The list of invitees will shortly be published.  The selection process is under way.  We are on the look out for achievers from various fields. If you know an achiever, please nominate the person .

1. Dr. Balaji Sampath, Founder CEO, AID India
2. Anusha R Mahesh, CEO, Park Group of Institutions, Coimbatore & Chennai
3. Eric Miller, Storytelling and Videoconferencing Educator and Artist
4. Kishi Arora, TED Fellow, Food Consultant
5. Kakoli Sen, Visual Artist, Consultant, Visual Arts IB Teacher & Examiner
6. R V Rajan, Chairman, Anugrah Madison Advertising Pvt. Ltd.
7. Kuruvilla Abraham, marketing, sponsorship and media management specialist
8. Seetha Gopal, GM RAB India
9. Sridhar Lakshmanan, CoFounder, EcoLogin
10. Vijay K Raghavan, Ex MD and CEO, Banyan Networks
11. Arun Nair, Senior Manager, Marketing at Club Mahindra
12. Kiruba Shankar, CEO of Business Blogging and Founder Director, F5ive Technologies
13. Rajiv Mathew, Global Marketing Specialist

Dr. Balaji Sampath, Founder CEO, AID India

Balaji Sampath, 4th in the IIT JEE All India Rank, B.Tech in Electronics followed by a PhD in the US. Instead of travelling the usual beaten and easier path of pursuing a successful career in a multi-national, Balaji returned to India to work in villages helping in improving education, health and quality of life of the poor. 

In the initial years his efforts were in developing and scaling up solutions to children’s malnutrition. Later he began focusing his attention on Education. Recognizing the fact that the challenge in Education is in ensuring quality on a large scale, Balaji and his organization, AID INDIA, spent several years developing low-cost, high quality kits and methods that could improve learning quality on a large scale. Later AID INDIA scaled up its activities and worked with 13000 villages across the Tamilnadu and reached out to over two million poor children in villages. Balaji is now leading a new initiative by AID INDIA to provide high-quality after school support to poor and marginalized children in villages. 

Balaji’s innovative work in education has won him several awards – Ashoka Fellowship, Pratham USA Achievement Award, Lemelson Inventor Certificate, MIT Indus Technovator’s Award, etc. AID INDIA’s methods have been adopted by several other NGOs and the Govt. Balaji has also authored several popular books on science and runs a successful book publication called Eureka Books. Balaji has also been running a successful IIT JEE Physics Enrichment classes.  He has also been conducting a popular weekly science experiments show on Sun TV.   Balaji is also on the board of several non-profits – AID INDIA, Pratham Tamilnadu Education Initiative, Ekam Foundation and Disha Foundation. 

   | Hindu Article

Anusha R Mahesh, CEO, Park Group of Institutions, Coimbatore & Chennai. 

Anusha R Mahesh is CEO, Park Group of Institutions, Coimbatore & Chennai. Prior to this she has worked with Onair communications (an Airbus subsidiary), and Annheuser Busch, USA

Anusha is an  Active Rotarian , is also the president elect for 2010-11 for the all women rotary club AAKRUTHI of Coimbatore. She is the trustee of “aravanaippu” which helps motherless or fatherless children with school to college fees with NRI funds. Till date 1000 children have been benefited. The goal is to have 25000 children benefit over next 5 to 10 years. She is also a member of the TED community actively spreading new ideas to the world and an organizing committee member of ASTIA.org which is a US based organization entering India for facilitating venture capitalists for women entrepreneurs.

| Article on Hindu | BL Article

Eric Miller -- Storytelling and Videoconferencing educator and artist

Eric co-founded the World Storytelling Institute in Chennai in 2007.  The WSI’s mission is to study, teach, and develop forms of  storytelling.  The WSI specialises in teacher and parent training, and  also organises Storytelling Tours to the countryside, so that visitors can hear and tell stories with people who live there (with translation  when needed).   
Eric loves videoconferencing and uses it especially for facilitating  performance of, training in, and discussions about forms of  storytelling.  His phd dissertation introduces the concept of  Ethnographic Videoconferencing, which he presents as an evolutionary  development of Ethnographic Photography, and Ethnographic Film and 
Video.  He is delighted that the 3G networks are finally coming into  effect, as he is convinced that video calling can go a long way towards  overcoming the types of alienation associated with modern civilisation  such as loneliness and unemployment. 
Eric has taught for the past two years at a college in Chennai that  trains students in the design of 3D animation, cinema visual effects,  and computer games.  Here Eric teaches story-analysis and story-making  for movie and games, ways of making games based on stories, and history  and methods of interactive technology.  He is also preparing a  screenplay based on a story of his own for an English-language feature  movie, complete with singing and dancing, to be shot mostly in Tamil  Nadu. 
Eric is a native New Yorker, transplanted to Chennai.  He is married to  Magdalene Jeyarathnam, a native of Chennai and founder-director of  Chennai’s Center for Counselling.

