Theme: Spectrum

Jadavpur University has always believed in giving the individual the requisite space and freedom to pursue his or her own dreams and passions. It has been a theatre of dreams, a canvas to paint with colours, a stage for rhythm and movement and also a laboratory of machines and ideas. In keeping with this tradition and unparalleled legacy, TEDx Jadavpur University brings a day complete with speakers from all fields and diverse backgrounds. This TEDx event aims to showcase the multitudes of thought and amalgamation of ideas that Jadavpur University has always excelled at.

Gandhi Bhavan
Jadavpur University
Raja S C Mullick Road
Kolkata, West Bengal, 700032
India

Amyt Datta

Amyt Datta is a guitarist, composer, and producer from Kolkata. He is also a session musician, teacher, and mentor. Datta, who commands a sort of demigod status with guitar fans across the country, is widely acknowledged to be one of the most innovative guitarists around today. By the age of 20, he was playing all over India, primarily with one of the most notable rock acts of that era called Shiva. He's been called the true living guitar god of India by Rolling Stones.

Anindya Sinha

Anindya Sinha is an Indian primatologist. He is a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), India. He is on the executive board of Nature Conservation Foundation, India. His research is mostly centered on the field of cognition and consciousness of bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) but he also has been involved in many genetics projects on Indian primates. He is also involved with Biology Olympiad as the leader of the Indian team.

Anita Anand

Popular British journalist Anita Anand retraces the path of the infamous Koh-i-noor diamond from the Mughal Dynasty to its current location at the Tower of London.

Bruce Bucknell

Bruce Bucknell is the British Deputy High Commissioner of Kolkata. He represents the UK in the 13 Indian states. Bucknell was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Belarus from 2012-16. Previously, he was Deputy Head of Security in Estates and Security Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2009-2011) and Deputy Head of the Joint FCO and Department for International Development’s Sudan Unit (2007-09).

Chandra Shekhar Ghosh

Moved by the plight of poverty-stricken women in West Bengal villages, and seeking to empower them with loans to start small businesses, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, 55, started a micro-finance company with a tiny capital of Rs two lakhs in 2001. Fifteen years later, Ghosh heads the Kolkata-headquartered Bandhan Bank, the first private bank founded post-Independence in eastern India.This bank, with a whopping Rs 12,500 crore in deposit has set a record as the first micro-finance institution to receive a banking license in India.

Debiprasad Duari

Presently the Director of Kolkata Birla Planetarium and Honorary Faculty, Physics Department, Presidency College, Mr. Duari is also a fellow of Royal Astronomical Society and a member of International Astronomical Union. He did his B.Sc. & M.Sc. in Physics from Jadavpur University and Ph.D. from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pune. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He was associated with a number of distinguished academic institutions including Institute for Advanced Studies, Iran, University of Cambridge, U. K., and Manchester Institute of Science & Technology, U. K.

Hemley Gonzales

Hemley Gonzalez is revolutionizing humanitarian efforts with Responsible Charity, a nonprofit humanist organization he founded in 2009 that is making strides in “education, planned parenthood, and self-employment” in India. In June 2013, after years of planning and fundraising, Responsible Charity finally leased a property to establish the first secular school in Kolkata, West Bengal, for impoverished children and their families. “Our work goes beyond education,” says Gonzalez, “as we deal directly with the families of children we help, and we learn more and more about the harsh realities they face each day while living in poverty.”

Ronny Sen

Ronny Sen(1986) was born in Silchar, Assam. In the early 90’s, he moved with his family to Salt Lake City in Calcutta where he still lives and works. Sen has photographed the Indian General Elections in 2014 for the United Nations and Fabrica, Italy. In 2015, the Polish Institute invited him to be an artist-in-residence in Poland which resulted in two solo residency exhibitions at gallery Tarq in Bombay and Latitude 28 in New Delhi. His works were part of the exhibition Abandon, presented by the Gujral Foundation (2015). His photographs are included in the permanent collection of the Alkazi Collection of Photography. In the year 2016, he won the Getty Images Instagram Grant for his work End of Time in the Jharia coal mines, which were exhibited at Noorderlicht Festival’s show Arena at the Belvedere Museum, Netherlands and at Photoville in New York. He is working on his next book and his first feature film.

Somak Raychaudhury

Somak Raychaudhury is an astrophysicist who is the director of IUCAA, Pune. He obtained a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom where he proceeded to win the Smith's prize in 1988. He remains affiliated to the Astrophysics and Space Research group, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, where he used to be the director of the Wast Hills Observatory. He was a staff member at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working for the Chandra X-ray Observatory. He has published over 80 research papers and was one of the key people to start the Indian Astronomy Olympiad. He is known for his work stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes. His significant contributions include those in the fields of gravitational lensing, galaxy dynamics and large-scale motions in the Universe, including the Great Attractor.

Suhas Misra

Suhas Misra is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India.He is the co-founder of Paper Boat Beverages and has set an example of one of the most successful examples entrepreneurship amidst the tough competition in today's world. He is currently associated with Tardigrade HealthTech Private Limited, a venture associated with rural healthcare.

William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple is an acclaimed writer and historian, and one of the co-founders and co-directors of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. A collection of his writings about India, The Age of Kali, won the French Prix D'Astrolabe in 2005. 'White Mughals' was published in 2003 which won the Wolfson Prize for History 2003, the Scottish Book of the Year Prize and shortlisted for PEN History Award, the Kiryama Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2007, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, honoris causa, from the University of Lucknow "for his outstanding contribution in literature and history" and in March 2008 won the James Todd Memorial Prize from the Maharana of Udaipur.