital document-scanning laboratory housed in a bus with state-of-the-art scanners, satcoms and telepresence. To date, the team has digitised and documented more than one million folios of ancient medical manuscripts from remote areas in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Ramachandra is also recepient of a presidential honour, ‘Maharishi Badrayan Vyas Samman’ (2007), conferred by then President of India Dr Abdul Kalam, in recognition of his breakthrough work in the area of cultural heritage preservation and promotion using technology.
He was a speaker at the inaugural INK conference in 2010 and was thrilled by the array of inspiring, creative, humble, brilliant, warm, friendly people who are brought together at INK.
Seeing Adora walk down the street, you might not think that the seemingly typical thirteen-year-old is a published author, activist, accomplished speaker and one of the world’s youngest teachers.
With many roles, Adora leads many lives. Many wonder how she got those roles in the first place. What people may not know is that Adora has had years of practice—half her life, in fact. As one of the world’s youngest teachers, she’s spoken to over 400 schools and classrooms worldwide. Called a “tiny literary giant” by Diane Sawyer, Adora is the author of two books, Flying Fingers and Dancing Fingers.
Her TEDTalk, ‘What Adults Can Learn From Kids,’ was widely watched around the world.
UNTOLD STORY: When Adora Svitak speaks on stage, you may not realize that the thirteen-year-old is the same girl who hunts for free food, rolls her eyes at her parents, or debates with her sister regularly.
WORKS: Flying Fingers, Dancing Fingers
WEBSITE: www.adorasvitak.com
Anupam is best known as the man behind India’s biggest viral sensation – The Fake IPL Player. He has gone on to start Pitch Invasion as an alternate, interactive online live cricket commentary platform. An entrepreneur for 9 years in areas ranging from sports documentaries, marketing consulting, marketing communications, online social media marketing, and sports media, Anupam is also the author of a best-selling novel, and a general prankster.
Anupam recently launched Scoryboard.com, which is fast becoming the most popular product for live cricket updates on-the-go.
BOOKS: The Gamechangers
Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks. In 2011, he published a book which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories. Derek Sivers lives in Singapore, where he is creating his next company.
Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab. Ramesh Raskar joined the Media Lab from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2008 as head of the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. His research interests span the fields of computational photography, inverse problems in imaging and human-computer interaction. Recent projects and inventions include transient imaging to look around a corner, a next generation CAT-Scan machine, imperceptible markers for motion capture (Prakash), long distance barcodes (Bokode), touch+hover 3D interaction displays (BiDi screen), low-cost eye care devices (Netra,Catra), new theoretical models to augment light fields (ALF) to represent wave phenomena and algebraic rank constraints for 3D displays(HR3D).
In 2004, Raskar received the TR100 Award from Technology Review, which recognizes top young innovators under the age of 35, and in 2003, the Global Indus Technovator Award, instituted at MIT to recognize the top 20 Indian technology innovators worldwide. In 2009, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. In 2010, he received the Darpa Young Faculty award. Other awards include Marr Prize honorable mention 2009, LAUNCH Health Innovation Award, presented by NASA, USAID, US State Dept and NIKE, 2010, Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project Award (first place), 2011. He holds over 40 US patents and has received four Mitsubishi Electric Invention Awards. He is currently co-authoring a book on Computational Photography.
Website: raskar.info
Know More: Presentation slides, cornor.info, eyenetra.com, compressivedisplays.info
Dr. Vivek Nair had stumbled upon a process to convert carbon emissions into carbon nanotubes (a material stronger than steel). His discovery led him to start a company focused on automating this process and turning carbon emission into a useable resource for many applications. Vivek was named one of the today’s disruptors and tomorrow’s brightest stars by Forbes “30 under 30” list,for the year 2012 & MIT Technology Review outstanding innovators under 35, for the year 2012.He has also received the National award for meritorious invention from NRDC, Gov. of India. Vivek has also been named by Tehelka as “Tipping point – Architects of the Future”, for the year 2012. He was also the winner of Ashoka/Staples Social Youth Entrepreneur award. In addition, Vivek is a double doctorate from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore & Loughborough University, UK .
WEBSITE: cleancarbontechnologies.com
Google and INK have been working together on various initiatives over the last 4 years. Google has been known to be visionary and disruptive in its initiatives. The INK Conference is known to bring stories, ideas and perspectives from around the world onto a common platform. And there is a constant quest to see what is that big idea that can be brought to reality, what is that big initiative that can be disruptive.
Nearly a billion people in India lack access to the Internet or do not understand the benefits of going online. Thus, this was one initiative that needed immediate action. The synergies between Google and INK fused together under the program to get the‘Next Billion Online’.
The objective is to try different experiments in limited areas- in a city, town and village and gain insights into factors that drive behaviours and how that can be moulded to lead people online.
The final outcome is to create a blueprint that will be taken to progressive governments of the country and other partners to help scale and sustain this project.
Over the last decade a number of attempts have been made to induce more users of the Internet, with attempts ranging from failures to quasi-successes to pioneering ideas that were too early for the market or existing technology; with projects ranging from Government funded to Government-Corporate partnerships. However, it is still to be ascertained if a plan of this magnitude can be achieved without the active participation and motivation of the targeted public user-community themselves, first.
The approach that the team is taking follows the framework of- Empathize, Define, Ideate, Test, Prototype.
The Next Billion Online team began by conducting lots of experiments to get feedback from users on understanding the nuances and factors that will get the next billion online in India. Our own experiments with those we have engaged with show that connecting individuals and communities to the Internet enables access to information, can increase household income and provide greater social freedom.
Next Billion Online are directing those we engage with to make use of the Internet as a tool to make their own lives and the lives of their communities productive and prosperous.
We aim to form a blueprint to create an online, self-sustaining, content-generating ecosystem that leverages the power of the Internet & related tools.
LEARN MORE: Next Billion Online Blog, Twitter: @BillionOnline, Facebook Page: Google-INK Ambassadors Network
Sunil’s goal is to help Indians bridge the ‘language’ and ‘digital’ divides, due to the dominance of English on the internet and in technical published texts. He has developed digital dictionaries for mobile phones and computers with a repository of 9.6 million audio and textual words in 16 domains, like Legal, Agriculture and Pharmacy, in 22 different Indian languages. Educated in Marathi-medium in a village near Nashik, Sunil believes the root of the rural inferiority complex is the linguistic divide, due to which many abandon their education. He hopes to reverse this with his free platform
Coming from the margins of society, Sabriye Tenberken developed an intrinsic interest to create ethical social change. She studied Tibetology/Central Asian Sciences at Bonn University. Travelling on horseback through the Himalayas she discovered that Tibetans who in majority are Buddhists have a stigma against people with disabilities. Especially blindness is seen as a punishment for something you have done in your previous life. Accordingly blind children are often neglected, locked away in dark rooms or sent to the streets to beg for money. Experiencing this situation inspired Sabriye to start the first school for the blind in Tibet. This school formed the foundation of Braille Without Borders, an organization that empowers blind people to take their lives in their own hands. In 2005 she co- founded Kanthari in Kerala. Kanthari fosters participants from all over the world, who, like Sabriye, have a passion to make the world a better place and strength to be forces of good rather than victims of circumstance. Sabriye is the driving force behind the academic program.
Next to being a motivational speaker, Sabriye is the author of “My path leads to Tibet” a bestseller that has been translated into 13 languages. She also starred in the award-winning documentary ‘BLINDSIGHT’. Sabriye Tenberken became fully blind at age 12.
“All that matters is welcoming mindset-change.”
Dr. Jakob van Zyl is the Associate Director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory responsible for Project Formulation and Strategy. He has more than 20 years of research experience in various aspects of satellite remote sensing.
He received the Hons. B. Eng. degree cum laude in electronics engineering from the University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1983 and 1986, respectively.
He was elected Fellow of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society in 1998. Dr. van Zyl has co-authored two textbooks on the physics and techniques of remote sensing, contributed to another thirteen books on remote sensing, and published more than a hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He has delivered a number of keynote addresses at major international conferences. Dr. van Zyl is a Senior Faculty Associate at the California Institute of Technology, where he teaches the course “Introduction to the Physics and Techniques of Remote Sensing.” He is also an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Christopher Kirchhoff was appointed by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to lead the Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Office, Defense Innovation Unit X (DIUx), as one of four partners overseeing the Defense Department’s nation-wide investment portfolio harnessing emerging commercial technology for national security innovation. Christopher along with his team will steer nearly $100M of R&D co-investment funds and run offices in Boston and Silicon Valley scouting for technology that can be integrated into military systems. Chris previously worked as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He investigated and documented the space shuttle Columbia’s accident report and co-authored the historical U.S. Government paper titled Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, that was coined “The Iraq Pentagon Papers” by the New York Times.
David Gallo is an American oceanographer and Director of Special Projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – a preeminent, globally recognized scientific laboratory. For more than 25 years, David has been at the forefront of oceanic exploration, participating in and witnessing the development of new technologies and scientific discoveries that shape our view of planet earth. He has been described by TED as “an enthusiastic ambassador between the sea and those of us on dry land.” With more than 8 million views on his TED talk, “Underwater Astonishments” is among the top 3 most-viewed TED Talks to date.
Gallo earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in geology from the State University of New York in Albany and a Doctorate degree in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island. In 1987 he joined Robert Ballard’s team at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as Assistant Director of the Center for Marine Exploration.
David has participated in expeditions to all of the world’s oceans and was one of the first scientists to use a combination of robots and submarines to explore the deep seafloor. He recently co-led an expedition to create the first detailed and comprehensive map of the RMS Titanic and he also co-led a successful international effort to locate the remains of Air France flight 447. Davis is presently involved in planning an international expedition to locate and document the wreckage of Ernest Shackleton’s ship, HMS Endurance.
David is outspoken about the relationship between humanity and the sea. He strongly believes that instead of taking the oceans for granted, we need to recognize the oceans’ critical role in providing the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Dr. Gallo believes human activity has impacted the ocean on a global scale with significant consequences. David claims that oceans hold the clues to our past and the key to our future, yet they remain mostly unexplored and misunderstood.
Dr. Gallo is personally committed to conveying the excitement and importance of ocean exploration to the public. He has lectured internationally to audiences ranging from children to CEO’s. He has given more than 10 TED and TEDx presentations and has appeared in numerous documentaries (Discovery Channel, History Channel, National Geographic) and has been featured on numerous televised news programs (Weather Channel , PBS Need to Know, MSNBC Ed Show, and NBC Today show).
In recognition of his role in exploration and communications, David is the co-recipient of a Computerworld-Smithsonian Award. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a National Fellow of The Explorers Club, and a recent recipient of the Lotus Club Distinguished Achievement Award in Science. He is a member of the XPrize Deep Ocean Advisory Board and James Cameron’s Deep Ocean Task Force.
“All that matters is being true to myself.”
Pandit Shyamrao Kulkarni is a doyen of North Indian Classical Music. He is a vocalist of the highest caliber, whose voice provides an effortless rendition of his musical thoughts as he creates beautiful expositions of various raagas.
The typical description of an Indian classical musician starts with a description of his gharana or his musical lineage. But such a description would serve little purpose in describing his music. He does indeed have an exalted musical lineage as he was taught by Bhimrao Kulkarni and Ingle Bua of the Gwalior Gharana from a very early age. During his formative years he also had the opportunity to closely interact with many Indian Music stalwarts of the time from many other gharanas. As he analyzed and dissected their music he acquired and improved upon many elements of style from the strict and somber khayal singing of Vilayat Hussain Khan of Agra Gharana to the light qawwali singing of Shankar Shambhu. Of particular formative influence during his younger years was the musical style of Ustad Alladiya Khan as delivered by the likes of Kesarbai Kerkar and Anandrao Limaye. His music, however, eventually evolved beyond what can be described by a listing of musical lineage.
In his music sur (notes) and taal (rhythm) find a perfect balance. The unfolding of a raag is always thought out in a manner such that the various musical phrases fit together into a consistent whole. Nothing is performed merely for the sake of a display of virtuosity. Instead notes flow with accuracy and grace in service of a greater aesthetic of creating an artful whole.
Pandit Kulkarni never actively pursued a career in the concert circuits, preferring instead to focus on his music. He has, however, been highly respected and regarded by musicians and connoisseurs in Maharashtra, India, for the last six decades. He has written many widely acclaimed books in Marathi, Hindi and more recently in English on various aspects of Indian music. Now in his seventh decade, he has been thinking about the most efficient and streamlined way to teach North Indian Classical Music. To this end, he has created a unique functional classification of raagas based on similarity of their characteristic melodic patterns and he is continuing to write and publish new books. He also continues to occasionally provide lecture demonstrations and performances to share his music with lovers of Indian Music.
Dr. Usha Arunachalam is a biotechnologist with over 20 years of business experience with biotech companies, especially early-staged biotechnology companies. She currently consults for IndUS Pharmaceuticals, an India-US cross border biotechnology company.
Since 2008, she spends most of her time in learning, preserving and propagating classical Hindustani Music. Her chance encounter with Pt. Shyamrao Kulkarni was a turning point in her life, since which she has dedicated herself to music. In addition to learning music from Pt. Shyamrao Kulkarni, she has assisted him in writing his books on “Shyamrao Gharana” and continues to assist him with book translations and other publications.
Prior to 2008, Dr. Arunachalam was VP of Business Development and led the business development and strategic efforts of FivePrime Therapeutics, a privately held early-stage biotechnology company in California. At Fiveprime she was an integral member of the executive team and was instrumental in raising more than $ 120 MM in near term investments for collaborative research from strategic partners, primarily large Pharmaceutical companies. Her group was also responsible for all in-licensing and out-licensing activities, and the management of collaborations with both strategic and academic partners.
Prior to joining FivePrime, she served as Vice President, Business Development at Intrabiotics and served as a member of the executive team. Prior to joining Intrabiotics, Dr. Arunachalam was Sr. Director of Business Development at Kosan Biosciences, where she was responsible for all in- and out-licensing and business development activities for multiple projects. Among her many accomplishments at Kosan Biosciences, Dr. Arunachalam was instrumental in identifying, initiating, structuring and negotiating a major agreement with Roche to globally co-develop and co-commercialize an anti-cancer drug candidate then in Phase I clinical trials; a deal that was valued at >$220 MM and provided Kosan over $ 70 MM in near term research and development funding.
Further, at Kosan she also was responsible for in-licensing the geladanamysin portfolio from NIH and established 2 large CRADAs with the NIH, which resulted in the successful acquisition of the company by BMS.
Prior to Kosan Biosciences, Dr. Arunachalam was Associate Director at Chiron Corporation (now acquired by Novartis), a publicly traded global biotechnology company. Here she was responsible for research strategy, strategic planning and business development and reported directly to the Head of R&D.
