No, this is not about Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother, although we did borrow the line from there. This is about the famous Ted Talks, and the TEDx events organised across the world. Now, Goa has its very own independent TEDx event – TEDx Panaji
Photo Credits: PG1. LEAD
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and TED Talks was designed to spread ideas using great monologues by stalwarts in their own fields. The movement grew and TED Talks became a roaring hit. TEDx was a way to get communities to come together and discuss ideas that would help and enrich them. It was sort of a grassroots level movement, modelled on TED Talks, but with a more local outlook. This is where the speakers of TEDxPanaji come in. They are all handpicked because they can offer insight, solutions and more regarding Goa’s problems and also the state’s potential to grow in different ways and areas. Dattaprasad Shetkar, the lead organizer of this first standard license, independently organised TED Event in Goa, hopes that Goa will gain a lot from these talks and more than will happen in the future. On Saturday, January 28, TEDxPanaji will aim to broaden your mind. Whether you’re a student trying to figure out your path in life, or someone who feels that they need to do more for Goa, TEDxPanaji is where you need to be.
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TEDxPanaji
Saturday January 28
2.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Chemistry Dept Auditorium, Faculty Block E, Goa University
*There are limited seats so book your donation passes at www.tedxpanaji.com/attend.php
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The speakers:
Richard Dias
An engineer turned event-manager took up work as a citizen volunteer for the Corporation of City of Panaji, and was stunned by the gross mismanagement of the city’s waste. His efforts to address the problem led to the creation of many projects, including the Waste Wise Programme, which envisions waste-segregation at source, and played an instrumental role in building India’s first SWM 2016 compliant integrated solid waste treatment facility.
Hyacinth Pinto
Goan architecture has always sought to find the right balance between beauty and sustainability. Pinto is a young Goan architect who stands firmly in support of traditional mud houses and sustainable architecture explains why and how the new design style is the right choice to make. Her work focuses on renewable construction materials and energy sources as the basis of design. Believing that a sound site plan should have inbuilt water harvesting strategies and waste water recycling for landscaping, Hyacinth strives to create buildings and communities that are built from eco-friendly materials and driven by use of renewable resources.
Jason Fernandes
A gifted youth who triumphed dyslexia and ADHD to become an award-winning entrepreneur, inventor and technology columnist reveals the science behind smartphone addiction and offers technological solutions. Fernandes is the founder of award-winning startup Record TV. The entrepreneur has founded many other startups and projects including his latest venture Smartklock inc. Jason won the Startup@Singapore award, the first national technopreneurship competition at Singapore. He also has to his credit the "Best Business Plan" award from Sybase Singapore in the Global Entrepreneurs Challenge at Stanford University, California. Jason’s work looks at the interaction between human mind and technology.
Victor Hugo Gomes
Conceptualiser and curator of Indo-Portuguese and Goan antiquities, Gomes has actively been involved in conceptualizing major art and cultural events in India for over 25 years. He is popularly known as the conceptualizer and curator of the Goa Chitra Museum, showcasing Goa’s rich Agrarian past. Having studied different restoration and conservation techniques from across the country, his contributions have been recognized as well as felicitated across the globe. In 2014, he had been appointed by the British Council, British Deputy High Commission to research on Mapping Museum’s in Western India; and also conceptualised and implemented the ‘Goa Cruti’ Museum (Museum on Goa’s Colonial past) as well as the Museum of Christian Art.
Mohammad Babalal Shaikh
Hailing from a small coastal village of Vengurla, Shaikh believed that his poverty was his strength. After staying in children's home till class 10, he decided to join a non-conventional education and sustainable livelihood center in a village. Today he is the managing trustee of University of Life. He will soon become the President. He is also leading Swayam a for-profit Joint-liability-Group of young intern students at University of life.
Isabel de Santa Rita Vás
A founder member of an amateur theatre company established in 1987 in Goa, Vas is a dynamic personality when it comes to the field of performing arts and is a firm believer in the healing quality of theatre as an art form, and its rare collaborative nature. Full bio: With 65 theatre productions to the credit of The Mustard Seed Art Company, Isabel de Santa Rita Vás has written and directed numerous plays. A guest faculty at the Goa University, Department of English, she retired as the Head of the English Department, from the Dhempe College of Arts and Science, after 39 years of service. An active theatre practitioner, she is also a member of Positive People, Goa (an NGO that works for HIV/AIDS awareness and support) and the author of ‘Frescoes in the Womb: Six Plays from Goa’.
Dr. Amit Dias
Recently awarded a fellowship in Public Health Leadership at the Emory University, USA, Dias is the chairperson of Sangath, an NGO dedicated to the cause of bridging the treatment gap for mental health across age spectrums. An epidemiologist specialized in geriatric medicine and infectious disease, he has been leading Alzheimer’s Awareness movement in Goa for the last 17 years. Under his leadership, Sangath has won the ‘World Health Organisation’s Public Health Champion award in 2016. A founder member of multiple groups, he has also started the ‘MIND IT’ initiative in schools to promote brain health and prevent dementia.
Dr. Abhijit Nadkarni:
An addictions psychiatrist, Nadkarni has authored numerous publications and tremendously contributed in the field of research, with major interests encompassing global mental health; particularly alcohol use disorders. A research fellow, a consultant psychiatrist, having acquired research grants as an investigator, recently, he has also been a tutor on the leadership in mental health course facilitated by a prestigious global organization.
Rajendra Kerkar and Samruddhi Kerkar
Rajendra Kerkar routinely organizes mobile exhibitions, uses media to help promote local folklore and is recognized as a key child’s rights activists. A passionate environmentalist, he has delivered over 3,000 talks on the ecology of the larger Goan landscape, working in close tandem with various conservationists for a greener Goa. Samruddhi is his daughter and a homeschooled child. She learned to write in Marathi, Hindi, Konkani and English languages by the age of 10. She is a published writer and poet, and is also a contributing writer for many publications. She is also a talented artist.
