Source: conferences.ted.com
KAUAI, HAWAII, July 18, 2009: Hinduism Today is seeking someone knowledgeable about the coming “Ted Talks” program in India (see program below). We would like to get in direct contact with the organizers.
For those who don’t know, TED stands for “Technology, Education and Design.” and its 18 minute presentations by various speakers have been very popular on YouTube. For more on TED, see http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/5.
TEDIndia: The Future Beckons
Even the site of our conference is a powerful metaphor for the reshaped world of the 21st century. It’s being held at the incredible high-tech campus built by Infosys to train its thousands of engineering graduates, representing the heart of the Asian outsourcing industry. We can think of no more appropriate place to gather to think about tomorrow.
Details of the speaker program will be revealed approximately 2 months prior to the conference (as is always the case with TED events), but it’s already shaping up to be an extraordinary line-up. Speakers will include India’s most promising innovators, from entrepreneurs to artists, storytellers to scientists. And about one third of the program will come from outside India. We’ll hear from celebrated global icons as well as undiscovered talent that’s due broader recognition.
Some of the questions we’re planning to tackle:
* Which local innovations are destined for global impact?
* Who are the young thinkers and doers capable of shaping the future?
* Can there be economic advancement without environmental destruction?
* Can a pluralistic democracy survive in the face of rising fundamentalism?
* Can we make money and be good? Really?
* What should we learn – or fear? — from China’s investment in Africa?
* Do we have enough water for everyone?
* How do we keep our youth challenged and our aged healthy?
* How can anti-poverty solutions be brought to scale?
* Is there wisdom to be found in traditional medicine??
* Which other ancient traditions can illuminate modern life?
You can expect to meet: Bollywood’s most exciting director; a visionary scholar contextualizing the rise of the East; the entrepreneur whose emergency response team became heroes during the Mumbai terrorist attacks; the educator in the slums whose students outperform private-school kids; a best-selling novelist redefining the borders between East and West; an entrepreneur reviving Ayurvedic medicine to transform health care; a photographer documenting India as you’ve never seen it; a controversial scientist conducting research forbidden in the West; a fashion designer taking the rural designs onto international runways; musicians who are blending traditional notes with inventions of their own; performing artists who express themselves through dance, puppetry, martial arts…