TEDxEMWS, organized by the students of Ecole Mondiale World School on February 1, was an event that saw a host of ideas being exchanged between the 92 attendees that were present, from schools including Hillspring International, JamnabhaiNarsee School and Oberoi, among others and the 15 speakers who enthusiastically shared their stories.

With attendees lined up with freshly prepared button buddies that displayed exactly what they intended to learn throughout the course of the event, the speaker that got the ball rolling was none other than Elsie Nanji, a design consultant at Red Lion, who talked about the need to keep the child in each one of us alive. The audience was further enthralled by Sam White, the co-founder of Promethean Power systems, a company that works towards ensuring that rural India gets disease free milk and Parmesh Shahani, Head of Godrej India’s culture lab, who spoke on the cross pollination of ideas that the world so dearly needs.

With the attendees hooting and clapping in appreciation to what each of the speakers had to say, the flow of ideas refused to stop there, with attendees eagerly discussing the new things that had been learnt, refuting solutions to problems that had been raised and lauding the contributions of these 15 men and women. The surprises though just kept coming, with Varun Zinje, holding a jam session, playing popular contemporary tunes on a 1500 year old instrument on the verge of extinction.

Emotions ebbed as attendees stood stunned with Saket Modi, an ethical hacker, finding a clever way to hack one unlucky individual’s phone who, needless to say, was left red faced as his text messages were no longer under his control. The last talk of the day turned out to be one of pure motivation, with Siddharth GJ talking about his struggles with cerebral palsy.

Sponsored by the Samvedna Foundation & Wizard Constructions, in association with Gammon India, Nayaab Jewels and GEFACHEM and mentored by the organizers of TEDxGateway, this event changed many lives and opened individuals to new ideas. Those who weren’t present missed out on some eye -opening, downright inspiring talks but will hopefully find a way to come next time, for the ideas were limitless.

TEDxEMWS is supported by Wizard Constructions in association with Samvedna Foundation. Partners include Gammon India, Nayaab Jewels, GEFACHE and Ecole Mondiale World School