Theme: Erasing The Box

The goal of TEDxChennai is to promote free thought. Through the ideas that are shared on stage we aim to facilitate a conversation between thinkers, doers and changemakers. The idea is that these very conversations impact new thinking. It isn't about thinking outside the box anymore. It's about erasing that very box and venturing out to explore new thoughts -an excursion for the mind of sorts. It's about shoving that box aside and starting fresh on that slate. Light travels faster than sound. Similarly, ideas travel faster when boundaries are eliminated. No box should be able to limit your ideas. Let your imagination take flight. Erase the box. Embrace the possibilities.

Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall
13/1, Shenstone Park, Harrington Road
Chetpet
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 600031
India

Aparna Nagesh

Aparna Nagesh is a versatile dance professional with over 18 years of training, teaching and performance experience. She has trained extensively in various dance styles such as Jazz, Ballet, Contemporary, Latin & Street and now creates contemporary dance theatre work under her own unique movement vocabulary titled “Global Dance Fusion”. Currently she runs her own all girl dance ensemble, High Kicks, who performed at the prestigious Commonwealth Youth Dance Fest, prior to the start of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow Scotland in 2014. High Kicks is a platform for talented and enthusiastic female dancers to explore their potential as performers, teachers and choreographers.

Deepti Zachariah

Architect + Designer + Educator

Deepti has worked in the Pritzker award-winning studio of the late Zaha Hadid in London for four years after her Masters in Architecture from DIA, Dessau, Germany. Her undergraduate degree in Architecture is from NIT, Trichy. Since 2010, Deepti runs Revolution by Design, a speculative architecture and design studio. Revolution by Design works on commissions and exploratory design projects that are not limited by medium be it architecture, graphics, product or text. The studio’s uses computational design technologies to re-imagine dying handcrafts in the Indian building industry. Deepti formulated and teaches courses on Form Finding and Design in IIT, Madras. She conducts workshops and talks in leading design institutions including Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. She has published work in national and international publications.

Kirthi Jayakumar

Activist + Writer + Peace Educator + Artist

Kirthi founded and runs the Red Elephant Foundation, a civilian peacebuilding initiative working for gender equality through storytelling. She is also the author of two books (fiction) called The Dove's Lament and Stories of Hope, and the author of three non-fiction books centred around gender, peace and international law. Kirthi is the recipient of the US Presidential Services Award (gold, silver and bronze) from President Barack Obama. Her interest and experience over all lie in Afghanistan, the Middle East, DR Congo and South-Asia.

Krishna Mohan Ramachandran

Planter + Salesman + Ad-man + Oarsman + Singer + Trainer + Farmer.

Krish used to work as the National Head for Training & Talent at Ogilvy & Mather, India. Prior to this, he was President - the Chennai and Hyderabad Offices of Ogilvy. He currently works as COO for an NGO called Eco Earth. In an effort to continue exploring, Krish earned a 2nd Dan Black belt in Karate at the tender age of forty four. He is also a passionate Oarsman. He participated in the Hong Kong Masters, the World Masters in 2009 and the World Rowing tour in 2015. Rowing and helping cleaning the Adyar river (CAI) continue to enrich Krish’s life.

Manu Joseph

Author + Journalist

Manu Joseph is the author of Serious Men and The Illicit Happiness of Other People, widely acclaimed novels that have been translated into several languages. He is a former columnist of The International New York Times. When he was the editor of the Open Magazine he had broken the Niira Radia Tapes story. His third novel is forthcoming.

Parvathi Nayar

Artist Parvathi Nayar is deeply committed to supporting - the emerging renaissance of the contemporary in Chennai. Parvathi is best known for her videos and her complex drawing practices; she also engages with sculpture, painting and photography. Her black-and-white graphite drawings are multifaceted works that look at the internal/intimate spaces within our bodies, and the external/public spaces in which we live, often through the prism of science and technology. Her works have been collected by institutions such as the Singapore Art Museum, BMW, HCL, The Sotheby’s Art Institute, The Australia India Institute and Deutsche Bank.

Pradeep Chakravarthy

Leadership Development Expert + Passionate Historian

Pradeep  has always had a passion for the history and heritage of Tamil Nadu and has pioneered curated 2 day tours to different districts of the state looking deeper at the local culture, cuisine and art and architecture. He works as a leadership development expert and coach and extensively uses philosophy and history in his self awareness programs.

Rashmi Mohan

Rashmi Mohan is a technologist, an engineer and a budding entrepreneur. Until recently, she was a Sr. Engineering Manager at Yahoo Labs in Bangalore. She has spent 15+ years in various technical and management roles in the industry. She has a background in Front end engineering and led a group of scientists and engineers within Yahoo Labs. Rashmi is particularly interested in the cause of promoting and encouraging women in technology to aspire and reach greater heights in their careers. She is the ACM India council secretary and is actively involved in the CS community. Rashmi has been associated with the Grace Hopper Conference in Bangalore for five years as a mentor, advisory committee member and founding member of the all women Hackathon.

Subadra Kalyanaraman

Management Consultant + Artist

Subadra Kalyanaraman is a management consultant who actively pursues art. She loves traditional Indian art forms, and a lot of her work is inspired by their beautiful patterns and colours. She was one among the first people in India to publish an adult colouring book based on an Indian folk art form.

Vishesh Vatsal

Engineer

Vishesh has a Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2011. He joined Team Indus in 2013. He is presently working as TeamIndus Trooper in the Flight Dynamics team on the guidance, navigation and control technologies required to land a spacecraft on the moon. His interests lie in astrodynamics, quizzing and reading science fiction.