Three TED talks are now online, and these are probably the cream of the crop: Pranav Mistry, Hans Rosling, and Devdutt Patnaik were the rock stars at TED India, held in the Infosys campus at Mysore.
Hans Rosling kicked off the TED India conference with a spirited Gapminder demo, which outlined historical trends in per capita income and life expectancy, and the rise of Asia this century. He said that in the year 2048, India would achieve parity with the US. It’s one of the TED commandments to dream a great dream, and this time a Swede has a hit bigger than John Lennon’s Imagine or Abba’s Mamma Mia.
Over 70 talks were given at the conference some were three to five minutes, others with 40 speakers who gave 18 minute talks. These will trickle out slowly, at the rate of one every three days.
If you haven’t tuned into TED yet, you should. The non-profit has over five hundred 18-minute talks which are hosted online, downloadable and synchable with iTunes. Offline, it is a carefully curated and orchestrated walled garden conference, where even millionaire venture capitalists and bankers are screened, and seats are limited. TED India got the mix right by inviting 103 TED India fellows – an eclectic mix of young artists, filmmakers, social entrepreneurs and polymaths. The crowd of 800 that got in could consider themselves a privileged species – but were tagged like endangered animals with huge Web 2.0 style badges when set loose on the Infosys campus. This included the likes of champion blogger Amit Varma who twittered uncharitably at the Infosys campus, calling it “a collage of pastiches of various architectural cliches.”
TED India was a trending topic on Twitter, but Sachin Tendulkar wiped them out in an ODI loss the scale of Greek tragedy.
The next issue of Digit Magazine carries an extensive feature on the TED India event, in case you want highlights.