Dr. Arunachalam received her Ph.D in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science and received a pre-doctoral fellowship from University of Michigan to work on her thesis. She received her MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Nancy Silberkleit, daughter-in-law of Louis H. Silberkleit one of the founders of Archie Comics Publications, stepped into her role as Co-CEO of the company in 2009 with a vision that the comic book as a graphic novel is a valuable tool for developing literacy among first-time readers and instilling a love of reading for everyone. As a former public school educator, homemaker and mother, she knows the importance of learning to read and coined a personal motto that “Children+Comic Books=Reading, Knowledge and Confidence.”
She is the wife of the late Michael Silberkleit, who was the son of Archie Comics founder Louis Silberkleit, who with his partner John L. Goldwater founded Archie Comics in 1942. She furthers her agenda of why comic books are needed in classrooms and libraries with her fervent belief that comic books can be used to engage a variety of learners, while promoting literacy and a love of reading. She feels strongly that the graphic comic book format helps to enrich and develop the creative mind. She taught art for over 20 years and has seen the power of comics to encourage literacy and creativity in children. Children love to read comic books and graphic novels and often endeavor to mimic the format with their own creations. Comics teach children about storytelling and exploring their artistic abilities through illustration. It is a natural progression for children, as a bridge to reading from the picture books of their younger years. “Reading Archie Comics for 30 minutes is what I like to call ‘Archie Therapy,’” says Nancy Silberkleit, Co-CEO of Archie Comic Publications. “The light-hearted, humorous stories have appealed to readers for generations thanks to the talented writers and artists who make Archie a never-ending story.”
Having recognized that young readers may not have access to comic books, she created the Comic Book Fairs at schools across America and Canada, as an event to ignite an interest in reading. They are also often used as fund-raising initiatives in which the schools earn monies through the sale of comic books. She sees comic books as another genre to our choices in literacy and a powerful tool to stimulate and build today’s children into strong creative thinkers that are prepared to approach complex situations.
In addition to her role at Archie Comic Publications in which she heads up Education and Theater, Ms. Silberkleit has established her own foundation Rise Above Social Issues Foundation, Inc., as a non-profit that addresses challenging social issues, such as childhood obesity and other chronic medical conditions, as well as bullying, discrimination and environmental concerns through comic books. “By enhancing literacy and encouraging self-confidence and knowledge through age-accessible, non-threatening reading materials, such as specially created, topical comic books, we strive to stimulate creativity and tolerance in young people, giving them the tools to become a positive influence on their peers through overcoming social challenges,” adds Ms. Silberkleit. According to Dr. Athos Bousvaros, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital Boston, “Nancy Silberkleit is a passionate advocate of comics as a tool to promote both children’s literacy and health. In her role as co-CEO of Archie Comics, she has also worked to develop comics that promote children’s health, including ‘JD Shapes Up,’ an illustrated manual aiming to reduce childhood obesity.”
Next steps for Nancy Silberkleit include the emphasizing of the use of the comic book in working with educators in the establishment of after-school tutoring programs, the development of lesson plans, and, of course, more comic book fairs across America to engage children in this format of literacy. The Archie Comics line of comic books is one of the most successful, longest-running brands in the history of the comic industry. Archie Comics have sold 5.1 billion comics and are published in a dozen different foreign languages and distributed all over the world. Archie Comics has spawned characters whose popularity has spilled over into other media and who have become part of popular culture. Archie Comic Publications is headquartered in Mamaroneck, NY.
Oikyotaan, a Contemporary Folk Platform founded by, Biswasjit “Bonnie” Chakraborty, aims at performing, archiving and spreading the infectious philosophy and melody of Indian Folk Traditions. The sound is rooted in the rhythm and melody of Indian folk music, with a special emphasis on Baul music from Bengal. Their foundation of sound is created, using an equal set of unique components from Indian Folk-Classical and other forms of Contemporary music. The magic of pulsating rhythms, weaving themselves together with soul-stirring melodies and spinning a web of lyrical arrangements.
Oikyotaan aims at slipping through all the doors, being promiscuous with their music and simply spreading magic philosophy of the BAULS!! Centered around BAUL music from Eastern India, the sound concentrates on building lyrical phrases within a layered rhythm of Contemporary, Folk and Classical instruments. Elements of different Folk forms like Baul from Bengal, Mand from Rajasthan; Chaita and Neergun from Bihar; Carnatic Classical from South India are infused together to give birth to a new genre of Global Indian Contemporary Sound and Space, which is lyrically very rich in spiritual and esoteric content !
Dale J. Stephens left school at twelve to become an unschooler, the self-directed branch of homeschoolers. Instead of going to middle and high school he organized collaborative learning groups, found mentors, and volunteered in his community. Dale leads UnCollege, the social movement empowering students to create their own education.
WEBSITE: uncollege.org
Uma uses genetic data to understand the history, present and potential future of populations. Her early research explored how choosiness for mates impacts genetic variation, and the relationships between African click-speaking hunter-gatherer groups. Uma now applies her research to wildlife, using non-invasive DNA sources (like poop!) to investigate tiger population sizes over the last 200 years, connectivity between populations, and how species came to the Indian subcontinent, given their recent arrival to Asia. She is a National Board for Wildlife member, Ramanujan fellow and DAE Outstanding Scientist.
Jason Wishnow is the filmmaker behind TEDTalks, the Peabody Award winning video series watched nearly a billion times (even in outer space). Wishnow works at the intersection of film and emerging technologies and has been called an “online-video virtuoso” (New York Times, 2009), the “enfant terrible of digital film” (The Guardian, 2000), and one of the ten most influential digital filmmakers of 1999 (RES Magazine). Prior to joining TED, Wishnow founded one of the first film websites, The New Venue, in the mid-’90s, an entire decade before YouTube.
In 2000, Wishnow organized the first handheld/mobile film festival, The Aggressively Boring Film Festival, named after the technical limitations of its time. As a director, Wishnow’s short films and music videos have played on television, in museums, and at over 100 film festivals worldwide including Sundance, Seattle, São Paulo, Hong Kong, and RESFEST. Wishnow’s most recent project is We Are All Radioactive, a crowd-funded, bilingual, episodic documentary series about surfers and fishermen rebuilding coastal Japan after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Wishnow currently develops and directs narrative feature films and privately consults about digital video strategy.
Scott Cook’s was born and raised in an LA suburb after his parents emigrated from Wisconsin. Scott was ‘nerdy’ as a kid and even programmed his school district’s one computer. Scott attended USC and later went to Harvard Business School.
Scott Cook started his career at Procter & Gamble, where he learned about product development, market research and marketing. With personal computers just coming out at the time, Scott thought there might be a market for basic software that would help people pay their bills. He launched Intuit in 1983, which today offers software and online products to help individuals and small companies manage their finances. Scott, a founder of Intuit and current Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board, has served as Director, Chairman of the Board, and President and CEO at Intuit. He also serves on the boards of directors of eBay Inc., and The Procter & Gamble Company.
He holds a BA in Economics and Mathematics from USC and a MBA from Harvard Business School, where he serves on the dean’s advisory board. He currently serves on the boards of P&G, eBay, Intuit, and HBS. Cook funds social entrepreneurs who catalyze global leaps in education and medical research.
In 2002, Scott and his wife Signe Ostby, established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business; it’s the US’s first university-based center focused exclusively on training MBAs in brand and product management. In 2005, Scott was #320 on the Forbes 400, with a net worth of $1.1 billion.
“All that matters is systematically amping up human contribution.”
By the age of 25, Varun Agarwal was already a filmmaker, entrepreneur and the bestselling author of ‘How I braved Anu Aunty & Co-founded A Million Dollar Company’. He is the co-founder of Alma Mater, India’s biggest college apparel/memorabilia company, and also the co-founder of Reticular, a social media marketing firm. The pursuit of his interests brought about collaborations with A.R. Rahman, Preity Zinta, and many others.
Hungary-born Balazs is a leader in the practice and theory of photojournalism, with a vision to reshape modern media practice for the 21st century. His multi award-winning work includes in-depth coverage of the Afghan war – much after media attention had turned to Iraq – and initial photography of daredevil Felix Baumgartner during his jump to earth from the stratosphere. His project ‘Facing Water Crisis’ is an independent worldwide expedition exploring the far-reaching consequences of water scarcity. The latter has evolved into Azdarya, an online documentary magazine solely dedicated to water, which he recently launched with his wife.
WEBSITE: balazsgardi.com ; azdarya.com
Photo credit: Ssgt Jeremy Colson
A CNN Hero of the Year 2012, Pushpa set up a home in Nepal for children who once lived in prisons with their incarcerated parents. For seven years, she has been running a centre to provide them with education, food, medical care and a happy childhood outside of prison walls. The children call her “Mamu” because of her loving and motherly care. With about 80 children still living inside prison walls, she is determined to bring them out and live out her promise as “Mamu” to these children in need.
Arun Kumar was nominated, on October 4, 2013, by President Obama to the position of Assistant Secretary of Global Markets and Director General of the US and Foreign Commercial Service.
He had just retired in September, from KPMG LLP where he served on the Board of Directors. As a senior partner based in Silicon Valley, he had led Management Consulting for the firm in the Western region. He also founded and led KPMG’s US-India Practice.
Over the years, he has been a mentor and advisor to a number of new ventures in Silicon Valley and India. Prior to his almost two decades with KPMG, he had been co-founder and CFO or CEO of three entrepreneurial ventures in Silicon Valley.
Arun started his career in India as a member of TAS, the Tata Administrative Service.
Arun has served on the Board of Directors of the US India Business Council and TiE Silicon Valley and on advisory councils at Stanford University, University of California, Santa Cruz, Asian School of Business, Trivandrum and other institutions.
Arun is the author of a book of poetry, Plain Truths, published by Current Books, 2010. He is also co-editor of Kerala’s Economy: Crouching Tiger, Sacred Cows, published by DC Books, 2006.
Arun received his master’s in management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kerala, India.
Arun and his wife Poornima, a biologist, have lived in California for 31 years, where there home has been a veritable salon, hosting writers, artists and leaders from the worlds of business, academia and politics.
“All that matters is to make a difference.”
While serving in the US military, Robin had a bone to pick with her big bosses: along with several other activists, she campaigned against the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, which forbade lesbians, gay and transgender people from serving openly. Herself a lesbian and survivor of abuse, Robin’s interest in girls’ and women’s issues led her to work with NGOs around the world for 10 years before starting her own NGO in Mumbai to challenge the status quo. Kranti empowers girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas to turn round the ‘victim’ status and become agents of social change.
Website: kranti-india.org
Dr. Karanth is Chief Conservation Scientist and Director at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Adjunct Faculty at Duke and National Centre for Biological Sciences. She has a Ph.D from Duke (2008), a M.E.Sc from Yale (2003), and, B.S and B.A degrees from the University of Florida (2001). Her research in India and Asia spans 22 years, encompassing many issues in human dimensions of wildlife conservation. She has conducted research assessing patterns of species distributions and extinctions, impacts of wildlife tourism, consequences of voluntary resettlement, land use change and understanding human-wildlife interactions. She has published over 100 scientific and popular articles. Karanth served on the editorial boards of journals Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters and Frontiers in Ecology and Environment. She has mentored over 200 young scientists and engaged 700 citizen science volunteers in her research and conservation projects.
Her work has been covered by nearly 150 international media such as Al Jazeera Television, BBC, Christian Science Monitor, GQ India, Harper’s Bazaar, Mongabay, Monocle, National Geographic, NPR, New York Times, Scientific America, Time Magazine and Indian outlets such as All India Radio, Deccan Chronicle, Deccan Herald, Down to Earth, Kannada Prabha, LiveMint, New Indian Express, Prajavani, The Hindu, and Times of India. Karanth’s conservation and research work has been featured in 3 award-winning BBC Series – The Hunt, Big Cats and Dynasties, and documentaries by CBC and PBS. She has co-produced 3 documentaries Wild Seve, Humane Highways and Wild Shaale.
Kriti Karanth is National Geographic Society’s 10,000th grantee and 2012 Emerging Explorer. Her more than 40 awards and recognitions include World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, University of Florida’s Outstanding Young Alumnus, INK Fellow, India’s Power Women by Femina, Women of the Year by Elle India, Vogue Women of the Year and Seattle Zoo’s Thrive Conservation Leadership Award. In 2019, she received the WINGS Women of Discovery Award for Conservation, GQ Man of the Year- Environmental Hero and was awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise.
Vandana Srinivasan is a Playback Singer, Independent Musician and Live Performer based in Madras. Currently in her fourth year in the Film Industry, she has several noteworthy songs with reputed composers in Tamil as well as releases in Telugu and Kannada. She has toured the world with multiple performances in Australia, Canada, Singapore, Dubai; the most special one being at the London Olympics 2012 where she showcased Indian music along with her band Staccato. At the moment, she is actively collaborating with various musicians and hopes to release her album very soon
Bilal Ghalib is an Iraqi American promoting the maker spaces (a “Do-It-Yourself”/ open-source platform) around the world. His makerspaces fostered ideas such as landmine detection systems and a heart monitor that works without the use of electricity, a limited resource in developing nations.
WEBSITE: bilalghalib.com
Sandeep Divekar is GM of Global Technology Initiatives at Reliance MediaWorks. He is responsible for commercializing the company’s Academy Award winning image processing and film restoration technology and for finding new application areas for the technology. Prior to joining Reliance Mediaworks, Sandeep Divekar set up a South Asian IPTV network for Neulion Inc. which involved negotiating contracts with South Asian television channels, setting up satellite capture teleports in Nepal and India, market research, designing packaging and pricing and launched the network to consumers in Canada and the US.
Previously he was CEO and president of MultiGen-Paradigm Inc. a leading provider of visual simulation software and weapons training solutions for the military and civil aviation industries (acquired by CAE Inc. in 2007 ). Prior to that he was CEO and co-founder of 3Name3D Inc. a 3D graphics software company, (acquired by Computer Associates in 1998).
Mr. Divekar was also on the adjunct faculty at the University of Southern California teaching cyberspace design. He has been working in the field of computer graphics and technology for 25 years and has extensive experience in fields ranging from architecture, entertainment, enterprise applications, e-commerce, visual simulation, online media and IPTV. Mr Divekar has been called upon to speak at the NYU Stern School of Business, the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, the Carlson School of Business at the University of Minnesota, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo and the University of Maryland at College Park as well as various industry conferences. He has also had articles published in various industry publications. Sandeep was educated at the Sir JJ College of Architecture, SCI-ARC and UCLA.
In 2011, along with a friend, Tushar Vashisht conducted a lifestyle experiment living at the government-stipulated poverty line of Rs 32/day. The experiment and its documentation gave scientific voice to the poor, creating empathy amongst India’s privileged, and providing concrete policy solutions to the government. It also inspired him to co-found HealthifyMe, the world’s first Indian nutrition and calorie tracker for healthy living. HealthifyMe has gone on to serve 15 million users and has raised $35M in equity capital.
