TEDxYOUTH@DAIS

Leading up to TEDxYouth@DAIS 2018, our social media team published stories of inventions, creations, and experiments that changed the world: American actress Hedy Lamarr’s invention of spread-spectrum technology, Ruth Graves Wakefield’s creation of the chocolate chip cookie, and William Henry Perkin’s experiments to synthesize artificial dye! We spoke about how each of these revolutionary inventions sprang from ideas — ones that were resilient, borne from inquiry and perseverance. For our event, held on the 27th of October 2018, we began our search for similar ideas being brought to life by people in our community: Ideas that were disrupting industries, changing people’s perceptions, and improving society.

A few months later, the big day arrived. The Center for Performing Arts housed a frantic, excited energy, with volunteers and team members scuttling through the aisles, pinning up decorations, blowing up balloons, conducting sound checks, and interacting with our esteemed speakers. One side of the CPA boasted large lettering reading ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ — the TED motto, with illuminated lightbulbs peppered around it. The opposite wall represented the itinerary of the event: black silhouettes of silverware, clothing, stacks of books, a cup of steaming chai, and a human brain.

As soon as our audience members took their seats, an introductory video explaining the mission of TEDx was displayed for the audience. The video showed graphics of TEDx events taking place in slums, prisons and theatres, empowering people all over the world. We felt immensely grateful to be a part of the TEDx community, facilitating the sharing of ideas! The spotlight illuminated our hosts, Naman Parikh and Anvay Shah, as they introduced the event and the mission: “We are gathered to celebrate the bright minds of today. All the inventors, thinkers, and revolutionaries of our time. Through this TEDx event, we hope to make thought-provoking ideas accessible to all of you.” Indeed, as the event commenced, we were showered with a vast array of captivating ideas!

Our first speaker was Shabnam Minwalla, a former journalist for the Times of India and, more recently, an acclaimed children’s author. The name of Shabnam’s talk was ‘And the Moral of the Story is…”. Shabnam gripped the audience with a series of anecdotes about navigating India’s developing literary landscape, sharing one particular insight about Indian parents’ obsession with morals in every story. Shabnam asserted that books should not be reduced to simplistic morals but should be used as a means to understand the psychology of other human beings. Children should absorb subtle lessons from books all through their literary journey, picking up what Shabnam described as “5-rupee coins”.

Our next speaker was Anurag Vaish, a Behavioural Architect at and Co-Founder of Final Mile Consulting, a behavioural science consulting firm. Masterfully using an ordinary conversation with his young daughter, Anurag highlighted the significance of “Learning in a Post-Google World.” The audience was stunned by the design illustrations Anurag showcased when driving his point on the power of subtle influencers to drive ‘thoughtfulness’ and ‘active learning.’ In a world with exponentially increasing technological advancements, Anurag’s talk served as an eye-opener for the entire audience – especially students – on the unique opportunity EduTech learnings platforms provide to evolve from mere ‘rote learning’ to ‘meaningful engagement with content.’

At this point, we screened a talk by James Veitch called “This is what happens when you reply to spam email”. The talk showed real-life conversations between the speaker and spammers, leaving the audience in splits!

We then broke for a short intermission, inviting all our attendees and speakers to snacks and a cake cutting outside the CPA. Chatter erupted as our speakers interacted with audience members, discussing the talks that had been delivered thus far over samosas, lemonade, and chocolate cake!

The event resumed shortly thereafter with our DAIS alumni speaker, Gayatri Bhatia, taking the stage. Speaking from her experience founding her sauce and dip company, Saucery, Gayatri’s informative and relatable talk was called “The Postmortem: How to deal with your bad decisions”. She prefaced her talk with some mind-blowing statistics: we make 35,000 decisions per day and 12.5 million decisions per year. In a world of perpetual decision-making, how does one deal with the decisions that do not work in their favour? Gayatri presented her talk with a combination of personal experiences from founding her own company, and also explained how one can use ‘Ikigai’ to make the best decisions for themselves. Students in the audience, especially those attracted to entrepreneurship, were fascinated by Gayatri’s talk.

The next speaker to take the stage was Jaspreet Chandok, the Vice-President and Head of Fashion at IMG Reliance. Jaspreet, who is a driving force behind Lakmé Fashion Week, spoke about his ambitions to steer the fashion industry in a more sustainable direction. He began his talk speaking about tradition vs. ‘fast fashion’, asserting that traditionally, the fashion industry has had two cycles of fashion per year. However, with growing consumer demands and globalization, ‘fast fashion’ commands fifty cycles per year. Jaspreet’s subject matter was highly relevant to the audience, compelling them to think about how their clothes are manufactured and the copious recourses that go into creating garments. He presented staggering statistics to the audience, one being that one cotton shirt requires 2,700 liters of water to be manufactured. The same amount of water can sustain one person for 2.5 years. Through the effective use of facts and graphics, Jaspreet’s talk had a lasting impact on how our audience members perceive fashion.

We then screened another TED Talk by Laura Vanderkam, called “How to gain control of your free time”. Witty and logical, Vanderkam set out a path for people with busy, high-stress lives to put time aside for themselves.

Undoubtedly the most anticipated speaker of the evening, our student speaker Arjun Shukla was invited onto the TEDx stage by our hosts to speak about “India’s Indenti-Tea”. Arjun’s personal connection to the drink, expressed in his daily excursions to get a fix from the local chai-walla, captivated the audience. He then went on to explain how British advertising policies transformed chai from a drink disdained by Indians to one that has come to symbolize the Indian economy, society and culture. Arjun’s topic was especially intriguing for an audience of Indians who cannot seem to get enough chai!

The event ended with our hosts extending a vote of thanks to all our speakers who made the evening intellectually stimulating, humorous, and eye-opening for our audience. The organizing team let out a sigh of relief as the event concluded on a successful note!

TEDxYouth@DAIS Core Team 2018 headed by Rya Jetha and Sara Mehta