Theme: The Future. Reimagined.

Save the date: Sunday, Jan 12, 2020

The 3rd Edition of TEDxChandigarh is coming your way at Tagore Theatre, Chandigarh.

About TEDxChandigarh 2020:
TEDxChandigarh Conference brings together the world's leading thinkers and doers to give you a peek into the minds of extraordinary people. TEDxChandigarh passionately believes in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.

Tagore Theatre
Sector - 18
Chandigarh, Chandigarh, 160017
India

Akshat Singh

The international sensation, who is a dancing star and has featured on the Ellen DeGeneres Show (USA), Steve Harvey’s Little Big Shots (Australia), Comedy Nights among others. He also won ‘golden buzzer’ at Britain’s Got Talent.

Amit Ganjoo

Amit Ganjoo is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO ANRA Technologies, an Award Winning Drone Operations and UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Platform provider based in Washington DC with global operations. ANRA’s Technology used by multiple commercial and government entities for running and managing commercial drone operations. Amit has over 20 years of aviation, telecom and wireless experience in both the federal and the commercial space. He is an engineer, a licensed private pilot, following a lifelong passion in aviation and builds experimental aircrafts. Amit is also an adjunct professor at the George Mason University and shares his passion for engineering by teaching in the School of Engineering and volunteers at a local Maker Space in the D.C. area.

Anirudh Rastogi

Anirudh is the founder of award-winning law and policy firm, Ikigai Law. The firm was named Asia's Best Law Firm to Work For 2019 and Boutique Law Firm of the Year 2019 by Asian Legal Business. Anirudh has been involved with several first-of-their-kind technology mandates such as the World's first private lunar mission (now abandoned), Hyperloop India, and setting up of some of India's first digital assets exchanges. He was named Achiever of the Year - 40 under 40 2017 by BusinessWorld and named a 'pioneer' by the Economic Times for his contribution to the drones policy in India. He is an alum of the Harvard Law School, a visiting faculty at IIM-Indore and the author of a book on cyber laws.

Daniel Fitzgerald

He is a prodigious roboticist with deep expertise in design, fabrication, and programming of autonomous systems. He currently works with robotics technology company iRobot, the global leader in consumer robotics with the iconic Roomba™ robot. Daniel earned his MS from the MIT Media Lab where his research on "Shape Displays" for Virtual Reality was presented at TechCrunch Robotic 2017. He previously worked at Amazon Robotics, which manages the largest fleet of mobile industrial robots in the world, and as a research scientist at Harvard where he worked on 3D-printing an entire soft-robot, "Octobot", published in Nature. His interests span human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence, soft robotics, computational design, additive manufacturing, and space exploration. Daniel is building the robots of the future which will work alongside humans in highly efficient teams, using the complementary abilities of humans and machines. His cutting edge work in robotic technologies will have huge implications on the future of humanity.

Dr Amit Kumar Pandey

He is the President, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Hanson Robotics, the company that created the world's most human-like expressive robot, Sophia. Earlier, he served as the Chief Scientist at SoftBank Robotics Europe, Paris (the creator of the world's first mass-produced consumer humanoid robot, Pepper). His research interest falls at the intersections of People, Society, and Robotics & AI. He holds a Ph.D. in Robotics and AI from LAAS-CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), INSA (National Institute of Applied Sciences), France. His PhD thesis is among the best three theses for the prestigious Georges Giralt Award for the best Ph.D. Theses in Robotics in Europe, awarded by European Union Robotics (euRobotics). He is the founding coordinator of Socially Intelligent Robots and Societal Applications (SIRo-SA) Topic Group (TG) of euRobotics (the European Union Robotics Community), which aims to shape the future of robotics in Europe in collaboration with European Commission (EC) through PPP SPARC (one of the largest civilian-funded robotics innovation program in the world). Witness the powerful talk of this visionary who is redefining the future of humanoids.