Prior to this, Tushar worked as a banker, and also helped initiate the Indian Government’s Unique ID project.
Indian film actor Abhay Deol, often hailed as a “thinking actor” in the Hindi movie circles, has appeared in popular films such as Dev D, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.
Abhay is a self-described fan of “cinema that has the ‘real’ element”. He feels movies can be entertaining as well as socially conscious. He recently turned producer and hopes to make films that are relevant.
WEBSITE
www.facebook.com/AbhayDeol
As a leader, Amar Hanspal builds teams that empower everyone to imagine, design and create a better world.
How do we tackle the major challenges of the world? How do we preserve the lessons of the past to serve as inspirations for the solutions of tomorrow? With governments around the world suffering either from gridlock or major financial challenges, now is the time to harness the power of people and technology to sustain, educate and inspire 9 billion people on the planet. Amar and his team are busy figuring out ways to empower “Design for the 9 billion by the 9 billion” to the pressing challenges of today. Amar also travels the world talking to people already engaged in this quest. In his spare time, he is an author, story teller and dreamer-at-large.
“All That Matters is making the world a better place.”
Maira Kalman is an author/illustrator who travels the world and depicts her experiences. She creates articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker and numerous other publications. She is the author of over twenty books for adults and children.
Products designed under the M&Co label are sold by the Museum of Modern Art. She has twice been a finalist for the National Design Awards and is now curating a show for the Cooper Hewitt.
She is madly in love with Abraham Lincoln, but who isn’t?
WEBSITE: mairakalman.com
“All that matters is time, work and love.”
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.
After working as a banker, Alicia took up a full-fledged career in illustration as a designer for Chumbak, India’s trendiest home-grown souvenir company. A year and a half later, she set out on her own as a freelancer, drawing cute and quirky everyday cartoons for a sizeable and loyal online fan-base, and illustrating for some of India’s oldest institutions – like Tinkle magazine!
WEBSITE: aliciasouza.com
Param is the 19-year-old founder & CEO of Ecoviate, a research and development company focusing on disposable green-technologies. Since the age of 13, he has innovated bio-fuel preparation, designed highly effective bioreactors, created a device that mitigates motor vehicle emissions (currently patented), and many more. Param was named to the 2012 & 2013 Forbes ‘30 Under 30: Energy’ list for his work in green-technologies. Aside from being a Junior at Vanderbilt University, studying Mechanical Engineering & Economics, Param has consulted as a research associate and even a rocket scientist.
WEBSITE: ecoviate.com
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.
Shruti Haasan is an Indian actress, singer and music composer who works in the South Indian film industry and Bollywood. She sang her first song at the age of six and has continued her stint in music through her work as a singer in Indian languages. She trained in Hindustani classical music and studied at the Musicians Institute in California.
Asima is a boundary-breaking vocal and percussion ensemble from Trivandrum, Kerala. The word “asima” in sanskrit means “beyond boundaries”, and the ensemble combines elements from India’s rhythmic and melodic systems with harmonic traditions of western music.
The music of asima is directed by Devissaro, an Australian born musician who has lived in India since 1980. Trained initially as a classical pianist, Devissaro subsequently studied Hindustani vocal music of the ancient Dhrupad tradition under the renowned Dagar family, as well as pakhawaj and bansuri. The music of the asima is a reflection of Devissaro’s background in both western and Indian classical music.
The asima ensemble comprises five Carnatic singers Anil Ram, Gokul Bhaskaran, Anoop Sivanandan, Anoop Mohandas and Khalid. They are accompanied by Tao Issaro on drumkit and percussion, Sajith Padmanabhan on south Indian drums, Yakzan Pereira on keyboard and Ben Sam Jones on guitar and bass. Asima has been enthusiastically received by a wide range of audiences both in India and abroad, and has performed in a number of highly prestigious venues. Asima won warm praise in the UK where it toured in 2007 and again when it performed for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009.
In 2011, Asima performed at the Kennedy Center for the Arts, Washington, USA as part of the Maximum Indian Festival. In 2012 Asima collaborated with the great US sax player George Brooks for shows in Trivandrum and Bangalore, and returned to London in April 2013 for 3 knock-out peformances in the Alchemy Festival at the Southbank Centre. In August 2013 Asima toured to 6 cities in China.
Kelli is an American-born cultural anthropologist based in Indonesia, whose work focuses on the role of the media in the construction of religious identity. With a strong belief in the potential of new media to change perspectives, she is launching a collaborative platform to facilitate the circulation of stories and voices from the communities of Eastern Indonesia. Her work has landed her in interesting situations – she once lived with and studied the Toraja people of South Sulawesi, whose practice it is to live with the mummified bodies of their deceased relatives.
Roger Fisk has had a key “behind the scenes role” in President Obama’s organization since then-Senator Obama announced his run for president in February 2007. He has seen from the beginning the development of cutting-edge organizing strategies, the application of agile on-line organizing tools, and a truly innovative, thoroughly modern mobilization of social media. With 6 months of service on the President’s successful 2012 re-election, Roger has worked with all of those tools as they were perfected in the second campaign.
Since the historic 2012 re-election, Roger helped design and manage the social media contingency plans for the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and in late January 2013 watched as his former boss and mentor John Kerry became Secretary of State.
Roger started working for the first Obama campaign in 2007. He was hired by the Obama Team as the National Director of Special Events in what would become a history making Finance Department. Here he helped create and manage a nationwide grass-roots fundraising team that revolutionized modern political fundraising, while building the largest donor base in American history. He also served as principal liaison with US Secret Service and local law enforcement, and was directly responsible for coordinating and managing the media’s coverage of over 150 events across the country. He was in charge of some key Obama media appearances, including; 60 Minutes, The Daily Show, Good Morning America, Saturday Night Live, and the historic Race Speech in Philadelphia in March 2008.
Following President Obama’s first campaign Roger served as Cabinet Liaison for the 2009 Inauguration then became a political appointee in the Obama Administration. His appointment in the Commerce Department required him to coordinate diplomatic and trade missions for the Cabinet and President, serving as Lead US Government Coordinator on trade missions through India and four trips through China, and coordinating the Cabinet’s role in both the 2009 COP-15 Global Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. He was also tapped to serve as President Obama’s Site Lead at the 2011 G8 Summit in Deauville, France.
In the Spring of 2012 Roger joined President Obama’s re-election team, leading teams as a White House Lead Advance in critical states like Virginia, Iowa and Ohio, all of which the President won handily. He managed all aspects of a Presidential visit or event, including the harmonization of all promotion and social media outreach before the event to management of all logistical details, from Secret Service concerns to the critical data collection that would give the campaign the ultimate edge on Election Day. He then served on the Contingency Planning and Operations team for the 2013 Presidential Inauguration.
Roger’s career is built on the foundation of his work for then US Senator John Kerry, who as of January 2013 is now serving as the United States Secretary of State. He served the Senator as his Senior Aide for Communication and Policy. He advised Senator Kerry on a wide-range of politically sensitive issues and worked in more than 14 states in the Kerry Presidential campaign, helping to build a billion dollar enterprise from its very first days to its last.
He is an award-winning guitarist and singer, having recorded classical records as a child, toured the US in pop bands, as well as having the rare opportunity to perform the ANC anthem in Zulu for Nelson Mandela. He participated in National Geographic’s “Civil Warriors,” a documentary about the American Civil War, has published articles on politics and travel, and has lectured on political organizing and social media in Malaysia, Switzerland, Indonesia, Qatar and Dubai.
These experiences provide Roger with a deep understanding of 21st century Presidential politics and the global landscape they both impact and reflect. He has keynoted the 2012 Public Relations World Congress in Dubai, the 2013 Festival of Media in Singapore, the 2013 Corporate Affairs Summit in Sydney and the 2013 International Chamber of Commerce’s World Congress in Qatar. Roger has been quoted or referenced in the New York Times, Reuters, Dubai’s The Nation, Associated Press, Boston Globe, Billboard Magazine and numerous blogs and is currently working on “America Was My Office,” a book which shares the stories and lessons of travelling America throughout three presidential campaigns.
Sunil Thankamushy is a US-based, sixteen-year veteran of the video game industry who was part of the core teams that developed highly acclaimed, successful video game franchises, such as as Call of Duty™, Finest Hour™, and Medal of Honor™.
In his teens, his keen interests in science, politics, and nature took shape as several political and science-themed cartoon columns in prominent Indian newspapers and magazines like Indian Express, The Week, and Human Behaviour Digest.
Sunil came to the US from India on a full scholarship from the Rotary Foundation and the INLAKS Foundation to study animation at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1993. After a rigorous three year program during which he was also cultural ambassador from India for the Rotary Foundation, Sunil was hired by DreamWorks Interactive studio as one of its first animators. He was one of the handful of people selected to animate the video game Medal of Honor™. As the first animator and eventual Animation Director of this game, working closely with his peers, Sunil helped execute the vision of legendary director Steven Spielberg to launch a hugely successful video game franchise.
After seven years of working at DreamWorks Interactive, and later Electronic Arts, Sunil joined hands with other game veterans to co-found Spark Unlimited™, a game studio based in Los Angeles to create next-generation video games. Ten years after its inception, Spark has a long body of work that includes helping launch the now multi-billion dollar Call of Duty™ franchise, Turning Point™: Fall of Liberty™, Legendary™, Lost Planet 3™, and more.
Blending technology and animation has been a passion for Sunil. In every stage of his career, he has successfully created animation paradigms and technology to improve the level of immersion in the virtual environment of the game, and heighten the experience of realism for the player. He has given talks about some of these at various conferences.
After shipping more than 8 video game titles for teens and grownups, Sunil decided to change his life direction and make knowledge-based games to enrich children. With this as the goal, he recently launch DEEPBLUE Worlds Inc., a game studio with the vision of creating innovative online virtual worlds for children with the theme of exploration of nature. After a long and arduous development schedule, he is about to launch his premiere product, XPLORE PANGAEA™ in a yet unannounced partnership.
Sunil lives with his wife Diana, and 2 children in beautiful San Diego, California.
“All that matters is making meaningful entertainment for kids.”
An entrepreneur, inventor and industrial designer with a diverse technical background, Mark is a filmmaker who has undertaken artistic projects that are epic in scale, entail great technical complexity and innovation, and transcend an ordinary view of the world. Producer, co-writer, co-editor of award winning films Chronos (1985), Baraka (1992), and Samsara (2012), he has taken crews to over 50 countries in search of profound and one of a kind imagery.
Eames Demetrios is best known in the design world for his work as director of the Eames Office spearheading the successful re-discovery of the Charles and Ray Eames design heritage by new generations. The mission of the Eames Office is communicating, preserving and extending the work of Charles and Ray Eames. His current large-scale project, Kymaerxthaere, is a multi-pronged and ongoing work of multi-dimensional storytelling and has been underway for several years. The project can be found in stories set in bronze markers–like a novel where every page is in a different city. Kcymaerxthaere’s manifestations include writings, video, performances, images, installation, and limited edition prints. You can discover some of the stories in India in the small village of Sakad in the tribal area of the Madyha Pradesh. Demetrios looks forward to bringing more Kcymaerxthereal stories to India. He currently lives in Southern California with his wife and two sons.
As a Civil & Environmental Engineer, Anu is passionate about providing more reliable government services to citizens. NextDrop began by tackling the problem of erratic water supply – in most of urban India, water is available only a few hours at a time or a few times a week, but residents have no way of knowing when. Working with operators in the field, NextDrop sends text messages 60 minutes before water arrives in your tap, while also offering utility boards the tools to better manage and track leakages in water supply. Anu has also been selected to the Forbes “30 Social Entrepreneurs Under 30” list
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
Elishai is the principle investigator of the Neuro & Biomorphic Engineering Lab (NBEL-lab.com) and an Assistant Professor at the Open University of Israel. In his research, Elishai studies the realm of brain-inspired machines, using artificial brains to develop new frameworks for robotics and vision processing. He is also the founding director of NBEL Innovation Workshops at Biohouse, Hadassah Medical Center — a design and engineering company which integrates computer-aided design, electrical and software engineering to develop novel medical solutions.
Elishai is an academic consultant at the Weizmann Institute of Science for Computational Neuroscience and a university lecturer for artificial intelligence, mathematical modelling, software engineering and computational biology. He is a graduate of Singularity University (2012, NASA Ames Research Center, California), INK fellow (2013, India), INK Trailblazer (2014, USA), Aeroli.to speaker (2016, Brazil), and Dean fellow for Neuroscience (2018, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel). Elishai Holds degrees in Life sciences (B.Sc), Philosophy and History (B.A), Computer Science (M.Sc), Bioengineering (M.Sc, PhD) and Computational Neuroscience (Post Doc).
Best known as the co-creator and co-writer of the hit Broadway musical Avenue Q. Winner of three 2004 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Avenue Q became the 20th longest running show in Broadway history and it is still running in New York and all over the world.
Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations, as well as marketing and partnerships. Since joining Google in 2004, he has held several positions with the company. Most recently, he led Google’s global direct sales operations. He also developed and managed the company’s operations in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets and was responsible for creating and expanding strategic partnerships in those regions for the benefit of Google’s growing number of users and advertisers.
Prior to joining Google, he was chief marketing officer and a member of the management board at T-Mobile Europe. While there, he spearheaded all product development, terminals, brand and marketing activities of T-Mobile Europe. In 1999, he started working with Deutsche Telekom and founded T-Motion PLC, a mobile multimedia subsidiary of T-Mobile International. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, Nikesh held management positions at Putnam Investments and Fidelity Investments in Boston.
Nikesh holds a master’s degree from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern University, both of which were awarded with distinction. He also holds the CFA designation. In 1989, Nikesh graduated from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
Stefan Sagmeister is one of the most celebrated figures in the world of visual communication. He has won two Grammy Awards for his work in album covers and packaging design. Sagmeister & Walsh produces work that stands out among mediums and disciplines of graphic design.
Stefan Sagmeister has worked for the Rolling Stones, The Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and The Guggenheim Museum. Exhibitions on Sagmeister’s work have been mounted in New York, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Paris, Lausanne, Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Cologne & Berlin.
“All that matters is being alive now.”
Having grown up collecting exotic teas from around the world in her father’s old trunk, Snigdha went on to train as a Tea Taster in Sri Lanka. Under the tutelage of Tea Master Nao Kumekawa from Japan, Snigdha specialised in crafting hand-blended teas, and finally set up her own line named after her childhood treasure chest – Tea Trunk. Snigdha works closely with a number of tea estates across India to promote quality Indian teas – to her, India without tea is like France without wine. She next plans to launch a global learning hub for tea in India.
