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).

You can see the pictures from the event here.

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…

Aniket

on behalf of  the TEDxPilani Team

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.

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.

Click Here

He makes mythical references to Sanjivani in the Ramayana and relates it to an existing plant called S. bryopteris, which has properties of healing dead rat cells.

He visited BITS recently to conduct the Adobe Flex Bootcamp where he demonstarted his vision and the awesome tool that Adobe Flex is.

The team is delighted to announce that Harish (or vodka!) will be back at BITS to speak at TEDx Pilani.

Visit flexgeek’s blog here.

We are pleased to announce that our theme for TEDxPilani 2010 will be “…unveiling India!”. The theme is very much connected to the vision and emotion shared by the team, to unravel diverse aspects of India, not just as a culture, not just as an economy but as phenomenon, on the face of the globe.

Coming to think of it, most literature, written, visual or other, that relates to India as a nation, talks either about its grand history, its culture, and its traditions or about its growth as a developing nation, how it is about to take-over as super-power etc. But what we probably fail to discuss it what makes is special to the world of today.

It is definitely neither our heritage nor our huge population that seemingly threatens to eat up the rest of the world. It is this unspoken identity that we have made for ourselves in today’s context, which can be expressed in terms of how people see us. IT Multinationals see us as great programmers, Engineers the world over see us as great ‘Jugaadus’, Corporate giants see us as great managers, great data-analysts, tourists see us a country of rich cultural heritage, some travelers see us as a really poor country with too many people , and yet others see us as a country of too many smart people. And of recently, we are being seen as a wager for reducing global emissions.

To give specific examples, our paradigm of innovation, which has been characterized by its focus on affordability & simplicity more than luxury, has now been deliberated and termed as Reverse Innovation by multinationals the world over, led by the innovation giant G. E. Our quality of being smart, intelligent and opportunist has led to NASA having 36% of the senior scientific community as Indians. Our art forms both performing and others, having developed from a great cultural exchange has gained international acclaim. Our amazing working habits, as compared to rest of the world, have been instrumental in allowing for such accelerated growth since independence.

Now this is a mix of great many feelings, both positive and negative. But the underlying point is that we have an identity of our own on the globe which goes beyond talks of our cultural heritage or our competitive stand in the world economy. And only when we start appreciating this fact that we begin to realize our importance in the subtleness of world dynamics. And when we start believing in our true identity, we realize our strengths and weaknesses, which in turn helps us understand better what we can contribute to the world as a nation.

Indeed, contributing to the nation’s growth is just like growing up ourselves. We can contribute as individuals and walk our life-path only when we are able to understand ourselves better. So let us walk this journey to 13th March 2010 and on the way, understand our country better, to know the small things we are good at that would matter.

Aniket

On behalf of the TEDxPilani Team