05 November 2009

TEDIndia Session 3: Wonder. Wonders.

Photo: Pranav Mistry at TEDIndia, Session 3, “Wonder. Wonders.” November 5, 2009, in Mysore, India. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

A round-up of Session 3 from TEDIndia:

Chris Anderson opens up the session reminding the audience of TED’s purpose: to re-awaken wonder. The TED experience is about channeling curiosity, which develops into wonder.

Pawan Sinha sheds light on the dual challenges confronting blind children in India. The chances of a child getting adequate medical treatment are slim-to-none. Hospitals are not equipped to care for children and there is a high risk of receiving harmful “treatment” from someone who lacks credentials. Faulty, outdated studies — which claim that blind children’s brains cannot learn visual processing after age four — continue to shape medical opinions about child blindness. Sinha has developed Project Prakash to tackle both challenges. Through the project, Sinha has experienced successes with post-surgery children by teaching them how to distinguish objects through exposure to dynamic information. Learn more about Pawan Sinha here >>

Pranav Mistry is redefining how we use objects and gestures to interact with the digital world. He developed the Sixth Sense device to satisfy his impulse to paint the physical world with digital information. Using a camera that understands human gestures, the Sixth Sense has extraordinary capabilities. Mistry’s technology is integrating the digital and physical worlds, rather than forcing us to switch back and forth between the two. Learn more about Pranav Mistry here >>

Romulus Whitaker explains how water is integral to the habitats of two iconic reptiles — the King Cobra and the Gharial crocodile — as well as humans. Whitaker’s work to preserve reptilian species overlaps with humans, who are dependent on the same water sources. The Western Ghats, for example, supplies drinking water to at least 300 million people and produces countless pounds of rice for human consumption. However, water pollution threatens the livelihood of humans and reptiles alike. We must all come together, says Whitaker — the corporates, the environmentalists, and the everyday folks — in order to restore these threatened habitats. Learn more about Romulus Whitaker here >>

Lara Stein shares the global momentum of the TEDx program with a short video. Over 200 independently organized events have taken place in the past months and more are scheduled everyday. Events of all sizes — from TEDxKibera (held in a small church in one of the world’s largest slums) to TEDxDubai (over 1,000 people attended) — are engaging attendees through TED-like experiences at the local level. Learn more about TEDx here >>

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev recounts his journey to arrive at the conclusion that life is not human-centric; rather, experience is created from within the individual. He contends the body is just a piece of planet borrowed, and the boundaries of sensation determine who someone is and is not. He says people should embrace the separation of body and mind, and expand their boundaries of sensation to experience everyone as himself or herself. Empathy is natural to humans, so by including the experience of as many people as possible within our boundaries, we can conquer every pressing problem on the planet. Learn more about Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev here >>

Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan combine classical piano and traditional Indian vocals to perform a beautiful fusion of Eastern and Western song. They play music the way they interpret it and like to perform it, and hope to create an “atmosphere of possibility” for people to come together and create new wonders through a culture of inclusion. Learn more about Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan here >>

More TEDIndia coverage:
Comprehensive TEDIndia coverage >>
Read minute-to-minute updates on the TEDNews Twitter feed >>

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