WEBSITE: teatrunk.com
Prakriti Dutta is an internationally acclaimed dhrupad singer .She is a performer, actor and composer. After securing first position in M.A from Rabindra Bharati university, India, she had received a MSc degree in Music in the community from University of Edinburg and honed her skill as an music therapist and community musician .She was under the tutelage of Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar in his dhrupad gurukul in Mumbai. Recently she has founded a performing art company ‘Sound Space’ for sound, movement and arts in her hometown Kolkata. It is an organically designed amphitheatre which promotes creative minds and art in South of Kolkata. Presently her work is divided between two cities Kolkata and London. She is actively associates with a London based music theatre company ‘Opera Circus’ in their production Naciketa based on Upanishad.
WEBSITE: prakritidutta.com
“All that matters is empathy.
Darren Abrahams is a singer and performer who has appeared in opera all around the world, working for such companies as the ROH, ENO, Scottish Opera, WNO, Wexford Festival Opera, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, American Opera Projects and the Young Vic. Darren regularly premieres new works and has helped develop new operas for The Royal Opera, Scottish Opera, Complicite, The Opera Group, Opera Circus, the Batignano Festival and the Brian Irvine Ensemble in places as diverse as Belfast, Italy and India. Concert appearances have taken him around the UK, US and Europe and includes performances with the LPO, the Royal Seville Symphony, and the St Petersburg Symphony. Darren is also a busy recitalist, creating concerts that defy genre and style.
As well as inspiring people through performance Darren is a coach and therapist specializing in self awareness and re-regulating the nervous system. He is a qualified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, a Brainspotting Practitioner and a Life/Business Coach. He regularly runs creative workshops for children and adults and is the co-creator of Circular Sounds, a transformational process using the power of symbols to expand potential, build teams and unlock ideas. He is co-founder and Director of the Starr Trust, a charity providing scholarships to help young people fulfill their potential in sports, arts and education on a local and global level, and has designed the Trust’s education programme CHOCS, which teaches social entrepreneurship to young people by connecting a school, a business and a charity based in a developing country. Since 2005 he has been active in the Balkans working with the composer Nigel Osborne and Opera Circus to address trauma through music and performance. Through this work he is a participant in an ongoing project focusing on Srebrenica in Bosnia exploring cultural solutions to social problems in post conflict regions. Recently this work has expanding into India alongside the opera Naciketa. In 2012 Darren co-directed The Singing Entrepreneur a two day conference for classical singers around the theme “Redefining Success”. TSE is currently developing into an online forum and resource for singers, offering training and inspiration for navigating the classical singing industry today. He is a regular public speaker on subjects ranging from creativity in the workplace, trauma and the arts, body awareness and performance.
WEBSITE: darrenabrahams.com
“All that matters is connections.”
Nigel Osborne has studied composition with Kenneth Leighton, Egon Wellesz, and Witold Rudzinski.
His works have been featured in most major international festivals and performed by many leading orchestras and ensembles around the world. He has also composed extensively for the theatre. Professor Osborne, through his Institute in Edinburgh, is exploring the interfaces of music and science in important areas such as mental and physical well-being.
Nigel is one of the world’s foremost workshop leaders and animateurs. He is as prolific as a composer as he is in his continuing human rights work and his support of many projects world wide to use music and the creative arts to help disadvantaged children and those suffering from trauma as a result of war. His recent projects have included work in Uganda, Palestine, Columbia, Thailand and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nigel Osborne is a member of the World Economic Forum Committee on Culture. He is leading the Music and Disability engagement programme as part of Naciketa in India with Vidya Sagar, Opera Circus and leads The Summer Music Camps for Rehabiliation (trauma/special needs) in Mostar, Pula, Brijuni and Rijeka with Ulyssess Theatre every summer.
WEBSITE: operacircus.co.uk
“All that matters is love empathy.”
John Werner is the Project Innovator for the Camera Culture Group at MIT Media Lab. He is helping to create new imaging platforms, developing hardware and software technologies for augmenting (super human) human vision. He is bringing young people from around the world together to use rapid prototyping to solve some of real-world problems, working on large scale online learning, and building a community to disseminate technology for human vision and visual computing. By disseminating technology to prevent blindness, he is enabling the visually challenged, and bringing eye care to developing countries. His aim is to foster entrepreneurship, to take ideas into the real world for impact, connecting industry with the untapped knowledge of the geniuses of the Media Lab.
John was one of the founding members of Citizen Schools where he helped take it from a concept paper in 1995 into a thriving national educational program that is now in 8 states across the United States. John received Harvard University’s Loeb Fellowship. John’s recognition ranges from BostonInno’s “50 on Fire” in 2013, to being named one of Boston’s Ten Outstanding Young Leaders in 2006. In his spare time, John loves racing triathlons an All-American (he qualified and raced in the 70.3 Ironman World Championships four times and USTA Sprint World Championships representing USA), photography, commuting by bicycle 365 days a year, and spending time with his wife Erika Alvarez Werner and their three children.
WEBSITE: johnwernerphotography.com
“All that matters is dreaming the impossible”
Satya’s 9 year long journey has ranged from scoring for Indian films to collaborating with Indian artists and musicians. While her artistic footprint has evolved from eastern traditional to western electronica, Satya’s spiritual vision is moulded by a blend of the two. Her label, Tabula Rasa, hopes to play a key role in revolutionizing the electronica movement.
Born in India, Shwetal A. Patel spent his childhood in Lusaka, Zambia, migrating to the U.K when he was nine years old. During his time in the U.K, Patel studied Economics at the University of London, graduating in 2001 whilst working in the fields of music, fashion, film & art in the burgeoning artistic scene of East London. Patel chose Florence, Italy as a base to live and work for 4 years and in 2010 was invited to Mumbai to develop a project to create India’s first contemporary art biennial; an artist led initiative spearheaded by the Kochi Biennale Foundation.
Since joining Kochi Biennale Foundation, Patel has worked closely with various stakeholders including artists, curators, Government, international embassies, institutions, sponsors, and initiated collaboration with Google Art Project (Google Cultural Institute) to bring the biennial experience to internet audiences globally. The first edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 attracted nearly 400,000 visitors from diverse backgrounds, becoming the largest non-profit art event of its kind in India.
Advising the Chairman of India’s National Academy of the Arts, The Lalit Kala Akademi (Government of India) on the Venice Biennale and India Triennale, Patel is interested in the social and economic impact of large scale art projects on society and their stimulus on education, development, innovation and culture.
Shwetal Patel currently lives in Fort Kochi, Kerala, working on the second edition of Kochi-Muziris Biennale which opens on December 12th 2014.
WEBSITE: kochimuzirisbiennale.org ; google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/kochi-biennale
Neeraj Arora manages “all things business at WhatsApp”. Neeraj is the vice-president of business development for the multi-billion dollar company WhatsApp, now a part of the Facebook family. He studied mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and received his Masters in Business Administration from the Indian School of Business in 2006. He made the front page of The Economic Times with his technology success story. Neeraj spent four years handling corporate development for Google Inc. before joining WhatsApp when it was still a fledgling startup in 2011
Vivek Wadhwa is a Fellow at Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University; Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University; and Distinguished Fellow at Singularity University. He is author of “The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent”—which was named by The Economist as a Book of the Year of 2012, and ” Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology”—which documents the struggles and triumphs of women. He was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as Top 100 Global Thinker in 2012. In 2013, TIME Magazine listed him as one of The 40 Most Influential Minds in Tech.
Wadhwa oversees research at Singularity University, which educates a select group of leaders about the exponentially advancing technologies that are soon going to change our world. These advances—in fields such as robotics, A.I., computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials—are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security.
In his roles at Stanford and Duke, Wadhwa lectures in class on subjects such as entrepreneurship and public policy, helps prepare students for the real world, and leads groundbreaking research projects. He is an advisor to several governments; mentors entrepreneurs; and is a regular columnist for The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Accelerators, LinkedIn Influencers blog, Forbes, and the American Society of Engineering Education’s Prism magazine. Prior to joining academia in 2005, Wadhwa founded two software companies
Kumbhthon is a technical hackathon, started in association with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA) for promoting social innovations for the upcoming Kumbhmela in Nashik.
SUNIL KHANDBAHALE
Linguistic Enabler
Sunil’s goal is to help Indians bridge the ‘language’ and ‘digital’ divides, due to the dominance of English on the internet and in technical published texts. He has developed digital dictionaries for mobile phones and computers with a repository of 9.6 million audio and textual words in 16 domains, like Legal, Agriculture and Pharmacy, in 22 different Indian languages. Educated in Marathi-medium in a village near Nashik, Sunil believes the root of the rural inferiority complex is the linguistic divide, due to which many abandon their education. He hopes to reverse this with his free platform.
GIRISH PAGARE
Social Innovator
Girish is a metallurgical engineer working with Graphite India. With a rich experience of more than 28 years in the industry, espicallly in SQL and systems. He is the chairman of the Nasik chapter of the Computer Society of India.
Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab. Ramesh Raskar joined the Media Lab from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in 2008 as head of the Lab’s Camera Culture research group. His research interests span the fields of computational photography, inverse problems in imaging and human-computer interaction. Recent projects and inventions include transient imaging to look around a corner, a next generation CAT-Scan machine, imperceptible markers for motion capture (Prakash), long distance barcodes (Bokode), touch+hover 3D interaction displays (BiDi screen), low-cost eye care devices (Netra,Catra), new theoretical models to augment light fields (ALF) to represent wave phenomena and algebraic rank constraints for 3D displays(HR3D).
In 2004, Raskar received the TR100 Award from Technology Review, which recognizes top young innovators under the age of 35, and in 2003, the Global Indus Technovator Award, instituted at MIT to recognize the top 20 Indian technology innovators worldwide. In 2009, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. In 2010, he received the Darpa Young Faculty award. Other awards include Marr Prize honorable mention 2009, LAUNCH Health Innovation Award, presented by NASA, USAID, US State Dept and NIKE, 2010, Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project Award (first place), 2011. He holds over 40 US patents and has received four Mitsubishi Electric Invention Awards. He is currently co-authoring a book on Computational Photography.
With a business degree from Wharton, Kunal Bahl is the Co-Founder & CEO of India’s largest online marketplace, Snapdeal.com. With the mission to create life-changing experiences through this platform, Kunal today has the largest online database with over 25 million members and 50,000 sellers. With millions of products from thousands of national, international and regional brands, Snapdeal.com has partnered with several global marquee investors to deliver products across the country to 5000+ cities and towns in India. What else keeps Kunal busy you may ask, he serves on Unilever’s Global Digital Advisory Board and the Board of Governors of The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs.
Gokul Chandra Das is a dhak (a traditional percussion instrument from Bengal played during religious festivals) player whose music is an amalgamation of classical and folk. Gokul Das was the first dhaki to play at the Hollywood Bowl. Gokul Chandra Das is one of the few dhakis, if not the only one, to take the dhak mainstream and introduce this regional instrument and art to the world. Das comes from a traditional ‘Dhaki’ family.
Zenia Tata joins XPRIZE with more than 21 years of experience in program design, management and business development for not-for-profit organizations and social enterprises. Her work has spanned 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Central America, with diverse issues ranging from water and food scarcity, economic enhancement, climate change, land rights, healthcare, education and child welfare. Her unique contribution has been to infuse these traditional development solutions with an entrepreneurial approach, where all stakeholders can draw tangible value from these programs and services.
Ms. Tata’s consulting clients have included academic institutions like MIT’s D-Lab, private sector social enterprises like Spring Health and Medeem, technology incubators such as D-Rev, impact investment groups like Beyond Capital, funders like Nike, Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations and large international NGOs such as Concern Worldwide. Before that, she was the Executive Director of International Development Enterprises (iDE) USA. iDE pioneered market-based approaches to increase income for impoverished farm families in Asia and Africa and has doubled the incomes of 20 million people living in abject poverty.
Originally from Mumbai, India, Ms. Tata is passionate about her work with economically disadvantaged populations, believes in the innate entrepreneurial qualities of the poor and is constantly searching for innovative solutions to global problems.
Ms. Tata has taught classes on social entrepreneurship in universities such as Harvard Business School, Stanford, MIT, University of Colorado and New York University.
Indian businessman and chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons. Heading the Tata Group from 1991 – 2012, Ratan Tata was the Chairman of Tata Sons, holding company of the Tata Group and major Group companies including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power and more. He is also Chairman of two of the largest private sector promoted philanthropic trusts in India. During his tenure, the Group has further expanded its global reach, with its revenues growing over eleven-fold to around USD$70 billion. Mr. Tata joined the Tata Group in December 1962. After serving in various companies, he was appointed the Director-in-Charge of the National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (Nelco) in 1971. In 1981, he was named Chairman of Tata Industries, the Group’s other holding company, which he was responsible for transforming into the Group’s strategy think-tank and a promoter of new ventures in high-technology businesses. He is associated with many organizations in India and abroad in varying capacities, some of which are the government of India’s Investment Commission, the Prime Minister’s Council on Trade and Industry, South Africa’s International Investment Council, several prestigious universities and several philanthropies.
Mr. Tata received a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture from Cornell University in 1962, and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975. The government of India honored Mr. Tata with one of its highest civilian awards, the Padma Vibhushan.
Dr. Peter Diamandis is the Chairman and CEO of XPRIZE, which leads the world in designing and launching large incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. Best known for the $10 million Ansari XPRIZE for private spaceflight and the $10 million Progressive Automotive XPRIZE for 100 mile-per-gallon equivalent cars, XPRIZE is now launching prizes in Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy, and Education.
Diamandis is also an international leader in the commercial space arena, having founded and run many of the leading entrepreneurial companies in this sector including Zero Gravity Corporation, the Rocket Racing League and Space Adventures.
As co-Founder & Chairman of the Singularity University, a Silicon Valley based institution partnered with NASA, Google, Autodesk and Nokia, Diamandis counsels the world’s top enterprises on how to utilize exponential technologies and incentivized innovation to dramatically accelerate their business objectives.
Dr. Diamandis attended the MIT where he received his degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering, as well as Harvard Medical School where he received his M.D. Diamandis’ personal motto is: “The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!” Diamandis’ background is in space exploration — before the X Prize, he ran a company that studied low-cost launching technologies and Zero-G which offers the public the chance to train like an astronaut and experience weightlessness.
Seventeen year-old Aisha Chaudhary was born with an immune deficiency disorder and overcame a predicted life expectancy of only one year to have become an accomplished artist today. Despite a serious lung disease called Pulmonary Fibrosis, her persistent optimism, extraordinary maturity in the face of impossible odds, and calm perspective on life’s challenges have been an inspiration to many.
UPDATE: Aisha Chaudhary sadly passed away on the morning of January 24th, 2015 after battling an immune deficiency disorder and Pulmonary Fiborosis throughout her life.
Get Aisha’s book “My Little Epiphanies”
National Award and Filmfare Awardwinning director, editor and producer Rajkumar Hirani has firmly cemented his place as one of India’s leading contemporary filmmakers. Best known for his hit films ‘Munnabhai: MBBS’ and ‘3 Idiots’, Hirani has a reputation for making films that break all the formulaic conventions associated with Indian cinema, and address some of India’s major social and cultural issues. After completing a 3 year diploma at the Film and Television Institute of India, his first taste of success was in the world of advertising, before making the transition to cinema.
