Youth is the colossal reserve of energy, ideas and dreams. Give them a sky to fly and if not, they will create their sky, they will find the wind beneath their wings and soar in fearless pursuit of their dreams.
These are no hollow meaningless words and I got to witness an explicit evidence when I met the ever so energetic and super creative team of TEDx Chandigarh.
When I entered Innov8 in Industrial Area-2, I was happily surprised to meet a young man, wearing the magnetic confidence on his sleeve. If that was not enough, there came along a girl, who looked even younger. These two were the Curators of TEDx Chandigarh, the power-packed duo who did the herculean task of bringing TEDx to Chandigarh.
Meet Pritika Mehta and Simarpreet Singh.
Based out of Boston, Pritika is a tech genius (with Masters Degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Buffalo), mentor at Girls Who Code, member of Boston Chamber of Commerce, Global Shaper of Boston hub of World Economic Forum, a TEDx Wellington Speaker herself and Simarpreet, an engineer, also a Global Shaper at World Economic Forum and Curator of Chandigarh chapter of Global Shapers – this dynamic duo is on a spree to conquer the unimaginable heights in this young age. Friends since their under-graduation days in Panjab University, over the years they have combined the best in them to become what they call themselves to be “social entreprenueurs”. Powered with their passion to empower the people with the right ideas and knowledge, together they founded Mindbatteries, a one of a kind venture in the country that combines entertainment with education, resulting in, what they fondly call, ‘Edutainment’. But, they always knew this was not it.
As Punjabis, Pritika and Simarpreet share the concern about deteriorating intellectual stimuli in the community and wanted to add a spark, “develop a community” that dedicates its whole energy in becoming the harbinger of the “intellectual revolution” and the bearer of “Dream. Ideate. Create.” Pritika, revealing how TEDx Chandigarh happened, said that,”One day, in a casual chit-chat with Simar, I just floated the idea of bringing the TEDx to Chandigarh. And that was it. From that moment, we solely devoted our whole energy to make this happen.”.
“Dreams are easy to visualise, but realising them is an uphill task. Grabbing the license from the TED organisation in New York was a herculean task. It involved immense preparation from our side for the series of interviews to impress upon the TED people ‘why we are best people for the task’. Finally, we got the license and today, TEDx Chandigarh is one of the seven TEDx in India”, said Simarpreet with all humility and I, on the other hand, was full of pride. Pritika was specially trained to undertake TEDx events at TED summit in Banff, Canada by Chris Anderson and his team. The preparation for the TEDx Chandigarh event has been underway since July, 2016. “We are fortunate enough to built-up such immensely talented, passionate and creative team of 15 people, who are burning midnight lamp to do justice to the brand TEDx by making this a world class event.”
TEDx Chandigarh invited applications from across the world for speakers and they received 1059 nominations. Selected some from them and five (like Abhinav Bindra, Ravi Singh), they had chosen from their rigorous networking through World Economic Forum, NASSCOM, CII and the like. Now, TEDx Chandigarh will see 14 inspiring stories at the coveted podium.
“Why TEDx Chandigarh?” in the words of Pritika and Simarpreet!
And, now meet the super amazing TEDx Chandigarh team.
In company of these zealous, contagiously confident and inspiring young people for about more than an hour truly left me enlightened. People around us always say “Idealism is utopian. Be realistic. Be practical”. I ask you all ‘Meet this team and you will know Idealism is what is required if you want to bring a positive change around you.”
Grab your tickets at http://tedxchandigarh.org/tickets.html and stay inspired!
TEDx Chandigarh Event Details:
Date: Jan. 15, 2017
Time: 9 am – 6 pm
Venue: Indian School of Business (ISB), Mohali Campus, Knowledge City, Sector 81, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab 140306