Theme: Presents for the Present

We often talk about building a sustainable future, innovating for a better future and planning for the future. But in all this future planning, how often do we forget enjoying present? How often do we neglect the time in hand and merely 'plan' or 'ideate' for the future that is unseen and uncertain? Why do we only aim to make long term plans that most often are rendered infeasible and unexecuted? Why don't we act to achieve short term hollistic goals and have a better present that will automatically culminate to a better future?

Presents for the Present shall encompass all those ideas that we need in today's world to make our 'now' better and more fruitful. Be it small acts of spreading kindness or certain environmental considerations,it is our present deeds that will culminate into our future. Acts performed now will impact the future but it in important that we do not sacrifice our present for the sake of unseen future. At our event we wish to talk about all those ideas that not only will have future considerations but will make our present also rich and worthwhile. The theme aims to bridge the gap between legislating for the future and acting in the present making our 'today' a present(gift) for the present.

Fr.Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering
Mount Mary,Bandra Bandstand,Bandra (West)
Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400050
India

Kanaka Sabha

Dance Group

Surekha Radhakrishanan, Sarikha Ajay and Chandrika Shetty are sisters known as Shetty sisters trained in Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi dance styles under their Guru Dr (Smt) Siri Rama, Founder and Artistic Director of Kanaka Sabha performing Arts Centre. Surekha is currently a dance instructor at Mulund branch of Kanaka Sabha, Recipient of Kanaka Nritya Vidhushi Award and Kanaka Aradhana Award at the 35th Year Celebrations of Kanaka Sabha. Sarikha is a graded Doordarshan artiste and a dance instructor at Chembur branch of Kanaka Sabha for many years, Recipient of Kanaka Nritya Vidhushi Award and Kanaka Shikshika Award at the 35th Year Celebrations of Kanaka Sabha. Chandrika is a graded Doordarshan artiste and a dance instructor at Bangalore branch of Kanaka sabha. Recipient of Kanaka Nritya Vidhushi Award and Kanaka Shikshika Award at the 35th Year Celebrations of Kanaka Sabha.

Adhitya Iyer

Author

Adhitya Iyer completed his engineering degree from Mumbai University, where he studied in an institute interestingly named after Sardar Patel and was inaugurated by Nehru. He was listed as one of India's Top 30 student entrepreneurs by the NEN. He later spent 2 years in Bangalore selling chai, before he set out to write a non-fiction on the complex life of India's engineers is Kickstarter funded and is India's highest crowdfunded book. He thinks the society needs to be re-imagined and that humans can't be spending more than half their life doing something they seldom enjoy.

Bittu Sahgal

Founding Editor,Sanctuary Asia

Bittu Sahgal, an Environmental activist and writer, is the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, India's premier wildlife and ecology magazine. He is a member of the National Board for Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. He is also at the forefront of the battle to protect India from the worst impacts of climate change. He is also the editor of Cub (magazine) and The Ecologist Asia. He has also produced over 30 conservation-related documentaries that have been aired on the national broadcaster Doordarshan. He is involved in national campaigns to save the tiger, protect coastal areas, traditional fishing communities, and prevent toxic materials from affecting the environment. He is also involved with the National Fishworkers’ Forum, the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and the National Alliance of Peoples Movements.

Dr. Siri Rama

Bharata Natya and Kuchipudi Dancer

Dr. Siri Rama is a Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi dancer, teacher and choreographer based in Singapore/Mumbai. She is also the co - founder-director of the Kanaka Sabha Performing Arts Centre in Mumbai. Siri was awarded a PhD in the Fine Arts by the University of Hong Kong . She has trained under acclaimed Gurus Komalavalli, K. Vijayalakshmi, Ramaswami Bhagavathar, T V Sounderarajan, T. Kadirvelu in the Bharata Natyam style and under the late maestro C R Acharyulu, in the Kuchipudi style. Siri has performed to critical acclaim, presented group performances, and lectured, in many different cities of India and in many parts of the world including the USA, Singapore, Germany, UAE, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. Siri has been the recipient of the Singar Mani award at the Sur Singar Samsad, an award for teaching by the Archana Nrityalaya, Mumbai and the Nritya Shivali title by Shivali Cultural Society, Mumbai.

Geeta Tandon

Bollywood stunt woman

Once a domestic abuse victim, Mrs. Tandon has gone on to be one of the few stuntwomen in Bollywood. She has been a body double for everyone from Alia Bhatt and Deepika Padukone to Kareena Kapoor. A normal day for her comprises driving a car into a fire, jumping from heights or simply riding a bike into the wind while doing a wheelie, But what really is inspiring to an even greater level is she’s a real life hero.