Born and raised in Bali, Indonesia, youngsters Melati Wijsen (13) and Isabel Wijsen (11) are working to transform their community and society through their project BBPB (Bye Bye Plastic Bags), which focuses on the issue of waste disposal. Today, BBPB has become a well-known social initiative with a team of 25 volunteers from different local and international schools working to increase awareness around garbage disposal and advocate to change public perception about the use of plastic.
Japanese Mizuna, exotic lettuces, and rare peppers from the Peruvian Andes – all grown locally in Karnataka, India? Yes, this is actually happening, thanks to Nameet MVS, co-founder of First Agro, India’s first commercial grower organization with Zero Pesticide™ fresh produce. After leaving his full-time job as a pilot and flying instructor in 2011, Nameet , his brothers Naveen MV and KN Prasad came together to pursue their passion for healthy fresh produce.
By combining traditional farming values and contemporary technology, they are creating a new wave of growing fresh produce in India. By applying the best global horticultural practices, First Agro has eliminated harmful toxins & pesticides, ensuring fresh, clean, nutritious and affordable produce for families and businesses across India. They’re changing food culture, one delicious and safe bite at a time.
Mark Foster Gage is a recognized innovator in the fields of architecture and design. His pioneering designs combining architectural practice with digital technologies, advanced materials, and emerging media platforms have been exhibited in institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, and featured in the press such as Vogue, Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, USA Today, PBS and MTV.
He is currently holds the positions of Assistant Dean and Professor with tenure at the Yale School of Architecture, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. Gage has written extensively on architecture and design in academic and popular publications including Log, The Journal of Architectural Education, Volume, Fulcrum, Mole, and Perspecta. He has published two books: Aesthetic Theory: Essential Texts for Architecture and Design, and Composites, Surfaces and Software: High Performance Architecture, with Greg Lynn.
Mumbai artist Jitish Kallat’s work takes form in a wide variety of media including painting, sculpture, site-specific installations, animation videos and photography. Jitish’s work often overlays disparate historical dates, everyday images and events into interconnected palimpsests and portrays themes like time, sustenance and mortality. Kallat’s work has been exhibited widely at museums and institutions including Tate Modern (London), Martin Gorpius Bau (Berlin) and the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (Spain) to name just a few and has been a part of the Havana Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Asian Art Biennale, Curitiba Biennale, Guangzhou Triennale and the Kiev Biennale amongst many others.
His recent solo exhibitions were held at the the Art Institute of Chicago, Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, and the San Jose Museum of Art. Jitish Kallat is also the curator of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014.
Anshu Gupta is the founder of Goonj, a primarily volunteer run organization based in New Delhi that provides clothes and other basic amenities to millions across India by turning one person’s waste into a resource for another. In 1998, Anshu left his job as a manager of corporate communications in a large Indian company to found Goonj and travel across India in order to understand the needs of the people of his country. From collecting clothes from his own house, relatives and friends, and distributing them on the roads in the chilly winter nights of Delhi, his dream has come a long way.
Recently Anshu has been awarded the ‘Social entrepreneur of the year award’ by the Schwab foundation, sister concern of the World Economic Forum.
Anshu’s efforts to bring wider attention to the most ignored basic need of human i.e., clothing, and its various aspects right from dignity, deaths in winters to the most taboo subject of sanitary pads are getting wider acceptance across the world and many organizations have started replicating GOONJ’s various initiatives.
Anupama Chopra is a film critic and book author. She has written about the Hindi film industry since 1993. Film Companion, a YouTube channel, is her latest love letter to the movies. She is the film critic for Hindustan Times and NDTV 24/7 and a contributing editor to Vogue (India). She has anchored ‘The Front Row’ on Star World and ‘Star Verdict’ on Star Plus. Anupama also presented and scripted a weekly film review show called Picture This on NDTV 24/7. Her work has been published extensively in India Today, India’s largest English language magazine. She has also written about Bollywood for various international publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety and Sight & Sound.
Dharavi Rocks is part of an educational project of Acorn Foundation, working for the welfare of slum children and waste collectors/rag-pickers. The band started a few years ago with children in the age group of 7-17 years. With a mission to give slum kids a voice by initiating them into music, Dharavi Rocks create music out of all the waste material like drum barrels, coffee shakers, paint cans, plastic boxes and all other type of junk stuff that we can find in the areas of Dharavi Slums emphasizing on the concept of Recycle, Reuse & Respect.
Abhijit Jejurikar a musician at heart is an active volunteer at Dharavi Rocks. His little dream called ‘Dharavi Rocks’ is a culmination of a golden heart meeting his insatiable thirst to spread the healing, transformative magic of music with the thought giving back to the society. His knowledge imparting methods are exemplary, wherein he teaches music, in a way that it helps all the children towards recognizing their talent quotient. He is of the belief, that this learning tool will inculcate discipline and help kids in finding livelihood opportunities in future.
Abhijit does duty in the corporate world but his heart is deeply entrenched in melodic, musical strains – somewhere far removed from the humdrum of manic Mumbai. He has been taking his music classes after work hours twice a week in Dharavi with managing perfect blend of Work life balance. After 3 years of selfless efforts, Dharavi Rocks is now become his identity and it has become a strong brand across India and few international markets too.
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy and Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker. She spearheads SOC Films, a documentary house specializing in investigative and socially motivated content. Sharmeen is currently directing two feature films including Peacekeepers, a film about Bangladeshi policewomen who are serving as UN peacekeeping forces in Haiti, and Sounds of Sachal, a documentary based on a jazz ensemble in Lahore. She is also the CEO of Waadi Animations, a company set up to produce animated feature and short films. Its first project is 3 Bahadur, Pakistan’s first animated feature film, which will be released nationwide in the summer of 2015. In 2012, Time Magazine included Sharmeen in their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2014, the Asia Society in New York honored her with an Asia Game Changer Award
Gazal did a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from NIT, Jaipur, and went on to work as a software engineer with Infosys Technologies for 2 years, before she decided to pursue one of the two biggest dreams of her life. She moved to Mumbai in 2005 to work in the movies. Today, she writes films for some remarkable people in the Hindi film industry, namely Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Govind Nihalani, Prakash Jha and Tanuja Chandra. In 2007, she took another life changing decision. She went through a medical process to fix a disorder she was born with. Her journey to being who she is, has been two-fold – the external path to find a place for herself in the daunting business of the movies… and the internal path of combat with her own identity and destiny.
Zia Mody is considered an authority on corporate merger and acquisition law, securities law, private equity and project finance in India. She is a Senior Partner of the Law Firm of AZB & Partners which has its offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore in India. Zia Mody did her law at Cambridge University and then went on to do an LLM from Harvard University. Zia is also the recipient of the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence as the Businesswoman of the Year, 2010. She was selected as one of the 25 most powerful women in Indian business by Business Today in 2004 and was selected as one of India’s 100 most powerful CEO’s by the Economic Times in 2005.
Vani Kola is a Managing Director at Kalaari Capital, based in Bangalore, India. Her leadership at Kalaari centers around her commitment to the development of entrepreneurs and her conviction that Indian companies are poised to become global players. Vani brings 22 years of Silicon Valley experience as a founder of successful companies to her role as a mentor and enabler of startup companies in India. She serves on several company boards and speaks widely on entrepreneurship and leadership
Steve, a conservation biologist featured by National Geographic, is the Scientific Director of the Wild Bird Trust in South Africa, an organization that works to preserve wildlife and advance the research and education on the conservation of all birds in Africa. The organization’s work has been instrumental in getting the Okavango Delta wilderness in northern Botswana listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its annual expeditions across the wilderness represent the most comprehensive biodiversity survey ever undertaken in this remote area. Steve recently completed a major National Geographic-sponsored expedition across the Okavango Delta to promote broader protection for the watershed and its wildlife
Deb Roy is an Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is Chief Media Scientist of Twitter. He conducts research at the intersection of human and machine communication. In 2008 he co-founded and was the founding CEO of Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company, which MIT Technology Review named as one of the 50 most innovative companies of 2012. Bluefin was acquired by Twitter in 2013. He has authored over 100 academic papers in machine learning, cognitive modeling, and human-machine interaction.
A native of Canada, Roy received a Bachelor of Applied Science (computer engineering) from the University of Waterloo and a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.
Ani Choying Drolma is an internationally reputed singer. Having been educated in a Buddhist nunnery, she studied Buddhist meditation, chants, rituals and ceremonies, and soon advanced to chanting master. Ani recently performed on MTV’s Coke Studio for a composition by A.R. Rahman that is said to have put a whole new spin to the term ‘world music’. The proceeds from her concert tours, CD sales and donations goes toward running a school started by her in the year 2000 called Arya Tara School.
Her school is committed to promote the advancement of nuns, not only for their own benefit but also prepares them to serve and benefit others. This desire developed in Ani, upon the passing of her master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, a renowned meditation master. Watching him hold the nuns in the same regard as monks, Ani believed that creating more opportunities for nuns to study and to develop their own capacities for skillful and compassionate action is the best way she can dedicate herself to her teacher’s vision throughout her life.
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
As a Manufacturing Technology Futurist at Autodesk, Inc., Jordan Brandt spends a lot of time in the past talking to people in the present about the future of designing and making things. Brandt was named one of Forbes’ 12 “NextGen Innovators” in 2014. Originally from a small farming community in Kansas, Brandt has a degree in Architecture from the University of Kansas and a doctorate from Harvard. His doctoral dissertation developed the concept of distributed manufacturing systems (mobile factories).
Since Autodesk’s acquisition of Horizontal Systems, where Jordan served as co-founder and CEO, he has been traveling the globe speaking about his experience in the architecture, aerospace engineering, cloud computing and manufacturing industries. Jordan provides expert commentary on high-profile trends such as 3D and 4D printing, reshoring, robotics and high-speed transportation. He has been featured in publications such as Forbes, Financial Times, Fast Company and Business Insider.
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
If you thought there’s no more original music out there, think again. Guitarist Henry Kaiser is a prolific member of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene, as well as being a globally recognized leader of the “second generation” free improvisers. Kaiser has integrated the subtle string textures of the American blues stylists with traditional music of India, Korea, and Vietnam. Kaiser’s non-stop creativity unearthed many unconventional electric guitar techniques during these years, and he combined these innovations with a strong sense of logic development. Henry also happens to be a diver-photographer and a filmmaker, with over 3500+ dives, 4 feature film collaborations, and 250+ record albums, there’s no telling what this creative genius will do next.
World famous percussionist and new age percussion star, Bickram Ghosh is ranked amongst the great tabla players from India. Equally brilliant within traditional as well as experimental genres, Bickram has carved out a unique niche for himself in his diverse avatars as classical musician, new age artiste and composer. With over 50 recordings as soloist, composer and collaborator, Bickram has performed in almost every top venue in the world, and his performances have met with accolades in international circuits.
Bickram is the son of the great tabla maestro-Pandit Shankar Ghosh. Having learnt the nuances of carnatic percussion from Pandit S. Sekhar, he has performed for over a decade with the legendary Pandit Ravi Shankar on his Grammy award winning album ’Full Circle.
Internationally acclaimed American conductor, Viswa Subbaraman, is currently the Artistic Director/Music Director of The Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee. In his inaugural season at the Skylight, highlights include a number of critically acclaimed and audience acclaimed productions such as a Bollywood production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, which he both stage directed and conducted, a production of Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarrón, and Philip Glass’ Hydrogen Jukebox.
Previous to his time with the Skylight, Subbaraman was the Artistic Director/Founder of Opera Vista, Houston’s innovative contemporary opera company. In his time with Opera Vista, he was selected by the HoustonPress as a 100 Creatives 2012: one of the one hundred most creative people in Houston. Opera Vista and Subbaraman were also honored with the 2010 Mastermind Award from the HoustonPress for artistic creativity and innovative outreach.
Equally comfortable in the orchestral realm as with opera, Mr. Subbaraman served as Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France where he assisted Kurt Masur and visiting guest conductors. Subbaraman has conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center as a Debut Conductor in the National Conducting Institute.
WEBSITE: www.viswasubbaraman.com
Daniel Kraft could have a sci-fi show based on his life and his research. Daniel is a Stanford and Harvard-trained physician-scientist with over 20 years of experience in clinical practice, biomedical research and innovation. Daniel is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics from Massachusetts General Hospital, and has completed fellowships and extensive research in hematology/oncology, bone marrow transplantation, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.
Daniel is deeply involved with highly innovative programs and projects such as Singularity University, FutureMed, IntelliMedicine, MarrowMiner and RegenMed Systems. As well as being a pioneer in medicine, Daniel is an avid pilot and serves as a flight surgeon with an F-16 Squadron in California, and has been a finalist for astronaut selection at NASA.
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
Shravani Hagargi is a young social entrepreneur from Dharwar, India with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work. Sharavani co-founded Safe Hands 24×7, an innovative venture employing women security guards so as to help promote the ideas of gender equality, provide women with the ability to become financially dependent and also provide top-notch services.
Neil Jacobstein is the Director of Executive Academics and Co-chairs the AI and Robotics Track at Singularity University whose mission is to assemble, educate, and inspire leaders to understand and facilitate the responsible development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. He also served as President of Singularity University from Oct 2010 – Oct 2011.
Jacobstein is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Stanford’s Media X Program and was a Senior Research Fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University 2006-2007. He has served as a technical consultant on research and development projects for leading business, government, and defense organizations including GM, Ford, FMC, P&G, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NASA, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force to name a few.
Jacobstein has also worked in a wide variety of executive and advisory roles for industry, nonprofit, and government organizations. He continues to give lectures, seminars, and workshops worldwide on the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology
Co-Founder of redBus.in, Phanindra Sama is ranked No. #3 amongst India’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs by Business World. Having topped the state in his secondary education and graduating with distinction from BITS-Pilani, Phani worked with Texas Instruments, Bangalore before he co-founded redBus. Being India’s largest bus ticketing company has won him many accolades like Entrepreneur of the year award under IT by ET NOW, the BITSAA 30 under 30 award, Global Shaper 2011 of the World Economic Forum and is also Ranked 4 in ‘Impact digital power 100’ in India in 2013.
Daniel is a PhD candidate for the Tangible Media Group at the MIT Media Lab, where his work focuses on human computer interaction. He believes that computers could be much more powerful if their interactions would engage with human bodies more fully. Daniel’s goal is to build a new generation of human computer interfaces, one that can render dynamic, physical shapes that we can touch and transform to express ourselves and collaborate with others. Already, Daniel has built a number of tangible prototypes based on his vision.