Deccanchronicle | Storytellingandvideoconferencing

Kishi Arora, TED Fellow, Food consultant

A pastry chef by profession and also a TED fellow, Kishi Arora, spends her day dreaming up ways to tickle surprise and indulge the taste buds of discerning foodies in Delhi.   

Graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce, she went to US and joined Culinary Institute of America, specialized in baking and pastry and was awarded the best international student scholarship with the highest GPA.  

She has previously worked in the Four Seasons Hotel in California and Singapore. Since her return from US, she has been studying the Indian market and related trends. Kishi started ‘Foodaholics’, a Dessert shop. Now Foodaholics extends consultancy services to organisations and enterprises involved in food business. Other services include new product development and training kitchen staff. Kishi has also created some interesting savoury flavours such as Mama Mia and Amazing Chaat, among others. 

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Kakoli Sen, Visual Artist, Consultant, Visual Arts IB teacher & Examiner

Graduated from Delhi University, did her diploma in Commercial Art from Polytechnic, New Delhi. She learnt painting simultaneously from Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi.  She also did Art Appreciation Course & India Art & Culture Course from National Museum, New Delhi.

Kakoli has held twenty three successful solo shows & has also participated in various group shows in India & abroad. She has participated in various camps & workshops.

She is also a Visual Arts IB teacher & an examiner. She has set up the Art Department in
China’s one of IB Diploma school & still is working as a consultant for various IB schools in India & abroad. At present she is busy doing some collaborative art projects & documentary film making.

She is a recipient of various national & international awards and also a recipient of Human Resource Development Ministry’s junior fellowship.

R V Rajan, Chairman, Anugrah Madison Advertising Pvt. Ltd.

After an event-packed career start in Bombay (Clarion McCann) and later with the multinational Kenyon Eckhart. Rajan became the CEO of a national ad agency, Advertising Consults India Ltd or ACIL, a sister company of Clarion at 31.

Moving to Chennai in 1974 to rejoin Grant Kenyon Eckhart, Rajan founded his own agency, Anugrah Marketing in 1986. He gradually developed a reputation for rural communication, on the basis of his contributions to several agriculture-based clients such as Shaw Wallace, EID Parry, BASF and the MRF Farm Tyre Division. He was founder-president for four years of the Rural Marketing Association of India, set up in 2005.

His flair for institution-building, problem-shooting and documentation was tapped by voluntary organizations such as Round Table India and Rotary International as well as by professional bodies such as the Singapore-based AMIC (Asian Media and Research Centre), PRSI ( Public Relations Society of India), AAAI ( Advertising Agencies Association of India), RMAI (Rural Marketing Association of India) and Ad Club, Madras. While heading the Ad Club (1993-95) he started the first ever professional post-graduate diploma course in advertising by any Ad Club in the country, which has been running successfully for 15 years.

Convert every challenge into an opportunity, is Rajan’s driving principle. It has led to success on many fronts and generous recognition: the Round Table India’s Distinguished Service Award (1984); the Outstanding Service Award from WAN-IFRA, a newspaper publishing industry body (2009) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from RMAI (2009).
He has recently published his autobiography titled ‘Courage my Companion’ a candid fact-packed fast-moving description of his personal, professional and extra-curricular life. It makes for compelling and rewarding reading.

Kuruvilla Abraham, marketing, sponsorship and media management specialist

Kuruvilla Abraham is a marketing, sponsorship and media management specialist, with a background of 26 years of work experience. 10 years with ITC Ltd., in sales, distribution and marketing, in its tobacco division followed by 16 years as the founder and Managing Director of TNQ Sponsorship (India) Private Limited.  TNQ Sponsorship (India) Private Limited is a marketing services, public relations, sports marketing and celebrity management company based in Chennai, India.

He set up and headed ITC's Brand Sponsorships Group, which controlled sponsorship activity for all ITC's tobacco brands. Consequently, he has had extensive experience in organising both domestic and international sports events in India.

Seetha Gopal, GM RAB India

Gopal heads Medley Events & Marketing LLC as General manager. Starting off her career in the banking industry, her creative urge motivated her to have her own identity and branch out into the business of organising, marketing and consultancy in the areas of event management, exhibitions and corporate training.

Residing in Muscat for the past six years, she has spent more than 15 years in the Gulf region. Apart from her full-time professional commitments, she is committed to giving back to the society. Based on the fact that constant inspiration and enhancement is the need of every individual, she has strived to break new ground in Oman with special passion and efforts in the areas of child development, youth progress and improving the social fabric by empowering them with the right tools to face the modern day challenges. Her pet project, a weekend club “Destination Dynamism” for children aims to give them a permanent platform for new opportunities, perspectives, encouragement and a sense of belonging.

