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Walk the TED talk

Updated on: 15 March,2010 05:13 PM IST  | 
Lalitha Suhasini |

Now, head to a nightclub for ideas and inspiration. Tedx, a franchise of TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) Talks, comes to Mumbai next month

Walk the TED talk

Now, head to a nightclub for ideas and inspiration. Tedx, a franchise of TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) Talks, comes to Mumbai next month


Ever imagined browsing the net on a random sheet of white paper or a paper laptop or watching a live video that's linked to a still photograph in your daily newspaper? Ever felt moved enough to sign up for that cause instead of keeping it aside for next year's resolution? At TED (Technology Entertainment & Design) Talks, which has been inspiring minds across the world for 26 years, you'll be bombarded with mind-altering ideas, inventions and solutions -- that you never knew existed or brushed aside -- to everyday concerns.





This year, Mumbai gets a slice of TED at TEDx, an independently organised TED event with speakers like actor Anupam Kher contributing to the event. Sunday MiD DAY speaks to those who caught TED India last year to tell you why you ought to be there.

Gaurav Vaz
TED Fellow and bassist, Raghu Dixit Project

"I began watching the TED Talks videos a couple of years ago. A couple of videos stood out, especially Ken Robinson's 'Do schools kill creativity'. At TED India, Sunitha Krishnan's (co-founder Prajwala, anti commercial sexual exploitation) talk with graphic images emotionally disturbed a lot of people. Many broke down. It's what happens after the talk that's really inspirational. I've been a part of e-mail chains after the conference and she's been able to raise $ 1 million in charity after her talk. Devdutt Pattanaik's talk on mythology was also something I never expected. It was great. Till that day, I'd never heard of him. And this is the kind of experience that TED gives you -- you meet people from all walks of life. It's this network that I could potentially use some day since I know people from so many domains now.

Mukul Deora
TED performer and electronica artiste

This was my magical TED moment. Sunitha Krishnan runs an organisation that rescues and rehabilitates women and children sold to the sex trade. She showed photos of three girls around five years old, smiling, with huge sparkling eyes. They had been raped before she could rescue them, and ultimately succumbed to AIDS. She also mentioned she was being evicted by her landlord. Although I am aware these things happen, those photos ripped me up. Though I knew the show must go on, something inside me kept saying: 'I cannot start my performance without acknowledging what I'm sure we all feel'. So there I was, on stage, absorbing the recent intensity. I then noticed my laptop had frozen! Whether this was divineu00a0 intervention (as many later remarked) or whether I concocted the glitch to buy time (another theory), what happened next was pure magic.u00a0 "It's an emotional laptop", I told the audience, which luckily drew laughter. In the interim, someone stood up and said she would donate $10,000 to Sunitha's organisation if 10 others would do the same. Within a minute more than 10 people stood up. Over $100,000 in minutes -- she wouldn't be evicted now! That evening, many people told me that my request for silence and the little joke helped them move on. The break caused by the technical malfunction (if it was that) offered a transition between the two existing realities, and allowed $100,000 to be raised!

Kartick Satyanarayan
TED speaker and wildlife conservationist

TED is a fantastic platform for networking, getting to meet and know people you wouldn't normally meet. You take away contacts, partnerships, connections, ideas, an incredibly positiveu00a0 and unexpected experiences. I got an opportunity to meet actor Abhay Deol there and we were able to make that connection work for Wildlife SOS (a non-profit organisation that Kartick co-founded to conserve India's forests and wildlife).

Sivamani
TED performer, percussionist

It was awesome to hear our minister for external affairs (Shashi Tharoor). I became a big fan of that man after TED. I also heard Bharatanatyam dancer Ananda Shankar share her story on how she was drawn to painting and dance PIC/ TED/James Duncan Davidson

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