What a great week this has been for everyone at team TEDx Pilani! The conference was immensely well appreciated by everyone here at BITS, Pilani. Now we are working on releasing brilliant videos of the event and the speakers’ talks. Here is a quick recap of TEDx Pilani.
In the morning session, Dr. K.N. Ganeshaiah started with a talk relating Lord Hanuman to the first botanist and discussed the real existence of the Sanjeevani herb. Harish Sivaramakrishnan, with infectious enthusiasm and entertaining style explained the importance of user-experience in software design. Kartick Satyanarayanan spoke about how wildlife SOS in India had worked in an ingenious way to convert poachers into protectors. Vishal Talreja, the co-founder of Dream-a-Dream provided startling facts and figures about the unprivileged children in India and how his foundation had worked to rehabilitate these children.
The event resumed in the afternoon with the talk of Cleo Paskal, the author of ‘Global Warring’. She shared mind-boggling insights into the geopolitical and energy related repercussions of environmental change. Nitin Gokhale gave some serious thought to the threats posed to national security today. Rahul Roushan, the genius behind Faking News and the most awaited talk on campus spoke about a novel concept of revamping the TRP system. His anecdotes and spontaneity had the whole audience rolling with laughter. Nakul Shenoy, the mind-reader and former magician fulfilled the anticipation with a couple of tricks which left everyone utterly amazed and brought to an end an amazing TEDx conference.
The event also screened three TED talks. Each of them was well appreciated and Harsha Bhogle’s TED Talk drew the maximum applause.
At the end the curator, Aniket Tekawade, thanked all present and everyone else who had played his or her part in making TEDx Pilani this big! It was a great experience indeed for all present.
The event set new benchmarks for the TEDx conferences. It was a one of its kind event which not only complied with all the rules required for organizing a TEDx conference but also introduced new innovations like the fellowship program and videos introducing the speakers (presented by CDS Solutions)
TEDxPilani was the first TEDx event in India to offer live webcast all over the world which mustered peak viewership of over 300. The stage setup depicted a traditional Rajasthani household with an open fire-place, char pai and hukka set. Another highlight before the event was when the topic #TEDxPilani became a trending topic on twitter India alongside #IPL, #China, etc. (according to ookull.com).
Its been a whacky, blurring week for the TEDxPilani team, what with #TEDxPilani trending on twitter India, and crazy ideas being implemented for the stage-setup.
The technical festival APOGEE 2010 has begun with a spectacular fireworks display and the campus is alive with students eager to flex their brain muscles over a plethora of events being presented during the 5-day phenomenon. The biggest buzz on campus by far has been about TEDxPilani. If you happen to stand at the Controlz Booth for a while, it becomes easy to notice the number of participants asking about how to go about attending the event.
We are recently interviewed by the English Press Club and the team enjoyed toying with rumours about a Rickshaw being placed in the stage-setup. Whether or not this is true, can be seen only 24 hours from now.
The live webcast of the event is drawing much attention from the twitter community and the team hopes to reach out to a large audience outside Pilani through this channel. Nikhil R and Trisha have been having tiring nights figuring out the different technical aspects in running a webcast. Dr. Rahul Banerjee’s support has been the guiding light to the team for this initiative.
Just 24 hours to go the much awaited event, that is speculated to be one of the most widely reached initiative of the BITSian community, and the team is geared up for crazy time till next evening.
Signing off from the CEL Room with Shruti and Surabhi snoring next to me, and leaving after a night out for a quick breakfast…
Some members of the TEDx Pilani team attended TEDx Gurgaon over this weekend. It was a great experience for them.
What they liked about TEDx Gurgaon was the great organization of the whole event. It was a great networking opportunity and in many ways recreated the TED ambience. The diversity of the topics was also well appreciated by the crowd.
We are glad to present the official TEDxPilani trailer video. Thanks to Lohit Sahu at CDS Solutions and our bright team of Video Ingenieurs (Wilekh, Manu and Gargi) , the trailer has been orchestrated so well.
The TEDx Pilani team has been working hard lately to organize not just an event and not just any other idea diffusion conference but to create a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We feel that beyond the amazing talks by the 9 speakers and the presence of TED fellows it is our focus on creating an experience which will make TEDx Pilani great.
Our newest step in that direction is roping in CDS Solutions to provide a great graphics backup to all the talks. The idea is to give life to the words of the speaker by means of powerful animations, videos, imagery and what not! The team at CDS will be responsible for the interface for the whole event.
This indeed is a great leap in creating the “experience” called TEDx Pilani.