Daniel’s projects have been presented at Ars Electronica, Siggraph and the Science Center Singapore and published at ACM ITS, TEI, CHI and UIST conference. He has received the Austrian State Prize for Multimedia, Europrix Top Talent Award, Laval Virtual ReVolution Award, RTT Emerging Technology Award, Siggraph Research Challenge, UIST Student Innovation Contest and best paper awards at UIST and CHI.
Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University. His “Hole in the Wall” experiments, begun in 1999, revealed that groups of children can learn almost anything by themselves given Internet access and the ability to work collaboratively. He developed this original idea into the SOLE [the Self Organised Learning Environment] approach, reaching out to children with minimal or no educational opportunities, in remote corners of the globe. He has driven research into making this approach part of mainstream education. At TED2013, Sugata Mitra made a bold TED Prize wish: to revolutionize the future of learning. The School in the Cloud is making this possible with self-organised learning and Sugata’s methodologies at its heart. Whilst Sugata has home bases in Newcastle, UK and West Bengal, India, his ideas are having an impact world-wide
There are no artistic boundaries for award-winning dancer Vidhya Subramanian. After dazzling audiences the world over with her performances, receiving international acclaim and having taught the dance as well, Vidhya continues to bring tremendous energy and dedication to promoting and preserving the ancient art form of Bharatanatyam. Known for her bold, modern themes and strong choreography, Vidhya has given back to her specialty of the traditional Vazhuvoor style.
Vidhya started her own Bharatanatyam production company and school called Lasya in California. The school has presented 38 disciples in Arangetrams and the company has performed 9 full-length and several short thematic presentations under her direction. Vidhya’s talent does not stop at just dancing – she has already done 3 stage plays and is currently completing her MA in Theatre Arts
Anjney is a partner at the American venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he focuses on consumer digital investments and ProductWorks, the firm’s newly launched platform to help entrepreneurs develop transformative products through Engineering, Design, and Product Management. Anjney joined KPCB from First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund (DRF), where he was a founding Managing Partner. While at DRF, Anjney focused on the fund’s investments in early stage internet technologies.
In 2012, Anjney was named the youngest Google Policy Fellow, and in 2014, organized the first Stanford Cryptofolks summit for applied cryptography. Anjney pursued undergraduate and graduate coursework at Stanford University.
WEBSITE: anjneymidha.com
Parmesh is the founder of the Godrej India Culture Lab, a space that aims to interrogate the textured nature of Indian modernity by cross-pollinating the best minds working on India from across the academic, creative and corporate worlds. In addition, he serves as the Editor-at-Large for Verve, a fashion and lifestyle magazine. In the past, he founded aFreshlimesod, India’s first online youth expression community, and worked across the Indian media and corporate landscapes, as a writer, editor, and venture capitalist, at organizations like Elle, the Times of India group, Sony Entertainment Television and Mahindra and Mahindra. Parmesh is a TED Fellow, a MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow, and Utrecht University’s Impakt Fellow for 2012. His first book – Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India (New Delhi, London, Los Angeles, Singapore: Sage Publications) was released in 2008. Parmesh has undergraduate degrees in Commerce and Education from the University of Mumbai and a Master’s degree in Comparative Media Studies from MIT
Rajiv Subba’s sculpture work will make you do a double – no, triple – take. The talented graduate from Chandigarh Art College connected with fellow NID classmate Mamta Gautam to form ‘Dirty Hands’ in 2008, a collective of skilled and specialized architects, designers and artists. Everything really started for Dirty Hands when a Delhi-based designer needed a hyper-realistic silicon mannequin, and thus, work commenced. Two-and-a-half years and several mannequins later, Rajiv and his team created a mind-blowingly realistic sculpture, practically indistinguishable from its human counterpart. Since then, Rajiv has done work for prosthetics in Bollywood films, and hopes to expand into more scientific fields, such as aesthetically superior medical prosthetics. Step aside, Madame Tussaud’s, Dirty Hands is slowly re-sculpting the prosthetics and art industry from all different angles
Svati is the co-director and head of field research for television show Satyamev Jayate produced by Aamir Khan Productions. She investigated the subject of female foeticide and shot a documentary as part of the core research activity for the foundation of the show. She continues to play an important role in all creative decisions related to the show.
Indian television and film director, Satyajit Bhatkal is best known as the creator of the Indian talk show Satyamev Jayate featuring actor Aamir Khan. Born and raised in Mumbai, Satyajit first practiced law for over a decade. As a student and as a young lawyer, Satyajit was actively involved in important social and political causes and wrote extensively on these issues. After his experiences as an activist and as a lawyer led him to believe he had a story to tell and in his mid-thirties he quit law to work in film and television. Satyajit also wrote and directed ‘Bombay Lawyers’, a critically acclaimed mini-series broadcast on NDTV India, which dealt with important social issues in the format of fictionalized courtroom drama.
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
Aditi Chaudary is the mother of the late INK speaker Aisha Chaudhary. Aisha was born with an immune deficiency disorder and overcame a predicted life expectancy of only one year to have become an accomplished artist today. Despite a serious lung disease called Pulmonary Fibrosis, her persistent optimism, extraordinary maturity in the face of impossible odds, and calm perspective on life’s challenges have been an inspiration to many.
Aisha Chaudhary left us with her book “My Little Ephiphanies,” recently published by Bloomsbury. Aditi has since been on a mission to spread Aisha story and legacy
As a cutting-edge quantum physicist, 2014 TED Fellow Shohini Ghose loves to identify and analyze patterns. While rules of the quantum realm are bizarre, Shohini noticed an even stranger trend in our macroscopic world– the lack of representation and respect of women in higher-powered STEM fields. It’s time to change that. Currently an associate physics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Shohini is also the director of the Centre for Women in Science, a program designed to create a community for women in science. Shohini is empowering female scientists by providing grants, and organizing workshops for girls interested in science. Watch out world, there’s a new Einstein in town – and she’s helping the next generation of geniuses break gender barriers and change the face of science.
Devdutt Pattanaik is a renowned author, mythologist, and leadership consultant, whose work focuses on deriving management insights from mythology to reveal a very Indian approach to modern business. He has authored over 30 books, many of them best-sellers like Myth = Mithya, Business Sutra, The Pregnant King, and Jaya: An illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata.
Many of his books have been translated in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi. Trained in medicine, Devdutt spent 15 years in the healthcare industry, with companies such as Apollo Health Street and Sanofi Aventis, before joining Ernst & Young as Business Advisor. All this while, he continued to study and write on mythological stories and symbols, drawing rich insights about business, leadership, and modern life. His columns on management and culture appear regularly in The Economic Times (Corporate Dossier supplement), Mid-Day, Speaking Tree and the DailyO (India Today website).
He was also featured in a special series called “Business Sutra” on CNBC TV and CNBC Awaaz, where his ideas on the intersection between business and mythology were discussed extensively.
Devdutt was the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group and is now a sought-after public speaker and culture consultant for corporations and business leaders. He consults Reliance on matters related to culture and Star TV on various mythological serials
Bhavesh Chandubhai Bhatia is the founder of Sunrise Candle Industries, a Maharahstra-based company that makes and distributes over 9000 different types of candles. What makes his success so inspirational is the fact that Bhavesh cannot see. After losing his eyesight in 2003, he took a rehabilitation course for blind people, learning things like incense and candle-making. Since then, this visually challenged entrepreneur has been bringing light into other peoples’ lives.
Today Sunrise Candle Industries employs over 200 people, many of them visually-impaired or disabled themselves. Regarded as a hero in his community, Bhavesh has won a number of awards for his work as an entrepreneur as well as for his involvement in charitable causes aiming to improve the lives of differently-abled people.
Aside from his work, Bhavesh is also a keen athlete, having won numerous medals in various events at the National Paralymic Games over the last couple of years. He is currently involved in a project to build the largest candle in the world, and plans to compete in The Paralympics Games in Brazil, 2016.
Piyush Gupta is Chief Executive Officer and Director of DBS Group, as well as Director of DBS Bank (Hong Kong) and The Islamic Bank of Asia. Prior to joining DBS, Piyush was Citigroup’s Chief Executive Officer for South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. He began his career with Citibank in India in 1982 and over the years, held various senior management roles across Citi’s corporate and consumer banking businesses, including Head of Strategic Planning for Emerging Markets and Regional Director for Global Transaction Services for Asia Pacific. He has also served as Citi’s Country Officer for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore respectively
Trained in classical neuroimaging at the Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center and Stanford Medical center, Rohan started a company called BrainBot which helps people be more mindful through biology. His work is based on his first-hand research with sadhus and monks in the Himalayas, where he recorded their brainwaves and heartbeat patterns during meditation. This culminated in a forthcoming consumer wearable device for increased calm and emotional self-awareness
Jose Thomas (J.T) is a 2nd generation entrepreneur with over 44 years of extensive experience in the world of business. He owns and is the Managing Director of the Choice Group of Companies and serves as the President of the Choice Foundation. His businesses include ventures into fields of frozen food and seafood, farming, shipping, construction and IT. The Choice Foundation, a non-profit initiative of the Choice group, includes the running of a school (The Choice School) & a center for performing arts (JTPAC). The Choice Group has a total global turnover of $250,000,000 USD.
More about Jose Thomas’ thoughts, ideologies and outlook can be found in his blog, www.josethomas.in
Harshvardhan is an independent visual artist who makes street art across India. He has been running his travel studio, Inkbrushnme since 2007 which has been producing children’s illustrated books, graphic novels and character designs for animation and gaming projects.
Making a work of art for Harshvardhan is a ritualistic performance. Born in India and exposed to its rich cultural and literary heritage, he has dedicated his time in discovering mythologies and reinterpreting its essence through street art and digital paintings.
Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan also popularly known as Irrfan Khan is an Indian actor in film, television and theatre. Khan has spread his acting prowess beyond India and is today one of the celebrated Indian faces internationally. Khan has won three Filmfare Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. In 2011, he became a recipient of the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India. He has appeared in more than 30 films in Bollywood, to name a few remarkable roles of the actor are Paan Singh Tomar, Haasil, Life in a metro, Gunday, Maqbool, and Haider.
Khan is probably India’s most successful export to Hollywood, having tasted success with experimental roles in several critically acclaimed films such as e The Namesake, New York, I Love You, A Mighty Heart, The Darjeeling Limited, Slumdog Millionaire, The Amazing Spider-Man, Life of Pi, and Jurassic World, and in the HBO series In Treatment. Khan recently shot for his two upcoming international projects: Dan Brown’s Inferno and another Japanese-American TV series.
Khan’s film Piku was one of the most appreciated films of the year 2015 for which he also received a best actor’s award at the Indian Film Festival. He was also marked as the first “Million Dollar Khan” in Bollywood with worldwide success of his Hollywood film Jurassic World. We would also be seeing him wooing audience in his forthcoming films Jazbaa and Talvar.
Khan was born and brought up in Jaipur, India. He was born into a Muslim Nawab family. He was studying for his M.A. degree when he earned a scholarship to study at National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984.
Kirthiga Reddy is the Managing Director of Facebook in India. She has been featured in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013, Business Today’s hottest young executives, Fortune India’s Top 50 Most Powerful Women in India, #1 in IMPACT’s 50 Most Influential Women list in media, marketing and advertising 2015.
Kirthiga is also on the Governing Council of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Kirthiga joined as the first Facebook India employee in July 2010 and set up the India operations in Hyderabad. Prior to Facebook, Kirthiga was VP and GM of SaaS-based Consumer Security business unit and India operations at Phoenix Technologies. She led a global team located in US, India, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Kirthiga has also held the position of Director of Product Management at Motorola, Director of Engineering at Silicon Graphics and Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.
She holds an MBA from Stanford University, where she graduated with top honors as an Arjay Miller Scholar, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and a B.E. in Computer Science from Ambedkar University, India. She serves on Stanford Business School Management Board and Indian School of Business (ISB) Next Generation Leadership Board.
Josh Radnor is perhaps best known for his role as Ted, the central character on CBS’s Emmy-nominated comedy HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER which ended its nine-season run in March 2014, but Radnor’s talents extend beyond acting, and he has quickly established himself as both a gifted writer and director.
He has written, directed and starred in two feature films. His most recent, LIBERAL ARTS, in which he co-starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen, Richard Jenkins and Allison Janney, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was released by IFC that fall. His first feature film, HAPPTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE, debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Favorite U.S. Drama. The film was released in March 2011 by Anchor Bay.
Radnor can next be seen playing a morphine-addicted surgeon in the new PBS Civil War hospital drama, MERCY STREET, premiering in January of 2016. He was last seen on Broadway starring in DISGRACED, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar which received a 2015 Tony nomination for Best Play.
In 2013, he starred in Jill Soloway’s AFTERNOON DELIGHT co-starring Kathryn Hahn and Juno Temple. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where Soloway won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award.
In addition to film and television, Radnor first starred on Broadway as the title character in THE GRADUATE opposite Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. Off-Broadway and regionally, he has appeared at the Manhattan Theater Club, The Vineyard Theater, and Baltimore Center Stage, among others.
In Los Angeles, he originated the roles of “Young Sandy” and “Sam” in the Ovation Award-winning world premiere production of Jon Robin Baitz’s THE PARIS LETTER at the Kirk Douglas Theater. Two summers ago appeared in New York Stage and Film’s world premiere production of Richard Greenberg’s THE BABYLON LINE, directed by Terry Kinney.
His television credits include guest appearances on ER, SIX FEET UNDER, JUDGING AMY, and LAW & ORDER among others. He was a series regular on ABC’s THE COURT starring Sally Field. He made his film debut in the original teen spoof, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE.
Radnor has had several articles published in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. He has also written for The Rumpus, Guilt and Pleasure Magazine, Moviemaker Magazine, Indiewire, and The Huffington Post.
A native of Columbus, Ohio, Radnor attended Kenyon College where he won the Paul Newman Acting Trophy. He received his M.F.A. in acting from N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts. He currently resides in Los Angeles
Vidya Shah is the CEO of EdelGive Foundation, which is the philanthropy arm of the Edelweiss group. Former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Edelweiss Group, she is now part of the board for various prominent organisations like Agastya International Foundation, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, Common Purpose, Women on Wings, Toolbox India Foundation and Masoom in addition to Edelweiss. In each of these organisations, her role enables her to contribute strategically which helps them build a stronger presence by implementing useful plans in an efficient manner.
She attained an MBA degree from IIM, Ahmadabad and spent the first 11 years of her career in the field of investment banking with companies like ICICI, Peregrine and NM Rothschild wherein, her role was to advise the corporate in Capital Raising and M&A transactions. Later, she worked in the capacity of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Edelweiss Group while also heading the Human Resources and Administration functions for the firm.
Apart from being an active member of the CSR and business fraternity, Vidya is a connoisseur of art and spearheads Edelweiss’s art event called Palette. Her love for the field of art is not limited to collecting artefacts and paintings, it extends to appreciate music and the same is visible in the efforts she is putting into learning this skill.
