KJ SIMSR Horizon Dec - 2014 issue Dec 2014 | Page 16

INTERFACE

TEDxGateway Campus Connect@SIMSR
Cynthia Koenig’s
career focuses
on incubating
mission-based
businesses
designed to
alleviate poverty
in the developing
world.
TEDxGateway Sept

The much awaited TEDxGateway event finally
happened. This event was organized by SIMSR in
association with Pathfinder Innovation &
Entrepreneurship Cell. The event was initialized by
Prof. Radha Iyer who talked about what a TED talk
is, what is the difference between “TED” and
“TEDx”, and introduced the TED Speaker who was
a SIMSR alumnus, Anand Damani.
Anand Damani is from the 2000 batch of SIMSR.
He is currently working in behavioral science and is
famous for his BLeeP device. His TEDx Talk which
happened last year was screened and was greatly

enjoyed by the students. It was then followed by the
Question and Answer session and students
interacted with him enthusiastically. He also invited
students at SIMSR to present their own idea and
promised to assist them in achieving it. The SIMSR
alumnus also declared he would provide internship
to some of our students who showed great
potential.
The next speaker of the evening was Cynthia
Koenig. Cynthia is an entrepreneur whose career
focuses on incubating mission-based businesses
designed to alleviate poverty in the developing
world. The video of her TEDx Talk
which happened two years ago
was played and students loved
the idea of her social venture Wello. It was then followed by an
interactive Question and Answer
session which made students
realize how even simple ideas
can be so creative.
The students enjoyed and
learned from the experiences of
both the speakers and the event
was concluded by penning down
the ideas for new causes - A
Better Country, A Better City and
Women Empowerment.

Participants at TEDxGateway

10

December 2014