Harish Iyer

Equal rights activist

Harish Iyer is an activist for a number of socio-cultural and environmental issues.[He is an equal rights activist, known for his campaigns for the rights of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community, children, women, animals as well as survivors of Child Sexual Abuse .Pink Pages named him one of India's seven most influential gay and lesbian people and one of the ten individuals to be awarded the Zindagi Live Awards for his work in creating awareness on child sexual abuse. On 29 June 2013, The Guardian, the British national daily named him in the list of the 100 most influential LGBT people in the world for 2013 and the only Indian on the list. His life inspired two films, director Onir's I Am and Ranadeep Bhattacharya and Judhajit Bagchi directed Amen. In I Am, Actor Sanjay Suri plays Abhimanyu, a child sexual abuse survivor, the character inspired by Harish's life and that of Hyderabad based fashion designer Ganesh Nallari.

Nilanjanaa Jayant

Singer

A 13 year old girl, she has been singing for the last five years. She is a part of a band 'sandstorm'. Nilanjanaa has lent her voice for a jingle for a children’s portal titled Beautiful City .She has also become a singing sensation in America wining the Golden Voices of America competition. Nilanjanaa Jayant will be performing at the legendary Royal Carnegie Hall in New York in October 2016. While this venue has seen greats like Zakir Hussain, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma perform, this little girl will be the youngest performer at the mecca of Western classical singers. This year she has started giving solo performances at Freedom Jam 2015 and World Music Day 2015; again, amidst very senior bands and artists.

Rahul Arya

Sand artist

Commonly referred to as the man with magic fingers, Rahul is an internationally proclaimed sand artist. He is known for using his sand artistry to communicate civic, cultural and corporate messages. He is a self taught internationally acclaimed sand artist, seen on many TV shows, films & online viral sand art like 100 yrs of Bollywood. He has performed with Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan and many others in over 700 shows worldwide.

Sameer Ganapathy

Head, Interactive, Disney India

Sameer Ganapathy leads the Interactive business of Disney India which includes development and delivery of multiplatform games and digital products including apps for multi-brands under The Walt Disney Company - Indiagames, UTV, Disney, Marvel, and Disney.Pixar. Prior to this, he was managing the movie channels of the UTV Network including UTV Movies, UTV Action and UTV World Movies and also heading the distribution function for the Network. He overlooked the International distribution of the UTV bouquet of channels as a part of his profile too. His business acumen helped grow the channels not just in India but across United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, United States and more. Sameer has to his credit an extensive experience of over 20 years in the media and entertainment business.

Sarah-Jane Dias

Actor-Model-Musician

Sarah-Jane Dias is an actor, model, musician and a self-proclaimed foodie and lover of life. Her last film Angry Indian Goddesses has achieved world fame and has won audience choice awards in Toronto and Rome. She's also a certified yoga instructor and was responsible for the development and launch of India's first dedicated cupcake store, Butterfly.

Shridhar Venkat

CEO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation

Shridhar Venkat has over 23 years of work experience and has been associated with leading multinationals like Philips, ABB, Webex Communications (now CISCO), etc. He is currently the CEO of Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world's largest non-profit organisation providing Mid-day meal to 1.5 million children in India every day. Prior to joining Akshaya Patra he was Vice President – Sales, Webex Communications. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Management. Shridhar is an Eisenhower Fellow 2014 and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program from Wharton Business School 2014 . In Akshaya Patra, Shridhar oversees all the executive functions such as Resource Mobilization, Communication, Finance, HRD, IT and Operations Excellence Initiative.

Sneh Vaswani

CEO & Co-founder, KlugTek

Sneh is Co-Founder and CEO at Emotix; India’s first companion robotics startup. Since 2014, he is leading a global team of engineers, artists and mathematicians focussed on consumer devices that emotionally and adaptively bond with the user’s personality and solve their grave problems. Before KlugTek, he was responsible for end to end realisation of a silicon based device for single stranded DNA manipulation and analysis at Siemens; a breakthrough concept in Next Generation DNA Sequencing. He is an alumni of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay where he did his B.Tech and M.Tech from Metallurgical Engineering and Material Science Department. In the past, he has led multiple strong interdisciplinary teams that have represented and embossed the name of his alma matter and India on several national and international robotic competitions with winning performances.