Sridhar Lakshmanan, CoFounder, EcoLogin

Sridhar is a management graduate from IIMA who chose a different path to work in development sector, he has been exploring the possibilities of introducing technology in marginalized communities and see if it could create a positive impact in their lives. He specializes in introduction of latest technologies to marginalized communities and devising ways of seeking acceptance for them. some of his work includes the one for EID Parry in their e kiosk model facilitating agriculture produce procurement  8 yrs back, for Dr.Reddys foundation  in their tribal livelihood program, for Philips in their mobile telemedicine program and also for UNDP for using latest technologies for early warning alert communication systems for people affected by tsunami in in coastal areas.

He is  also the  founder of ecologin - a tourism company that promotes  " meaningful holidays" which he feels strongly that when holidays are designed with a conscious effort they   can impact the lives of the people in remote areas through technology intervention which is facilitated through their NGO initiative  - BASECAMP.

Vijay K Raghavan, Ex MD and CEO, Banyan Networks

Completed B Tech:  Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and MBA from University of Rochester, USA he was the VP & CFO:  Sykes Datatronics, Inc. Telecommunications, Rochester, New York,   USA. , MD and CEO:  Banyan Networks Ltd. (Chennai) and Director:  A F Ferguson & Co., Management Consultants (Chennai)

He is an active Rotarian. Vijay headed tsunami relief and rehabilitation project in Nagapattinam.

Organizers

Arun Nair, Senior Manager, Marketing at Club Mahindra

Arun Nair is Senior Manager, Marketing at Club Mahindra and heads their web-initiatives. He is also the brainchild behind Cerebrate along with Kiruba Shankar.

Arun is a strong advocate of social media and web 2.0 and has successfully spawned a few initiatives - including a popular travel and holiday blog.

Recently, his efforts at leveraging the social media won him the prestigious and coveted "Best Practise" award across the entire Mahindra & Mahindra group.

For the period 1999-2002, Arun was the Indian representative for Takingitglobal.org, and part of the executive committee.

Arun is an avid reader, and also a prolific writer. He contributes to the NASSCOM blog, a few travel blogs and his own blog Indianeye.org where he writes on technology, business and social media.

Kiruba Shankar, CEO of Business Blogging and Founder Director, F5ive Technologies

Kiruba Shankar is CEO of Business Blogging and Founder Director of F5ive Technologies. Prior to this, he was Associate Director at Sulekha.com.

Kiruba is one of the founders of The Knowledge Foundation, the group behind successful events like BlogCamp, India's Biggest Unconference on Blogging, Proto.in, premiere event showcasing startups.

Kiruba loves teaching and teaches at Madras Advertising Club and Asian College of Journalism. He has lectured at IIT Madras, IIM Bangalore and IIM Kozhikode.

He is a professional podcaster and hosts a show called 'The Kiruba Show' where he interviews CEOs of Indian IT companies. BusinessWorld Magazine ranks his blog Kiruba.com as one of India's top blogs.

Kiruba is a rowing champion and has captained the Sify Rowing Team to four championship titles. He has participated in Chennai and Bangalore marathons.

Kiruba has authored 4 books so far, latest one titled Unconference. His earlier books are ‘Wikipedia : A Beginner’s Guide’, ‘Crowdsourcing Tweet’ and ‘Personal Branding Tweet’. His next book is titled, ‘Engage : How Global Organizations Successfully Use Social Media’.

He has authored technology columns at the New Indian Express, Business Standard and Financial Express Newspaper . He is an official blogger for NASSCOM and IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India).

Kiruba is the Ambassador for TEDx program for India. He has helped organize TEDxChennai. He is the curator of Cerebrate.in, an international event for achievers.

Rajiv Mathew, Global Marketing Specialist

With more than 5 years of total work experience, Rajiv Mathew currently works as a Global Marketing Specialist where he designs and implements marketing strategies for the global market. His expertise lies in Marketing Communication, Online Marketing, Recruitment Marketing, Internal Communication, Public Relations, Business Development Events, Collateral Design, Sales Enablement, Social Media & Brand Management.
 Prior to this, he was with Oracle for 2 years as a sales rep for the North American market. He won the “Best Outgoing Student Award 2003-05” from CCIM and Best Rookie Award for Oracle Direct Q1 FY06” from Oracle Corp.

He has written several articles in all leading news papers and delivered guest lectures and presented papers in leading Business Schools. Rajiv was the Host of Ignite Bangalore 2, a fast paced social gathering.