The list of speakers for TEDIndia was announced recently on the TED Blog and what a smashing line-up it is.
There are folks from the developmental sector: There’s C.K Prahlad, who has sparked enthusiasm in all of us to peek down at the bottom of the pyramid. There’s IIM Professor Anil Gupta who founded the Honeybee Network, a database of Grassroots innovation (and that’s just the tip of what he’s accomplished). And there’s also Matthew Spacie, founder of Magic Bus, the Mumbai based NGO that uses sport as a way to connect with underprivileged children bringing discipline, teamwork and sportsmanship into their lives.
There’s also Jib Ellison, who is the founder of Blu Skye Sustainability Consulting, Wal-Mart’s sustainability partner.
How about a dosage of cool?
There’s Pranav Mistry, an MIT grad student who founded Sixthsense (check out Sixthsense from a previous TEDtalk). I hope this talk has some updates from the earlier version.
Erin McKean, who started Wordnik, an online dictionary project (Wikipedia of dictionary maybe?) will also be there speaking at TEDIndia.
Seems like we left out some guys; ah the Politicians. Well they are going to be speaking as well. Enter Shashi Tharoor and Mallika Sarabhai (well, come on!), thankfully we will have some people who will not make our government look bad on a podium such as TED.
The CEO of Zappos (Tony Hsieh), which has got a couple of billion more hits thanks to Twitter and I am sure would rank as one of Seth Godin’s favorite companies for its innovative marketing, will also be there to speak at TEDIndia.
Joining him would be Anand Mahindra, the MD of Mahindra and Mahindra. And for his fans, there’s Kamal Hassan. As well as Shekher Kapur.
One interesting trend in almost all TED conferences (and probably all conferences today) is the number of people from the sustainability and social sector and indeed TEDIndia too has a lot of them.
The only glitch I feel is Harsha Bhogle. But then that is my opinion and I would be more than happy to see him say something that will amaze me.
The event, which will be co-hosted by founder Chris Andersen and Lakshmi Pratury (who has been attending TED for quite sometime) will also feature 100 fine folks who will get free entry into this very expensive exclusive conference. The list of the Ted Fellows will be announced in a weeks time.
The whole point of TED is to not bore us with stuff we already know. To bring some of the smartest, most interesting people, doing some of the coolest things, or maybe just doing the same old things, just differently and present it to us. I am quite excited with this years line-up and can’t wait for TED to come to India.
And if you have the time here’s a video featuring Lakshmi Pratury about how the speakers were chosen. (Via Financial Chronicle’s Mydigitalfc.com)
Below is the entire list of speakers (and performers) at the first ever TEDIndia conference as announced by TED.
Anand Mahindra, Managing Director, Mahindra and Mahindra
Anil Gupta, from IIM Ahmedabad, the founder of the Honeybee Network
Anupam Mishra, Expert on water harvesting
A. Balasubramaniam, Artist
Shilajeet (Banny) Banerjee, Architect
C.K. Prahalad, Management and innovation Guru
Charles Anderson, Marine Biologist
Devdutt Pattanaik, Mythologist
Erin McKean, Editor of the new online dictionary Wordnik
Eve Ensler, playwright and activist
Hans Rosling, medical researcher and data wizard
Harsha Bogle, cricket commentator
Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda and Intelligent Nutrients
Jib Ellison, sustainability expert
Kamal Haasan, film actor and director
Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of Global Fund for Women
Mallika Sarabhai, social entrepreneur and performer
Matthew Spacie, founder, Magic Bus
Pawan Sinha, MIT vision researcher and head of Project Prakash
Pranav Mistry, MIT grad student and inventor of SixthSense
R.A. Mashelkar, business and innovation guru
Robert Thurman, Buddhist scholar
Romulus Whitaker, herpetologist
Ryan Lobo, photographer and documentary filmmaker
Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, yogi and founder of Isha Foundation
Sashwati Banerjee of “Sesame Street”
Sendhil Mullainathan, economist
Shamsul Wares, architect
Shashi Tharoor, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs
Shekhar Kapur, film director and producer
Shukla Bose, founder, Parikrama Humanity Foundation
Sunitha Krishnan, activist against Human Trafficking
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com
Performers:
Ananda Shankar Jayant, dancer
Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil GuruCharan, classical musicians
Dan Nainan, comedian
Mukul Deora, rapper and producer
Sidi Goma, African Sufi dance troupe
Usha Uthup, legendary singer
