Nikhil Velpanur on stage at Jain University
INK presented five speakers – Nikhil Velpanur, Karthik Naralasetty, Sachin Kukke, Sarath Champati and Charles Ma at Jain International Global Campus on the 20th April, 2012. The atmosphere of the session was exhilarating as students were mesmerized by the quality of talks presented to them.
The session started off with TED Fellow Nikhil Velpanur who set the mood on an all time high. He spoke about the journey he took which ultimately paved the way to his new project – Approves.it! His enthusiasm and ideas motivated the students and got them thinking about innovation and breaking the rules. Our second speaker was a young entrepreneur, Karthik Naralasetty, a dropout from Rutgers University. In 2011, he set up a project aimed at connecting people with thalassemia, a genetic blood disease, with potential blood donors through a social platform called Social Blood Org. Students were amazed by his work and applauded him for his efforts and humility to help others in need.
Our third speaker was Sachin Kukke, the winner of YouTube’s 2012 Space Lab contest for the Asia Pacific region. Sachin explained how he won this competition and told the audience what it was like to spend time at NASA and experience zero gravity. Being only a first year student from BMSCE, the crowd was very impressed with his achievements at such a young age.
Towards the middle of the session, INK took a break from speakers to give students from Jain University an opportunity to share their ideas. INK recognized three students who won a competition called Triggering Thoughts, and two students actually got on stage and presented their ideas. One student advocated creating a conceptual digital database for degradation solutions for soil contaminated by pesticides. The other student wanted to create an online database to connect students looking for sponsorship for their education to potential sponsors.
The fourth speaker was Sarath Champati, a wildlife photographer. Sarath presented his talk with the great passion. He pitched his profession in a very picturesque manner and was undoubtedly a crowd favorite. Our final speaker was Bharatanatyam dancer Charles Ma. Charles was extremely enthusiastic and upbeat, connecting well with the audience and wowing the crowd with his new Bharatanatyam piece. His advice to follow your passion left a great impact on the audience.
The University was delighted to have us and the response to this event was overwhelming. At the end of the session, we asked students to leave comments on a speaker board that was just outside the auditorium. From reading the comments one could tell that the speakers did leave an impact on the students and INK had given the students an opportunity to be inspired!
By Meghna Ashok, INK intern
April 30, 2012
