"Quit the 'Rat Race' as at the end of the rat race there are either 'Winner Rats' or 'Looser Rats' but they all remain as 'Rats'. You are 'Human' and you deserve much better"-Pratik Poddar
Pratik who was one of the inspiring speakers during the TEDxIIMC, encapsulated the genesis of an entrepreneurial dream in a well articulated manner. Found honesty and refreshing unpretentiousness in his talk where he spoke about his learning as an Entrepreneur & a mentor to many budding entrepreneurs.
While his talk was not essentially about the theme 'Entrepreneurial Innovation' but it did serve the purpose of getting the 'Entrepreneurial' bit right in a riveting manner.
His focus on 'Happiness' as one of the key qualities for Entrepreneurial Success did strike a chord with me. It was a befitting end of an interesting day when he said "No one has created anything beautiful by being 'Unhappy' ".
Blame it on the effect of recency or maybe genuine connect, this last talk from Pratik made a lot of sense to me.
The start of the event was equally inspiring or rather quite moving. Fahim Vora, the co-founder of 'Be the Local Tours' spoke about the transformational employment opportunities he brought into one of the largest slums in Asia called 'Dharavi' through his visionary idea of offering tourists across the globe an inside view of the world within Dharavi which is beyond poverty or dirt or disease; its about the fascinating world within Dharavi where its residents have created opportunities of multiple small but sustainable industries.
Fahim has failed his B Com exam multiple times but these failures are small due to the scale of his vision. I am sure he would clear his B Com exam this year and I am much surer that he alongwith his partner Tauseef would also actualize their dream of providing jobs to the students of Dharavi to support their education while bringing the inside view of Dharavi to the world with a positive perceptual change.
Please watch this fabulous video powered by Intel or rather powered by Fahim & Tauseef :-)
Sumit Gandhi was definitely the most 'impressive' of all speakers in terms of his oratorical skills & showed how 'technology' & 'heart' can juxtapose in perfect sync complimenting each other.
Sumit left his well paying job from one of the world's most admired companies & forged ahead in his vision of creating hundreds of white collared chat based BPO jobs for Hearing Impaired people through the simple technology of 'SMS' & a typing course certified from an University of Global Repute.
Sumit with his empowering vision spoke about the 'Thinking inside the box' theory as against the popular 'Thinking out of the box'. He emphasized that no matter how occupied the box is, there is always scope for more. Just a little more space...just a little more 'heart'...a little more contextual use of 'technology'...
Krutika Karat, the founder of Oo Womaniya was the only woman entrepreneur in the event who brought up a 'seemingly' uncomfortable topic by conservative standards on Women Health & Wellness in the most convincing & relevant manner.
Krutika spoke about her personal experience which further motivated her to architect an online network on Women's health & wellness which empowers women to access credible information on emotional & physical well being. Definitely the most persuasive yet effortless talk that urged women to be absolutely uninhibited in their pursuit of well being they truly deserve and urged the men like me to be more supportive towards our women friends than ever before.
Indeed a great day infused with inspiring thoughts. I wish all these inspiring speakers paramount success in their endeavor.
PS: We also watched the awe inspiring pre recorded TED videos of Sugata Mitra, Arvind Gupta, Pamela Meyer & Apollo Robbins