Dr. Sandhya Sriram

Dr Sandhya Sriram is the CEO and co-founder of Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore. Sandhya is a stem cell scientist with over 10 years of experience working with muscle, adipose, cells and stem cells. After graduating with a PhD from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Sandhya pursued her postdoc at A*STAR in Singapore. Following 4 years of postdoctoral work, she took up business development at a research institute. Alongside, she co-founded 2 companies, Biotech In Asia and SciGlo. Sandhya has been featured on Forbes Women in Tech for her entrepreneurial ventures and is an author for Nature Biotechnology blog. Currently her company, Shiok Meats, is growing crustacean meat by employing cellular agriculture.

Jassa Ahluwalia

Jassa Ahluwalia is an actor, writer and filmmaker. He came to prominence as loveable badboy Rocky in the hit BBC Three series ‘Some Girls’, followed by starring roles in ‘Ripper Street’ and the internationally acclaimed series ‘Peaky Blinders’. ‘Heart’s Ease’, his writer-director debut short film, won two Best Film awards during its festival run, and was an official selection at San Diego International Film Festival and the BAFTA-qualifying London Short Film Festival. It was described by bestselling author Anthony Horowitz as “an accomplished piece of film-making”. Jassa’s second short film, ‘Near’, in which he also stars (alongside Olivier nominee Amy Lennox), is currently in postproduction. ‘Ancient Giants’, a documentary short that he produced, exploring deforestation in Chile, recently premiered at the prestigious Kendal Mountain Festival. In addition, he is developing a TV series with his sister Ramanique Ahluwalia, from a script longlisted by the BBC Writersroom. Jassa found further recognition in 2019 after his homemade comedy skits went viral on social media. His videos, in which he plays an old Punjabi uncle, were accompanied by his hashtag #BothNotHalf, the distillation of his ideas on mixed heritage experience. This led to Jassa being elected to the Equity Minority Ethnic Members Committee to help lead the fight for better representation in the performing arts. Jassa concluded 2019 by hosting the BritAsia Music Awards at the historic Wembley Arena. In the New Year, he will be reprising his role in series 4 of ‘Unforgotten’, starring Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Kalpana Rao

Kalpana is the ex-founder & CEO of a fashion brand that pioneered the idea of Indianised maternity and nursing wear. After running the brand for 24 years, she moved to Mumbai with her signature silver hair to pursue an acting career. She reinvented her career at the point when most people retire and did her first ad as a Grandma for a Honda commercial, at the age of 51.

Mina Soltangheis

She is a Computer Scientist and a creative technologist. With a focus on machine learning and human learning, Mina is passionate about exploring the intersection of humanity and technology. As a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and SFU SIAT (Canada), she built data-driven tools to understand how digital media shapes human behavior and choice. She is the Chief Innovation Officer at Wondeur Ai, a Canada-based Artificial Intelligence company. As a leader of Research and Development and innovation, she is dedicated to evolving personalization strategy and developing data ecosystems that are both human-centric and ethical by design. She applies machine learning and data visualization techniques to understand human behavior in digital games to support children’s learning process at scale. Her focus right now is to enable children to become critical thinkers so that they can thrive in the 21st century.

Pratyusha Pareddy

Pratyush Pareddy, the CEO and Co-Founder of Nemo Care, has designed a tech-device to save the lives of new-born babies. In India, approximately 3.6 million premature babies are born every year who are susceptible to Apnea and Hypothermia. These conditions can often go unnoticed, which can lead to the death of the new-born. She received the Grand Challenge Exploration Grant from the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. Pratyusha also won the fifth 'Start TLV- India' and was featured in the list of the 'Ten most promising start-ups' list of CNBC TV-18 Young Turks.

R.N. Prasher

With qualifications in physics, economics, and law, coupled with five years as a teacher, thirty-four years in the Indian Administrative service, and five years as Chairman, Electricity Regulatory Commission, R.N. Prasher has large experience in the power sector, including setting up new power plants, in the water sector particularly handling inter-state water disputes and in transport sector. His innovation in the field of road safety was rewarded with IRTE- Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. He has fortified this diverse knowledge and experience with trekking in the mountains of India and Tibet and frequently driving solo across India. He has shared his perceptions through books, articles and research papers. His research is focussed on cross-cultural diffusion across continents in ancient times.

