Cerebrate is an initiative to get the best thinkers and achievers from different fields together for four days of brainstorming and bonding. It’s a hybrid between an invite-only event and an unconference. Self-organized, Unstructured, Fun, yet Intellectual. Its TED meets FooCamp. We had a great experience in our past events and hope this year events are wonderful too.

List of Future Editions:

September 2010, Cerebrate Evenings, Chennai.

October 2010, Alampara, Chennai.

October 2010, The School of Ancient Wisdom, Bengaluru.

November 2010, Great Lakes, Chennai.

January 2011, Silicon Valley, US.

January 2011, Singapore.

Keep watching this blog for more updates on these events.

Cerebrate next edition is going to be held at School of Ancient Wisdom in Bengaluru.

The Dates: 22^nd – 24^th October 2010.

Here are some photos of The School of Ancient Wisdom taken by Mr. Rajiv Mathew who is an organizer of this Bengaluru event and keep on your eye to our blog for more details.

Krish Venkatesh, Chief Evangelist, yourstory.in has beautifully summarized the happenings of Cerebrate 2010…

“Designed in Unconference format with no declared agenda, the Cerebrate invitees (cerebrities) engage in ‘cerebral’ conversations and don’t give speeches. These conversations provide a unique experience to the cerebrities in which they share also their own personal journey. At times, they weave stories that are a delight to fellow cerebrities. Ideas are tossed around and several thoughts are assembled in the cerebrity minds, which one day is capable of a revolution. The incredible experience of great minds in a common location and the bonding the event creates is an experience of a lifetime. The ground rules are that no two people from the same field feature in an edition of Cerebrate. It is always a residential program and invitees who, for some reasons are unable to stay on at night, are flatly refused admission. Participants are discouraged from using technology gadgets and are encouraged to focus only on conversations. Access to TV and newspapers is deliberately kept away and Cerebrate is held in locations that are preferably outside cities.”

Please read the complete write up here

Kiruba Shankar, the man behind the idea of Cerebrate, explains the birth of Cerebrate and how the idea struck him…

“The first inspiration for Cerebrate came from Tim O’Reilly’s FooCamp. Every year he and his core team would selectively hand pick 300 achievers and thinkers from the field of technology and invite them for three days of camping and brainstorming. You just have to look at the photos of the event to realize how cool the event is. I loved the fact that people camp out at the Orchards and discussions happen in makeshift tents.”

read the complete post at Kiruba’s blog

‘Hustle bustle, noise, dust, dirt, traffic jams, crowd, and congestion’  a.k.a  ‘City Life’ has become a part and parcel of our day to day activities. No hotel or resort in the city gives us complete peace, because there the peace is confined only to the interiors.

We wanted to give the achievers a change, a change that will be remembered for the years to come. That is when we thought of the importance of location and the privacy.  The 4 days should be etched in their memory as few of the best days in their life. We decided to choose locations that offer whatever pleasantness that is missing in city life, like peace, freshness, room, privacy.

We tend to be at ease when there is more privacy and having audience heavily affects the privacy of discussion.  That is why we decided against public audience and that the achievers themselves would be the audience.

Ever felt at complete ease or as your natural self at conference? We guess no. That is why Cerebrate occurs as a Un-conference. We want people to be at ease so that they can open up their mind and heart and speak freely.

We saw that this strategy of ours was very much to the liking of the achievers from the feedback we got from the first edition. We decided to make this standard and the second edition received a similar feedback too. We are happy that we give the achievers 4 days of what the city life could not give. No cell phone, no schedules, no deadlines. Bliss!!We are looking forward towards the coming February hoping to receive another positive feedback.