After having gained a diverse experience, she set up the EdelGive Foundation and has been its CEO since its inception. Under her leadership, over the last seven years, EdelGive has become a catalyst of change, dedicated to collaborative philanthropy in the fields of education, livelihoods and women empowerment.
Literally translated as “Language of the Earth”, Maati Baani is the musical pairing of composer/producer/guitarist Kartik Shah and vocalist/composer Nirali Kartik. Teaming up with other musicians, the twosome places Indian classical music within the different sounds, cultures, languages, and voices of the world. Not only is the result original, but the method of collaboration is as well: it’s all done completely online. The duo’s new video-album series, made with a “no rules, no boundaries” approach, features 70 artists across 20 countries
Flavia Agnes is a pioneer in the women’s movement in India. Motivated by personal experience with domestic violence to earn her law degree, Flavia has since worked consistently on gender issues. As co-founder of MAJLIS, a legal and cultural resource center, her primary engagement has been to provide quality legal services to women and children. A prolific writer, she has provided incisive analysis of social trends and legal developments related to domestic violence, minority concerns, secularism, and human rights
Haleem Khan grew up in a rich mix of Islamic and Telugu cultures, and was drawn to the classical Indian dance form of Kuchipudi. At 9-years-old, he started his training under the revered Guru Sri K.V Subrahamanyam, disciple of the venerated Guru Sri (Dr.) Vempati China Satyam. Haleem lives in Hyderabad and has given more than 800 solo and group performances all over India and abroad.
He has vast experience in teaching dance, choreographing both conventional and fusion, conducting workshops for both private and corporate groups. Haleem enjoyed immense success on his recent road shows in the United States and Malaysia, and immensely enjoys travelling and the continuous learning
Dr. Balamurali Ambati M.D. PH.D. became the world’s youngest doctor, receiving his medical degree at the age of 17. He was rated #1 in a Top 40 under 40 global survey of ophthalmologists by The Ophthalmologist magazine in May 2015. Dr. Ambati has been chosen as one of the Moran Jazz Doctors, the NBA Utah Jazz team ophthalmologists.
Dr. Ambati is an eye surgeon specializing in lifestyle lens implants, LASIK, cataract surgery and corneal transplants. As leader in ophthalmology, Dr. Ambati is the Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and the team ophthalmologist for the Utah Utes. He also directs a laboratory for developing new cures for eye diseases and volunteers his time with ORBIS, Project Hope, Sight for the Sightless, the Navajo Nation, and other humanitarian outreach efforts.
Anshulika co-founded India’s first and most successful crowdfunding platform for creative ideas. So far over 250 projects across films, music, dance, comics and more have raised well over USD 1 million by over 11,000 backers using Wishberry. Inspired by Dagny Taggart and Miranda Priestly, this ex-McKinsey analyst discovered crowdfunding while on a project at McKinsey. It fascinated her so much, she ditched a US job opportunity and flew back to India to pioneer this concept. Anshulika doggedly believes that crowdfunding is a lifeline for all budding creative artists in India
Harsh Mariwala leads Marico Limited as its Chairman. Over the past three decades, Mariwala has transformed a traditional commodities driven business into a leading consumer products and services company in the Beauty and Wellness space. From a turnover of Rs. 50 Lakhs in 1971, Marico’s products and services in hair care, skin care and healthy foods generated a turnover of about Rs. 5,733 Crores during 2014-15.
Under Mariwala’s leadership, Marico has achieved several awards and over 100 external recognitions in the last few years. His entrepreneurial drive and passion for innovation, enthused him to establish the Marico Innovation Foundation in 2003. Under the stewardship of an eminent Board, the Foundation acts as a catalyst to fuel innovation in India. As an expression of his personal social responsibility, Mariwala launched ASCENT – Accelerating the Scaling up of Enterprises to identify growth-stage entrepreneurs with potential and enable them in their scaling-up journey.
Mariwala was the President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in 2011. He has been a part of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and is now a part of the World Presidents Organization (WPO). He has held the position of YPO Education, Membership and Chapter Chair for the Bombay Chapter and was a member of the International Forum Board of YPO International.
Nina Tandon is CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. She is the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book that explores the new frontier of biotech. She has a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union, a Master’s in Bioelectrical Engineering from MIT, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and an MBA from Columbia University. Her PhD research focused on studying electrical signaling in the context of tissue engineering, and has worked with cardiac, skin, bone, and neural tissue.
Tandon spent her early career in telecom at Avaya Labs and transitioned into biomedical engineering via her Fulbright Scholarship in Italy, where she worked on an electronic nose used to “smell” lung cancer. She was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, a Crain’s 40 under 40 people who have achieved success in business before turning 40, and a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.
Anuraag Saxena is the Asia-Head for the World Education Foundation, UK and leads the Asia partnerships and entry-strategy. He spent his corporate years with GE Capital, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, where he was heading strategy and change teams across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. Anuraag passionately believes that skills from academia and corporate-life, can and should be applied to solve social challenges as much as they solve economic ones
Melissa Kwee is the CEO, National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre in Singapore. She is a well-known social activist and volunteer leader who has served as Chair of Halogen Foundation, a youth leadership organization, President of UN Women Singapore, and is the co-founder of Beautiful People, a mentoring platform for girls. She is and Chairman of the investment firm for Capella Singapore and Director at Pontiac Land Group.
Melissa was recognised with the Singapore Youth Award in 2007, Asean Youth Award 2008, and has received several other awards for leadership and service. She was educated at Harvard College and was a Fulbright Scholar to Nepal.
Rashesh Shah has spent over 25 years in the corporate and financial markets sector and is one of the leading spokespersons for the industry. He started Edelweiss in 1996 that has since grown into one of India’s leading diversified financial services conglomerates.
The 270 billion Edelweiss Group is present across all significant areas of financial services including Credit, Housing Finance, Financial Markets, Commodities, Asset Management and Life Insurance. The Group has 240 offices in 125 cities, including eight international offices in New York, Canada, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius, Nigeria and Chad with headquarters in Mumbai, India.
Rashesh is passionate about financial services and the role it can play in translating India’s vast savings into investments; thereby powering economic growth and development. Under his leadership, Edelweiss has combined technology, innovation and growth oriented entrepreneurship with a strong focus on risk management to become one of the more successful, stable and well respected financial services companies in India. Finance Asia, Hong Kong ranked Edelweiss as India’s Best Managed mid-cap company in 2013 and 2014.
A regular commentator on macro- economic policies, development matters and financial markets in the mainline and financial media, Rashesh serves on the Boards of various companies and public institutions. He has previously been on the Executive Committee of the National Stock Exchange and also on the SEBI (Stock Exchange Board of India) committee to review Insider Trading Regulations. He currently serves as Chairman, Maharashtra Council of FICCI and is a part of the Directors Forum formed by corporate stalwarts under the aegis of the FICCI Center for Corporate Governance seeking to improve the quality of board-level governance in Indian industry.
Srikanth Bolla was the first visually challenged student in India permitted to study science beyond grade 10. Since then, he has blazed new trails with Bollant Industries, an organization that employs uneducated and disabled employees to manufacture eco-friendly disposable consumer products and packaging solutions. They also offer adhesives, printing inks, printing products and intermediate products for disposable product manufacturers. Bollant Industries now operates five manufacturing units and has sales crossing USD 70 million each year
Anand Varma’s photos tell the story behind the science of everything from primate behavior and hummingbird biomechanics to amphibian disease and forest ecology. He started photographing natural history subjects while studying biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He spent several years assisting other photographers before receiving a National Geographic Young Explorer grant to document the wetlands of Patagonia. Varma has since become a regular contributor to National Geographic. His feature stories include “Mindsuckers” about mind-controlling parasites and “Quest for a Superbee” about the science behind honeybee declines
Dr. Catherine Mohr is the Vice President of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical, a high technology surgical robotics company that makes the da Vinci surgical robot. In this role, she develops new robotic surgical procedures, and evaluates technologies to improve outcomes with surgical robots. In addition, she is a Consulting Assistant Professor in the department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine where she works with the Goodman Simulation Center in the development of simulation based curriculum for teaching clinical skills.
In her early career, Dr. Mohr has worked for many years with Dr. Paul MacCready at AeroVironment developing alternate energy vehicles, high altitude aircraft, and high efficiency fuel cell power systems aimed at reducing our world’s energy consumption and emissions. Dr. Mohr then went on to medical school at Stanford University School of Medicine and received her BS and MS in mechanical engineering from MIT. She is also the author of numerous scientific publications, and the recipient of multiple design awards.
Marco Tempest is a cyber illusionist, combining magic and technology to produce astonishing illusions. He began his performing career as a stage magician and manipulator, winning many awards and establishing an international reputation as one of the world¹s most unique performers. His interest in computer generated imagery led him to incorporating video and digital technology in his work and the development of a new form of contemporary illusion. The expansion of the internet and social media provided more opportunities for digital illusions and ways of interacting with audiences and creating magically augmented realities.
Marco is a keen advocate of the open source community, working with artists, writers and technologists to create new experiences and research the practical uses of the technology of illusion. Marco continues to perform around the world, is a media consultant on the subject of magic and illusion and lectures at international conferences on the psychology of deception and creative thinking. Marco is a Directors Fellow at the MIT Media Lab
Named one of CNN’s Top 7 Tech Heroes to Watch in 2015, Kathryn has spent the past decade teaching and doing research on exponential technologies, being there at the beginning for the first Singularity Summits, for Singularity University, and contributing research and analysis for two New York Times best sellers. Kathryn is a global expert on exponentially growing technologies and the synthesis of the broad set of related fields of the Singularity movement.
Her analysis and data played central roles in the two leading books in the field: Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near”, (2005) and Peter Diamandis & Steven Kotler’s “Abundance” (2012). She also helped create the first Singularity Summits and assisted in the creation of Singularity University, serving in multiple roles, including director of research, from 2009-2013. She continues to serve on the faculty, leading the track on technology convergence and synthesis.
Slightly more in the present, Kathryn has worked as a research analyst in various industries, including energy, telecom, storage and security, and contributed to non-profit efforts and been active in the maker, hacking and science fiction communities, and the art community of Burning Man. She holds degrees in Economics and Zoology from UC Davis.
Sanaya Bharucha leads special projects and outreach at Teach for India, a nationwide movement of young professionals who commit two years to teaching in under-resourced communities. In this capacity she directed the Maya Musical, a partnership with Broadway-based artists. The production served a demonstration of what’s possible for low-income students with no previous exposure to the arts. Through this and other projects, Sanaya promotes integrated education which combines exposure and access, values and mindsets, and academic achievement.
Marcelo Wesseler is the CEO of SingPost eCommerce, member of the Singapore Post Group.SingPost eCommerce serves more than 1000 clients and runs sites like adidas.com.my, levis.co.kr and muji.com.sg. The company is listed on the Singapore stock exchange with two main shareholders; SingTel and Alibaba Group.
Prior to joining Singapore Post, Wesseler was Head of eCommerce at RS Components Asia Pacific. During his eight year tenure at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, he was responsible for development of their US eCommerce site and global direct consumer sales. He also established an entirely new eCommerce organisation in Singapore and Shanghai.
Wesseler started his career as a senior eCommerce consultant at KPMG Consulting in Switzerland and he was an early eCommerce pioneer when founded three retail businesses and helped establish sonystyle.com, mini.com, bmw.com as well as one of Europe’s first online shopping platforms, together with Deutsche Post in 1997
Prof. Venkatesh is a Research Director at IMCB, and an adjunct Professor in the Department of Paediatrics, National University of Singapore. His research areas include comparative genomics and genetic diseases. His group uses comparative genomics approach to better understand the structure, function and evolution of the human genome. More recently, Prof. Venkatesh has been using the next-generation sequencing platform to study DNA variations underlying rare human genetic diseases with the objective of understanding the biology of such diseases better, potentially leading to novel therapeutic targets.
Prof. Venkatesh obtained his PhD from the National University of Singapore. He subsequently pursued post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr Sydney Brenner at the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cambridge, UK and returned to Singapore in 1992 to set up the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB).
In 2004, Prof. Venkatesh was awarded Singapore’s prestigious “National Science Award” (now the President Science Award) for his work on comparative genomics. He is an elected member of the Human Genome Organization, a chairperson of the ‘Genome 10K’ – an international project which aims to catalogue genomes of 10,000 vertebrates, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Centre for Human Genetics, Bangalore, India, and a Senior Advisor to China National Genebank, BGI, Shenzhen, China.
Neal Cross is Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer of DBS Bank and a strong advocate for innovation thinking and culture. Previous to DBS, Cross was at MasterCard, where he was responsible for driving innovation as Vice President of MasterCard Labs in the company’s Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions.
Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran is an award-winning composer, music educator, and scholar whose musical productions have been performed at venues around the globe. His productions are consistent with his vision of building bridges across cultures by celebrating threads of commonality. He is the recipient of several awards such as the McKnight Fellowship, the Ohio Heritage Fellowship, the Just Community Award, a lifetime achievement award from the Geeva Foundation, the Hindu American Foundation and more.
Kanniks is credited with creating a new sound — the coming together of Indian voices with traditional western choirs. In doing so, he has broken new ground. The Indian-American choral movement he pioneered has caught on in several cities. His work spread to Europe where the first ever Surinamese-Hindustani choir founded under his leadership performed his work ‘Ragas in Symphony’ alongside the Dario-Fo choir and the Residentie Orkest in the Hague, Netherlands.
Kanniks has the distinction of having had his composition ‘Mahavakya’ performed by his daughter Vidita Kanniks at the historic reception in honor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Madison Square Gardens in New York to an audience of about 18,000.
His magnum opus ‘Shanti A Journey of Peace’ — a contemporary oratorio for large choruses, a chamber orchestra, dances and visuals recently completed its 10th anniversary in Cincinnati, featuring mixed choruses, western and Indian instrumental ensembles, dancers and more. Shanti has touched the lives of over 1500 performers over the last 10 years. Kanniks is the founder of Greater Cincinnati Indian community choir, which won two silver medals in the prestigious “Champions Category” in the 7th World Choir Games.
Kanniks’ musical capabilities have led him to collaborate with renowned artists such as Lakshmi Shankar, The Gundecha Brothers, Mallika Sarabhai, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and the Cincinnati Pops.
Mainak is the co-founder and Co-CEO of GPS Renewables (Green Power Systems). GPS is one of Asia’s most promising cleantech firms, having received awards from various international and national platforms. He was listed as one of the top Indian innovators under the age of 35 by MIT Technology Review. Fortuna Media recently named him as “The Bioenergy person of the year, 2015”. He is also a Global Shaper, World Economic Forum, as a part of which, he works towards making Bangalore a better place for its citizens
Whether as a comedian, a writer, a radio commentator and/or speaker, Emily updates her audience on Big Ideas from science and shows how these Ideas suggest changes in our social institutions, our business practices, even our everyday behavior. Emily’s brand of Big Ideas and Big Laughs provoke and inspire as well as entertain.