Rajesh Kumar

He is an iconic actor who is famously known for his role of Rosesh Sarabhai in the hit TV sitcom, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. His comic timing and versatility of roles have made him a common name in the Indian households. Some of his notable shows include Khichdi, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, Baa Bahoo Aur Baby etc. that have featured on prime TV channels and streaming apps in India. He also has two Indian Telly Awards to his name.

Reena and Inderdeep Singh

Inderdeep Singh Inderdeep Singh was born and brought up in Delhi, and has been working in the field of electronics manufacturing since 1986. He has been actively involved with various electronics, management, and industry associations over the years. Inderdeep completed his BSc degree from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, and MS(Elec.Engg.) as well as MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. Inderdeep’s interests include domestic as well as international travel, photography, golf, ballroom dance, and Argentine tango. ReenaSingh Reena Singh was born and brought up in Delhi. After completing her BCom(Hons) degree from Jesus & Mary College in Delhi, she has pursued a career in art. She is also the author of a book on Wedding Planning which was published by Penguin. The book explains and celebrates the traditions of the Hindu and especially Punjabi weddings. Reena’s interests include gardening, painting, travel and dancing.

Ridhima Pandey

Ridhima is a daring 11-year-old girl who sued the Indian government for not taking serious steps to combat climate change. It was dismissed, but she escalated it to the Supreme Court. That’s a gutsy move by a young climate activist! The Uttarakhand floods of 2013 prompted her to take notice of the disastrous effects of climate change. The death toll in the floods affected Ridhima badly, and made her furious on the apathy of Indian government. She was invited to the United Nations General Assembly at the Climate Action Summit 2019. She joined Greta Thunberg on Sep 20 in her Global Climate Strike at New York. She also spoke at the international XYNETO exchange conference in Norway to spread awareness about climate change. Recently, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia interacted with her in Rishikesh.

Sanjyot Keer

Sanjyot Keer (born June 16, 1992) is an Indian celebrity chef and content creator, based in Mumbai, India. He is the founder of Your Food Lab. He was the food producer for TV competitive cooking show, MasterChef India (season 4), aired on Star Plus. Keer was featured by Forbes India Tycoons of Tomorrow 2018. He did his Hotel management from ITMIHM which is affiliated with Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. YFL, a Mumbai-based venture which was started in February 2016 features a diverse collection of recipes that are healthy, cheesy, spicy, those that satisfy your sweet tooth and a whole lot more. The recipes range from being fun and messy to fresh and bright. He gained recognition for posting cooking videos to Facebook and YouTube, which accumulated more than 1 billion views on his content & more than 5 million followers on his social media handles.

Sarvjeet Singh Bedi

The picture of Sarvjeet on his bike was widely circulated on social media in 2015. He was declared a ‘pervert’, ‘molester’ and ‘criminal’ by national media. He was soon arrested by the police and the girl was awarded for her bravery. Under pressure from media, Delhi police had registered the case against Singh under sections 354A (Sexual harassment), 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code. Sarvjeet lost a number of jobs after the incident. Each time he took a leave from work for court hearings, he was asked to leave the job. His father had a heart attack due to this incident and his mother went into depression. In October 2019, Sarvjeet was acquitted of all the charges framed against him. The court also mentioned that the testimony of the complainant was contradictory and inconsistent. When the judge pronounced the verdict and declared him a free man, Sarvjeet cried in court. This case and his acquittal has left the nation stunned.

Sukhmeet Singh

Sukhmeet is a CEO and founder of a BioEnergy Company: A2P Energy and an Analytics company: ProdigyNumbers. Through his company A2P Energy, Sukhmeet is working with Aston University, UK and European Bioenergy Research Institute for setting up bio-energy plants in Punjab. A2P Energy is focusing to provide economic value to the farmers out of the straw by converting straw into NextGen biofuels. Sukhmeet has won many national and international awards for his work on saving paddy straw from burning and has recently won the Global Makers Challenge in Russia competing against 1180 companies from 83 countries and emerging as the top winner in Sustainable Energy Field. Sukhmeet was also invited to UN General Assembly in New York in Sep 2019.