Theme: The Mind ReBooted

The event will be a perfect blend of ideas and intellectualism. Speakers from various fields of life are invited to share their incentives on various instances and situations and give us ideas to walk upon. A hall full of attendees learn lessons worth a lifetime as they leave.

Institute Hall
IIEST Shibpur
Kolkata, West Bengal, 711103
India

Advit Sahdev

Most Popular CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) from India. He is a best selling author in Marketing, He has been honoured with several awards like LinkedIn Content Top 50, CMO Asia awards, CNBC Young Turks award and is a visionary in the field of marketing. Advit Sahdev is a renowned Marketer and works with brands and personalities who exist to create a positive difference in the society. In his own words - "I am a national Maths champion, I sold my first company in less than 4 years, I have won multiple National awards, including Most Popular CMO in India. I have written several books in marketing and am a No. 1 Bestselling Author. I am also an International Speaker and a thought leader. I have worked with several national and global leaders that include - A Prime Minister, A World Champion, A Top 10 Most popular TED speaker, An ex head of National Army, A Chief Minister, A National Spokesperson and so on.

Akhand Swaroop Pandit

A quintessential embodiment of courage, audacity, and perseverance, the journey of former IES Officer Akhand Swaroop Pandit is as inspiring as it gets.From an average student to being known as the man who cleared every government exam, he has lived a story that few can draw parallels with. An IIT Delhi alumnus, his journey was not always an easy one, with hardships and turmoil being his constant companions. Nonetheless, he refused to succumb or bog down and with an untamable fortitude, he developed a Midas touch for any and every exam he took including the likes of clearing SSC with rank 1, GATE with rank 6, NET with rank 3 -these being just a few of them. In stark contrast with popular perception, he has also been the national powerlifting champion, not once but twice. In an effort to give back to society, Mr. Pandit founded The Catalyst Group, a platform that has constantly been helping countless young minds realise their goals and fly high. Incontestably, he was awarded the Star Achiever of India 2019 award for his multifarious list of achievements and numerous commendable feats.

Kunal Newar

To befog your senses is no ordinary feat, but then not everyone is as exceptional as Kunal Newar is. A mechanical engineer turned mentalist and illusionist, he asks very little of you, your distraction. They say genius strikes young and he was no exception. Although he started out at the young age of 11, he never was able to follow his passion and do what he loved most. However, with the dawn of realisation and the calling of his conscience, he decided to quit his second job and work on his innate skills. A tad bit different from the regular magicians, Kunal uses his mind-boggling ability to captivate his audience by creating an illusion of mental phenomena with psychological and mind reading skills that leaves his audience awestruck and amazed. With a strong sense of conviction and self-belief and the ardour to create something that defies reason and consciousness, Kunal Newar has become an epitome of success in this genre of craft and consistently tries to spark the same spirit, by regular lectures on both magic and motivation, in all those who wish to break beyond the conventional and fly high.

Madhura Banerjee

The bestselling author of two books, coder, workshop instructor, and a computer science graduate, Madhura Banerjee has achieved all this and much more at only 22. An alumnus of St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, she has already mesmerized the world with her literary skills and her debut poetry collection 'A Tenant of the World' is already receiving rave reviews. The same year she delivered a poetry reading at All India Radio. With her immense inclination towards poetry, she has turned into an indispensable resource for various other institutes and recurrently visits as a speaker and workshop instructor at educational giants like NITR, IISER. She is also a member of Srijan, an exclusive poetry club based in the City of Joy. Winner of countless poetry slams like Papercup Poetry Slam and Airplane Poetry Movement, she also doubles up as a judge at other such contests. Not to be mistaken for just another artistic brain, Madhura has also published articles on artificial intelligence and machine learning in esteemed dailies like The Telegraph. Madhura, with her impeccable know-how on her subjects, unsurprisingly achieved the first position at eXabyte's coding and debugging 2016, and also at Sigma's Make it or Break it. An amazing disciple of the subject she has also published articles in journals of international repute such as International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science. With a finesse like no other, she is well on the way to publish her second volume of a poetry collection and that will reinforce her reputation as a literary star.