Starting out with stand-up comedy Emily went on to became a television writer/producer, working on shows such as “Designing Women“, “Love and War” and “Dangerous Minds“. Under overall deals at Universal Studios and The Walt Disney Company, she created and produced pilots for new situation comedies for CBS, NBC, ABC and HBO
As the Head of DBS Foundation, Patsian Low drives the focus on championing social entrepreneurship in Asia. The Foundation is an endeavor from DBS Bank to make an even greater impact in addressing Asia’s evolving social needs. Patsian was the former Director of the Philanthropy division in the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) to provide programmes that promote and engage philanthropy from different donor sectors in Singapore. Some initiatives include the online philanthropy platform – SG Gives, independent charity analyst reports from the ICAn programme, bi-yearly Philanthropy In Asia Summit in 2012 and 2014 Funders Roundtable, among others
Jesko von den Steinen was formerly a principal solo artist with Cirque du Soleil, and at The House Of Dancing Water, the world’s largest water-based show created by the Franco Dragone Entertainment Group. He is currently working with Las Vegas Sands and Sands China as the Senior Advisor for Brand Identity developing the brand experience for a major upcoming integrated resort in Macau. Jesko has co-directed short films for Canada’s BravoFact TV, and worked as a creative strategist with advertising design agency Sid Lee, using his experience as a storyteller and theatre practitioner to integrate the performing arts into experiential advertising and events
Dr Sydney Brenner earned degrees in medicine and science in 1947 from Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand before moving to England, where he received a doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University and began taking part in leading-edge research into DNA, molecular biology and developmental genetics. It was Sydney’s pioneering research with Caenorhabditis elegans, however, that led to his Nobel Prize. In 1965, he began to lay the groundwork to make C. elegans, a small, transparent nematode, into a major model organism for genetics, neurobiology and developmental biology research. As a direct result of his original vision, this tiny worm became the first animal for which the complete cell lineage and entire neuronal wiring were known
Tan Hock Beng graduated from the School of Architecture, National University of Singapore, with a Bachelor of Architecture (Honours). He was awarded the Singapore Institute of Architects Medal in 1989, and has been involved in many competition-winning projects for a diverse range of building types globally. Tan is deeply committed to the study of traditions and cultures of Southeast Asia, and is particularly interested in how these relate to contemporary practices. He lectures widely throughout the world and his works have been exhibited in many cities including Tokyo, San Jose, Costa Rica, and the prestigious 9th Exhibition of Art and Architecture at the Biennale de Venezia in Venice, 2004
Aparna received her Ph.D in medicine from University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. As a senior research scientist in Molecular Engineering Laboratory in Singapore, she is currently heading a stem cell differentiation project to develop in vitro cellular models for neurological conditions.
She is also actively involved in the Stem Cell Society of Singapore and is the chairperson of their biennial Young Investigator’s Symposium
Ayushmann Khurrana is an Indian film actor and singer, who started his career as a television anchor. He deftly manoeuvred his way further in the entertainment industry by establishing himself as a TV host, and as luck would have it, he landed the lead role in Shoojit Sircar’s Vicky Donor and therein went onto making his Bollywood debut in 2012.The film not only won rave reviews, but also established him as a bankable actor. The ‘Paani da rang‘ song that he sung in Vicky Donor added another feather in his cap. His debut film won Ayushmann awards galore, not just for his acting, but his singing talent as well.
Ayushmann followed this up with a string of films where his performances were appreciated, and was celebrated for truly being someone who choose the unfollowed path when it comes to the kind of characters he chose to potray in the films he’s done so far.
His performance in his last film, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, not only won him rave reviews, the film went on to become a huge success at the box office not only in India, but internationally as well. Ayushmann’s book, ‘Cracking The Code,’ has been appreciated by industry insiders and his fans as well. His career is going from strength to strength, and there are some major announcements that will happen soon, including a peppy single titled, ‘Yahin hoon main.’ There’s a lot in store from Ayushmann for his fans across the world!
Anuradha Acharya is the founder and CEO of Mapmygenome, a molecular diagnostics company that offers personalized health solutions based on genetic tests. She is currently serving as a governing board member at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and is a governing board member at both the National Institute for Biomedical Genomics and the Association of Biotech Led Enterprises. Anuradha has received numerous accolades such as the “Young Global Leader” award by the World Economic Forum, Biospectrum’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” and Red Herring Magazine’s “25 Tech Titans under 35″, to name a few
Ravi Chaturvedi became the first ever Asian President and Member, Global Leadership Council of the Procter and Gamble (P&G) company. He was also the Group Chief Executive, Jet Airways for a short tenure.
He is a consultant and advisor to the Nitto Denko Corporation, Osaka, Japan. For the CEO Council of Lighthouse Funds, a PE company based in Mumbai, Ravi advises several CEOs on the company’s portfolio ranging from cookies, plastics, pesticides to diagnostic labs, retail, and snack foods companies. He is also an advisor to Marico and to Emami, Indian consumer goods companies that are expanding internationally.
He is a Senior Fellow in the Management Department of the Wharton School of Business, and a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.
Named the ‘youngest headmaster in the world’ by BBC in October 2009, at the age of 16. Babar Ali is an Indian student and teacher from Murshidabad, West Bengal. He started a school, Ananada Siksha Niketan – Home of joyful learning, in his backyard when he was just 9-years-old, now with 300 regular students. It is an outdoor school and counts a total of 10 teaching and non-teaching staff who are providing their voluntary service. There are no tuition fees, thus making it affordable for the poor in this economically deprived area and thereby helping increase literacy rate there.
In 2009, Babar Ali won a prize from the program Real Heroes of the Indian English news channel CNN IBN for his work and was awarded the NDTV ‘Indian of the Year’ award. His story became a part of the syllabus for the CBSE 10th standard English textbook, PUC English textbook for Govt. of Karnataka, and also in a curriculum in Luxembourg, Europe. He was featured on Aamir Khan’s TV show Satyamev Jayate in July 2012
Jonathan Reiber is Senior Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, where he focuses his research on policy planning, cybersecurity, and resilience. From 2009-2015 Jonathan held a number of senior positions in the Obama Administration, including Chief Strategy Officer for Cyber Policy in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. In this capacity, Jonathan led strategic initiatives across the cyber policy portfolio and advised government leaders. He is the principal author of the 2015 Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, and has written articles appearing in the New York Times (under senior officials’ names), the Christian Science Monitor and other publications.
Alarmed by the rising rates of suicides and stress levels in India and the concurrent social stigma attached to seeing a psychologist, Richa Singh co-founded Your D.O.S.T — an emotional support network for people to anonymously discuss their problems with qualified and experienced individuals. Since its launch in December 2014, over 50,000 people have sought support on the portal and the numbers continue to grow
Shawn Hoon, a Research Fellow at Molecular Engineering Laboratory, is currently working on developing means to amplify nucleic acids with bacterial cells, small RNA characterization in model organisms and applying genomics to biomimetic research. Shawn did his undergraduate work in computer engineering at the University of Virginia and obtained a PhD in genetics at Stanford University working on chemical genomics using yeast as a model organism. He is interested in projects that have both a computational and experimental bent
Dr. Ramanuj DasGupta received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from St. Stephen’s College and an affiliated Master’s degree in Genetics from Cambridge University. He also went on to earn a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology at the University of Chicago and to pursue postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School. In 2005, Ramanuj started his own laboratory at NYU School of Medicine/NYU Cancer Institute and recently transitioned it to the Genome Institute of Singapore. Currently, his lab is focused on investigating the molecular regulation and function of cancer-signaling pathways in tumor progression, metastasis and treatment resistance using the power of the murine/human disease-relevant cell culture and animal PDX models.
Dr. Mukund Rajan serves as a Member of the Group Executive Council at Tata Sons Ltd., and is the Tata Brand Custodian and Group Spokesperson. Additionally, he serves as Chief Ethics Officer of the group and oversees Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities as Chairman of the Tata Global Sustainability Council. Dr. Rajanjoined Tata through the Tata Administrative Service (TAS) in January 1995 and has served in various roles since.
He is Chairperson of the FICCI Environment Committee and serves as the Co-Chair of the CII National Committee on CSR. He is a Commissioner of the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC). He is also a member of the National Advisory Boards of two youth networks, AIESEC India and ENACTUS.
Dr. Rajan graduated from the Bachelor of Technology program at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1989. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University, where he completed a Masters and Doctorate in International Relations.
In 2007, the World Economic Forum honoured Dr. Rajan as a Young Global Leader. He was also part of the inaugural class of the CII-Aspen Institute India Leadership Initiative.
Sharad Devarajan is a creator, producer and media entrepreneur. His latest company, Graphic India, is the culmination of his lifelong dream to launch superheroes and stories that tap into the unique creativity and culture of India but appeal to audiences worldwide. In the same way the West has created superheroes or Japan launched anime, Graphic India is transforming the perception of India in character entertainment from being an ‘outsourcer” to being ‘the source.’ In addition to Graphic India, he is also the Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Liquid Comics, a digital entertainment company that uses the medium of graphic novel storytelling to develop original content for various digital platforms, publishing, theatrical live-action films, animation and games
Min is the co-founder and Princess of Possibility at PlayMoolah, an innovation company that empowers the next generation to develop a positive relationship to money, using money mindfully for the well-being of people and the planet. The team is known for their innovative methods and award-winning products that combine educational, digital and community experiences with the power of play. Min brings an eclectic blend of experiences to lead product innovation, strategy, and community engagement. She has spoken to audiences around the world on various topics ranging from best practices in social enterprise, to connecting money with values for inner transformation.
Listed by Forbes as one of Asia’s most influential under 30 year olds, Samyak leads X Billion Labs – an eco system of impact enterprises. Through his unique ability to align different stake holders such as governments, private sector & grassroot organizations – he is building future relevant businesses in areas such as employability, agriculture, population control, healthcare and rural development. He is currently developing a skilling model to enable India’s youth to remain professionally relevant in a digital economy (Skill Lab), an information access platform for rural Indian youth (Netpar – Tech Lab) and a behavior change model to positively influence people’s choices (Action Lab). In the past, he has founded some of the country’s pioneering youth platforms such as Operation Black Dot, The Indian International Model U.N, The Green Batti Project, Youthportal.in, UN Young Changemakers Conclave & Nimaya Foundation which have collectively engaged a million + young citizens.
Through all his work, Samyak’s core aim is to enhance the quality of life & raise the standard of living for India’s next billion
Neville is a Dutch architect who has been active in China since 2003 as the head of the Dynamic City Foundation, an international research platform investigating hyper-speed urbanization. At his design studio, Mars Architects, Neville works on sustainable projects on all scales – from buildings and furniture to urban master plans. Working on the premise that urban growth is essentially organic, Neville has applied his radical new Evolutionary Planning methodology in response to China’s accelerated and pressured market conditions. His most fascinating projects include the new Sino-Dutch Ecocity in Shenzhen and an ongoing sustainability strategy for Mumbai with the BMW-Guggenheim Lab. Neville is a 2013 INK Fellow
T.V. Mohandas Pai is the Chairperson of the Board of Manipal Global Education Services Private Limited and Advisor to the Manipal Education and Medical Group. Mohan is also on the Board of Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte Ltd (“APFT”), as Trustee-Manager of Ascendas India Trust (“a-iTrust). Recently, he has co-founded AARIN Capital with the intention of funding operational support in Technology, Ecommerce, Health Care and Life Science. He is based out of Bangalore, India.
Mohan actively interfaces with key leadership at Indian regulators to improve the business ecosystem. His areas of focus are Education, Information Technology (“IT”) and Human Resource Development aimed at improving the quality of education and availability of skilled manpower in the Country.
He was a Member of the Board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) and, was for many years before a Member of SEBI’s sub-committee on Accounting Standards. He is currently the Chairman of SEBI Primary Markets Advisory Committee (PMAC). Mohan was a Trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) Foundation, the body that oversees the International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”), for nearly six years now. Mohan was a Member of the Dr. Anil Kakodkar Committee on Autonomy for the IITs and the Karnataka Knowledge Commission. He is currently a Member on the Boards of IIT – Bhubaneswar and IPE, Hyderabad.
Mohan was a Member of the Kelkar Committee, constituted by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, to reform direct tax regulations. He was also a Member of the Non-Resident Taxation Committee, the High Powered Committee on e-Commerce and Taxation, and the Empowered Committee for setting up the Country’s Tax Information Network.
Until mid-2011, Mohan was a Member of the Board at Infosys Limited, Bangalore (formerly Infosys Technologies Limited) where he headed Human Resources; the Infosys Leadership Institute; Education & Research; Administration; and Infrastructure & Facilities. Mohan was Chairperson of the Board of Infosys BPO Limited, a leading global business process outsourcing services provider, for seven years. Additionally, the Finacle and Platform Group business units reported into him.
Mohan joined Infosys in 1994 and was elevated to a Member of the Board in 2000. He was Infosys’s CFO from 1994 to 2006. In 2006, he voluntarily relinquished the role to lead Human Resources and Education & Research. In June 2011, Mohan stepped out of Infosys to pursue his other long-standing passion – higher education for human development.
As CFO at Infosys, Mohan played a strategic role in transforming the Company into one of the world’s most respected and well known software services companies based out of India. He formulated the country’s first publicly articulated corporate financial policy, played a pivotal role in branding the company amongst the investor community and set new standards in transparency and disclosure across the Indian corporate sector.
Mohan was a key player in the development of the IT services industry in India. Mohan instituted several industry-firsts in the Country. He was instrumental in instituting India’s first employee stock option plan that enabled employees across Infosys to be part of and consequently to share in the wealth creation by the company. In India, this was the first ever employee stock option plan, which subsequently has been widely emulated. At Infosys, Mohan led the first listing of an India-registered company on the NASDAQ and the first sponsored secondary offering of American Depositary Shares by an Indian company. Mohan was an early adopter of US Sarbanes Oxley regulations, considered the world’s most demanding requirements on corporate governance.
As CFO, Mohan won multiple awards in Finance & Accounting. He was voted ‘CFO of the Year’ in 2001 by IMA India (formerly EIU – India) and American Express, the very first year that the award was instituted. He also won the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia in 2002, and ‘Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by Asia Money in 2004 and many others. He was honored with the Kannada Rajyotsava Award for his exemplary public service. Under his supervision Infosys’s annual report won the Best Presented Annual Accounts Award from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for 10 consecutive years as well as the award from the South Asia Federation of Accountants.
Mohan has a keen interest in human development through education such as illiteracy eradication through the promotion of primary education. In 2000, he along with certain other philanthropists set up the AkshayaPatra Foundation, Bangalore – a mid-day meal program for school going children.
Mohan holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bangalore, and a bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) from Bangalore University. He is also a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
