TEDx at IIMC Kolkata was organized on 21st March 2010 by TEDxCalcutta team formed recently under license of TED.
This was the first TEDx event to be held in Kolkata.
IIMC Alumni Kolkata chapter was also one of the sponsors of the event and provided funds towards rent of the IIMC auditorium.
There were speakers from variety of fields with everyone speaking for a fixed slot of 18 minutes each.
In between, to connect with global aura of TED, following videos were also played (Must Watch) –
- Ken Robinson – Schools kill creativity
- Elizabeth Gilbert – On creativity
- Malcolm Gladwell – On spaghetti sauce
The insights shared by some of the speakers can be summarized as –
Forget and Forgive, if you want to move ahead (Gurbux Singh, Olympics Hockey Player)
Whether in sports or in corporate life, if you want to move ahead successfully, remember to forget and forgive. There are different types of people, some move thru aggressive arguments, some thru motivation and some others thru affection. The result matters and the best way to get the result is to remain focused on the end objective. Forget and forgive what happens in between. That’s the way to channelize your energy.
Entrepreneurs are required in Big Organizations also (Prof Anjan Raichaudhuri)
Large organizations are often against taking entrepreneurial people on board. It is not only against the existential spirit of the organizations but also against the basic foundation on which the large firms are built. Every large firm was small to begin with. Every small firm was built by a passionate entrepreneur. Every large organization needs to grow innovatively in new directions. Thus, every organization has space for entrepreneurs. The space mostly gets ignored due to orthodox thinking of the management.
Cinema can nurture innovation, Television can not (Ashok Viswanathan)
Television or the idiot box is full of repetitiveness where all serials, characters and stories look alike. Cinema is the place in entertainment which allows one to experiment more. Ashok has recently released a movie in which story moves in reverse direction! Ashok is well known for innovation in Indian Cinema.
Microfinance is not just funding. It is enabling others (Olly Donnelly)
We see so many microfinance organizations in India and other emerging economies. It appears to be just another lucrative money making business. Olly disagrees to consider microfinance as just another funding based business. Its much more than that as per her. Her microfinance organization Shivia aims at providing a complete solution to enable poor, needy and potentially entrepreneurial people to stand up on their own. Microfinance is much more than finance.
Health services must have equal standards for all (Dr. Arun Singh)
There can not be double standards in health services. Dr. Arun Singh has been instrumental in establishing state of the art hospitals with facilities for expectant mothers and new born babies in need of special care. When he came to know about electric bulbs being used to keep the babies warm, he experimented with himself sleeping under 4 high wattage lamps for one night, felt the pain due to extreme illumination throughout the night and took a stand there after to ensure single standard care for all kids, whether from poor family or rich. Hospitals in Purulia dist. in West Bengal are live examples of his determination.
Heritage is not just for tourism but also for contemporary living (Ananya Bhattacharya)
Ananya is part of the team that promotes Bauls and Fakirs of eastern India through formation of self help groups. She said that cultural heritage should not be seen only as an attractive tool of tourism. Tourism brings stagnation to art often and may kill the progress the art must go through to stay abreast with the global progress. Heritage thus must be allowed to grow through its real owners from the local areas and should be protected from tourism industry owners.
Rural People have great potential, even in IT (Radha R Basu)
When Radha Basu narrated her positive experiences of creating micro entrepreneurs in the interiors of SundarBan of West Bengal, it became apparent how creative, innovative and entrepreneurial rural people can be. Lack of prolonged formal education is not really an impediment.
Keep on playing around with your idea. You may find business in it! (Pallav Nadhani)
Pallav, the youngest speaker at TEDx, shared how he made a loss on his first commercial deal! He sold a small package to a USA based customer for $15 considering it was good enough money if converted into rupees. He received a cheque, deposited that in his bank and later got to know that instead of some credit, there was an over all debit in his account!! The bank told him that 25$ was the charge for an overseas cheque. That was the first deal however. Since then, by playing around with his strengths, he sells creative packages to his clients to convert their dull data into attractive visual treats. All this through playing around continuously with his ideas at an early stage.
That’s what I could assimilate from the entire day event with lots of thoughts, presentations, videos and discussions.
I hope IIMC would be retained as the permanent venue for TEDx events in future. I also wish to see active participation from the MBA students of IIMC Kolkata in coming days in organizing such events in the campus.
That’s all from me as of now.
Abhishek's Sharings 