Ranodeep Saha

Ranodeep Saha, a 22-year-old Computer Science engineer and the founder of Rare Planet, has also served as the Regional Ambassador Lead for Mozilla from South East Asia and perfectly exemplifies that creativity and dedication goes a long way. He has lived a success story that's had a rather unconventional beginning but is surely an interesting one. It's basically how an ordinary boy scaled from zero to a million dollar valuation while studying in college. Hailing from Kolkata, Ranodeep Saha started his journey as a dream incubator for the local artisans at the nimble age of 19. It was a simple rebound plan, painting earthen pots and 'kulhads' with characters that his ex-girlfriend was fascinated by. In this age of artificial and automated products, the rarity and the personalized touch that he imparted to his products gained massive traction and popularity with the masses, thus cajoling him into starting his own venture, Rare Planet-a startup with the motive of bringing back the flavor of uniqueness and exclusivity in all it's products and in the process, providing a lucrative platform for the local artisans to showcase their skills and for the general public to get their hands on something that's one of a kind. It became an instant hit with both the national and the international community. From selling cups and kulhads painted with famous pop culture references in Kolkata's schools and colleges to becoming India's second largest souvenir seller in travel retail segment with a presence in 85 Locations pan India including all major airports and premium Malls.Rare Planet has undeniably witnessed humongous success. Apart from being an excellent entrepreneur, Ranodeep is a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ rights and movement and is a champion of the local artisans as well, giving them both a platform and a source of livelihood. Not one to shirk away from the plight of the masses, Rare Planet eyes at employing a million artisans in a sustained way in the next five years and is constantly working to achieve this target.

Rashmi Chadha

A national level athlete, an impeccable businesswoman and most importantly an absolutely brilliant entrepreneur, Rashmi Chadha is not your regular, next door travel blogger. She is also a mentor to tonnes of women travellers across the nation as the CEO of the successful venture @wovoyage - a travel startup, which ensures that women travellers enjoy a trip that is not only worth their time and money but also one that provides a more consciousness-raising and stimulating travel experience. In 2016 while on a trip to London, she realised that female travellers still found India an unsafe destination and she decided to do something about it. She founded wovoyage , a venture sworn to the cause of making women travellers feel safe and comfortable throughout the country and bring the 'Incredible' back to Incredible India that she believes in. In the process, she aspires for WOVOYAGE to emerge as a strong and women-only travel network that empowers women across the nation and inspires them to rise above the conventional and the mundane.

Shibiraj H. Patel

Bachelor of Medicine, Specialises in sports physiology + Powerlifter + Researcher in Sports medicine

An absolute justification for what can be considered a brilliantly versatile soul, Shibiraj Patel has had an array of achievements and they couldn't be more diverse. A Powerlifter, and Bachelor of Medicine Shibiraj has definitely had multifaceted accomplishments. He is a researcher at the Indian Council of Medical Research. Having specialized in Nutritional Medicine and Sports Physiology, he spends time guiding others who share the same body and career goals. He is a member of the Gujarat Powerlifting Association and sports a physique that is as good as it gets and aims to propagate the practice of managing life in sustainable ways before turning towards bionic parts or other artificial alternatives. In his free time he loves painting, also represents Medical Students Association of India as Director of Public Relations and Communications.

Somlata Acharyya Chowdhury

It's not very common to hyphenate a musician and a lecturer in psychology but then Somlata Acharya Chowdhury was never an ordinary artist either. Having trained under another eminent paragon of Indian classical music, Pandit Biresh Roy, she started out at the tender age of 9. Owing to her dulcet voice and mellifluous singing, she quickly rose to stellar levels of success in the Tollywood music industry. Debuting as a playback singer in the crossover film, Pretty Woman, she went on to lend her voice to over 40 films, producing 4 solo albums on the way and an endless string of exceptionally popular music. Her band Somlata and the Aces, has had humongous success with her maneuvering the microphone and performed to exuberant audiences across the globe. She is a lecturer in Psychology at the Asutosh College and an absolutely brilliant one at that. Winner of a number of awards including the Mirchi Music Award for the Vocalist of the Year 2018, she was also bestowed with the Times Power Woman 2018 award owing to her colossal contributions to the industry and her stunning music skills. She also runs a radio show as a celebrity RJ on Ishq FM called Confessions with Somlata.

Suman Chakraborty

Winner of the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar prize, the Scopus Young Scientist Award and the only man to complete his Ph.D. in a paltry time of a year, Prof Suman Chakraborty has touched countless horizons of academia and needs absolutely no introduction. An alumnus of the mechanical engineering department of the Jadavpur University, he went on to bag the first spot in the merit list of GATE. He completed his Masters from the prestigious IISc Bangalore with a gold medal and a Senate Commendation for outstanding performance to his name. After a brief stint in the industry and as a lecturer, he eventually went on to complete his doctoral research from IISc. His work went on to win the Best International CFD Thesis award 2002 that he completed in a year. Thereafter he joined IIT Kharagpur as an assistant professor where he is currently the head of the School of Medical Science and Technology and also the Associate Dean of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy. With over 400 publications in journals of international repute and a never-ending list of citations to his name, Prof Suman Chakraborty is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, The Royal Society of Chemistry, and also The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The youngest fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, he is also a fellow of the INSA, the IAS, and the NASI. With the goal of providing novel medical diagnostic products at a low cost, he started his own company. For his innumerable contributions to the field of science and countless citations, he was awarded the Sir J. C. Bose National Fellowship, the highest fellowship awarded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.