Theme: Re-imagining Rural

The significance of the word Rural has changed over time. Earlier, on hearing rural one would merely think of agriculture, poverty, illiteracy and underdeveloped settlements; but today ‘rural’ has become a canvas for rediscovering the palette of potential that has been hidden in these serene and bejeweled landscapes from ages.

However, the journey to unearth this part of the rural has been admittedly long and arduous. Men and women of extraordinary calibere have put in their blood and sweat to make this journey possible. In addition, it is still our collective responsibility to help prevent an abrupt full stop to this journey because, as Mark Tully says, “There are no full stops in India”. What does he mean when he says so? What are those opportunities that lie on the other end of those full stops?

TEDxIRMA 2018 aims to make conspicuous the tremendous opportunities that underlie the golden soil of rural India.

Institute of Rural Management Anand
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Gujarat
Anand, Gujarat, 388001
India

Abhishant Pant

Abhishant Pant is a Mumbai-based India-market Fintech expert. “Cashless Journey”, his start-up, is an experiment initiated with the intention to understand, document and disseminate information on the challenges and opportunities in consumer movement from cash to a digital economy. His belief is “to learn by living it”. The Cashless Journey experiment began on 13th March, 2016, from Mumbai, India. In a short span of 2 years, he covered the length and breadth of India and also visited Dhaka, Singapore, Manila, Berlin, Stockholm and San Francisco. His journey continues till date. Abhishant received wide media coverage for Cashless Journey both in India and globally.

Andy Mukherjee

Andy Mukherjee is an award-winning business journalist with more than two decades of experience in India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. An esteemed alumnus of IRMA, he is currently a Gladfly Columnist at Bloomberg LP. His versatility took him from finance to business journalism. He has had an illustrious career – with stints as Senior Executive at Onida Finance Ltd. to Executive Editor at ET Now. Mr. Mukherjee’s opinions and articles are revered in the fields of Economics, Finance and Public Policy. His contribution in the field of opinion journalism is ineffable.

Maanav Yashroy

Director and Global Head, BoP Business at Philips Lighting

His career spans over 18 years in leading business strategy, marketing, sales and P&L head roles at MNCs and innovative social enterprises. He excels at creating and commercially scaling up sustainable-impact innovations and business models, leveraging BoP and low income communities across categories of food, FMCG, agriculture inputs, durables and other socially high-impact products. These business models have involved innovations in product, marketing and distribution formats including grassroots entrepreneurship, retail distribution, direct sales and national alliances. He is leading the design and scaling up for two globally recognized and awarded social ventures - Reuters Market light (from Thomson Reuters) and eChoupal from ITC.

Nitin Puri

Nitin has provided several cutting-edge project/strategy advisory and innovative financing solutions to industry, government & multilateral entities. He also leads a number of key policy thought leadership initiatives as well as multiple industry engagements with Agritech Start Ups in India. Nitin is an alumnus of IRMA and has two decades of industry experience in multi-functional senior management roles in the food & agri space, including those with YES Bank, ITC, Aditya Birla Nuvo, MCX & Reliance Retail. He is deeply passionate about the philosophy of Enterprise Approach to Rural Development Management.

Phoolbasan Bai Yadav

Phoolbasan Bai Yadav is known for her efforts towards the development of economically and socially backward women of Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh. Born in a socially backward family with sparse financial resources, her formal education stopped at the seventh standard. Her work as a social worker started when she began participating in the activities of self-help groups in the district. Soon, she formed groups of her own and established ration shops for the distribution of food among the people living below poverty line (BPL). Later, she consolidated all these activities under the umbrella of her non-governmental organization, Maa Bamleshwari Janhit Karya Samiti. In 2012, she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India.

Praveen Morchhale

An alumnus of IRMA, Praveen started his directoria l journey with "Barefoot to Goa" that was released t o critical acclaim all across. His second film "Walkin g With The Wind" won three National Film Awards. It has been selected to prestigious film festivals aro und the world. Apart from this, it was also officially s elected for London Indian Film Festival, Colombian International Film Festival for Youth, CMS Internati onal Film Festival, to name a few. His work echoes his connection with IRMA as it is d eeply entrenched in the values and heritage of rural India

Rohit Bansal

Group Leader With RIL

Rohit Bansal is a group leader with RIL, India’s most valuable company. He is an expert at the intersect of media strategy, reputation and digital disruption. Rohit is a TEDx speaker - the talk can be accessed on the hashtag #PowerOfOneVote. Rohit is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (Asia’s highest rated think tank from India), a Fellow at the Institute of Competitiveness (a knot of Prof Michael E Porter’s work at Harvard) and a Mentor at JioGenNext, a startup scalerator incubated by RIL.

Tamal Bandyopadhay

Recognized by LinkedIn as one of the top voices in finance, Tamal Bandyopadhyay is a maverick of articulation. His weekly columns on banking and finance appear in the Mint, one of the most respected publications in India. His weekly column, “Banker’s Trust,” is a staple for those enamored with the progressions, regressions and disruptions in the financial world. Currently, he is a Consulting Editor for Mint and an Adviser on Strategy for Bandhan Bank. In 2016, he was awarded the prestigious “Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism” Award.