By the 3rd day of TEDIndia I was convinced in my mind and my heart that I hadn’t experienced so many thoughts, ideas and emotions in such a short span of time ever before as the first and second day were fantastic. When I was invited to TEDIndia I had thought that I would just cover the Technology side of stuff that came up during the event but I soon realized that TEDIndia was not about a vertical, not about businesses or cultures or India alone but it was about life and its experiences. It was about the passion, perseverance and spirit of human kind and what it could achieve going forward.

The last day at TED was one which started of with C.K.Prahalad sharing his thoughts on business and innovation. He stated that success is the first enemy of innovation as companies feel that they must be right and dont delve deeper to innovate or create something new. He also stated that size by no measure is a signal of a great company. He felt smaller companies could create the same product or even better as information was not restricted to only bigger companies and search, social networking and Saas based platforms had increased the knowledge reach and the people reach as well as the management capability of smaller companies.

The other talk that made an impact on the last day is that of External Affairs Minister Shashi Tharoor who spoke about the fact that the country with the most soft power will be the next super power. By soft power he meant a attractive value to the rest of the world that makes the rest of the world attracted to it. He explained this with an example by saying that Mcdonalds had done more for the American soft power than any other government initiative.

He stated that India’s bollywood and ability to attract the world with its various cultures and compassionate behaviour would be what would make it a world leader. He stated that nuclear power and population aside its the other factors that mattered in one being a Super power.

This was followed by an amazing percussion performance by Sivamani (He played music on a suitcase, glass and what not!)

The 3rd day ended with His Holiness The Karmapa giving the message of peace. He stated “That in the race of development we should not overlook how we are developing. He pointed out that the means were as important if not more to the end result.”

My thoughts on TEDIndia

TEDIndia was beautiful and not because it was well organized or was a huge event with over a 1000 delegates. It was because over a span of 4 days I interacted with people over 20 countries and told them about India while they told me about their country, business, culture and life. I took back a part of each one of them while they took back a piece of India. In more ways than one it was the connection that I made with so many different people of different worlds that made me realize the impact of such an event. Hopefully the ideas shared in the Infosys campus do spread far and wide. Id like to end our coverage of TEDIndia by stating that not all talks were terrific but there were some moments that did move you and make you proud and as Lakshmi Pratury Host of TEDIndia said – “Id want to be a billionaire of such moments!”

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