Theme: Glass ceilings - Break the Boundaries

The theme for this year’s TEDxYouth@OIS will revolve around initiatives that will inspire others as well as bring about change. Mahatma Gandhi once said “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”, and this is exactly what we hope to do. Change doesn’t happen with us staying in our limits and not getting out of our ‘shells’, our comfort zones. This TEDx event at OIS hopes to be the spark of a new generation of ideas and inspiring thoughts, and thus, the theme we have come up with centers on the idea of breaking past these boundaries, venturing into the unknown, and taking that extra step. TEDxYouth@OIS is proud to present to you - ‘Glass Ceilings: Break the Boundaries.’

Oberoi International School
Oberoi Garden City, Off Western Express Hwy
Goregaon East
Mumbai, Maharashtra, 400063
India

Aashna Jalan

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Student

Aashna Jalan is a Chemical Engineering Undergrad in the Institute of Chemical Technology. She believes in the embracing her inner nerd but does not let that restrict her from exploring new avenues. She is also passionate about the performing and fine arts. However, her staunch feminism stems from classes which almost always had more boys than girls and career conversations which constantly revolved marriage. She would like to share her experiences as a teenager growing up in a gender-stereotyped society working her way through a male-dominated field.

Prameek Kannan

Wildlife Photographer and Conservation Biologist

Prameek Kannan is a prominent wildlife biologist and conservationist. Through his extensive fieldwork, he soon began to realize that in order to save the rapidly vanishing wilderness areas and dwindling natural resources, he had to look beyond wildlife, and focus on human-wildlife dynamics and conflict mitigation. He now works with impoverished tribal communities in facilitating sustainable development and lucrative eco-friendly livelihoods that reduce dependence on the forests of central India. By working with local communities to reduce the collection of forest products and poaching of wildlife, he believes that the forests can be allowed to regenerate. He aims to conserve our wildlife to the best of his ability and will speak about the great importance of the environment and the underlying struggle of preserving it.

Ritika Sahni

Singer and Activist

Ritika Sahni a gold medalist from Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, for a Master’s in music, is a popular singer-performer and producer of music albums for children. A Bachelor’s Degree in Deaf Education enabled Ritika to teach and lecture at various institutions dealing with disability, for the last twenty-five years. She founded the NGO Trinayani in 2006 which works untiringly for the cause of Awareness about the world of Disability and the promise of Equality for “people with disabilities”. Under the banner of this NGO, Ritika conducts interactive workshops and creates informative radio shows, films, books, stage plays, games and relevant advocacy exercises to propagate awareness pertaining to disability. Under the umbrella of Trinayani, Ritika also runs a Reflexology Spa which generates rightful and dignified employment for blind but trained therapists. 

Saranya Agarwal

Student

Saranya Agarwal is a 16-year-old, studying at Oberoi International School. Like every other teenager, she too is in the clutches of social media. It is this personal connect of hers with technology, that inspired her to come up with a new way of looking at the digital world. Through her talk, she attempts to pose the question: technology is something which we all assume helps us break boundaries, especially in communication. But what if the technology itself is the boundary? What if social media, the poster boy of communication, is the hidden barrier, preventing us from building meaningful relations?

Sharman Joshi

Theatre Artist and Actor

Sharman Joshi is a recognized face in Gujarati theater, and a celebrated Bollywood film actor, appearing in commercial hits like 3 Idiots and Golmaal. He has broken many barriers in his professional life, and today is able to smoothly transition between theater and film, a feat, which not many people can do successfully. Breaking stereotypes that people could have associated with him, he has done films and plays in numerous genres, refusing to be typecast. This resilience and the ability to change himself when required to achieve a certain character has led him to shatter glass ceilings often placed on performers.