Jamia Millia Islamia organizes TEDxJMI

By AN Shibli (NDChronicle.Com)

New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia in collaboration with TEDx organized an event called TEDxJMI on October 21, 2011 in the Dr. M A Ansari Auditorium. The Inaugural Session was held at 11 AM.

Najeeb Jung, Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia delivered the ‘Inaugural Address’ where he said that students must soak in this opportunity of learning from the very impressive line up of speakers who have all achieved the very best in their careers. He urged the students to excel in whatever they do and take pride in their work. Ms. Ayesha Hussein, Curator, TEDxJMI and a student at Jamia welcomed the impressive line up of guest which included Ms. Nandita Das, Dr. Sonal Mansingh, Ms. Sagarika Ghose, Mr. Roshan Abbas, Dr. Usha Albuquerque and many others.

The theme of TEDxJMI was ‘Switcheroo’ which had brought together people who  have succesfully made switches in their careers. The event was conceived with the idea that it is often thought that it is passion that should  take precedence over other reasons for choosing a career, and that it is important to follow one’s true vocation.

TEDxJMI was a unique opportunity for the student community of Jamia to draw unparalleled motivation from speakers who gave their imsights about the choices they made in their lives and their careers. It was to motivate them to develop into individuals who should pay heed to their true calling and breathe excellence by doing what they love doing.

Celebrated actress Ms. Nandita Das spoke about the need for blending passion with profession. She said that it is important to follow your passion in whatever you do and she gave very many examples from her own life and career to drive home this point. Roshan Abbas on the other had inspired students to understand the value of roots and said that just as students can learn a lot from their elders, the older generation can also learn very many new skills from the younger generation. Media Professional Sagarika Ghose spoke about the shift today from Media being a mirror to society, to it being an instrument of social change and talked of very many cases in recent history where media activism has made an impact. However, she also said that we do at the same time need regulatory bodies to monitor the role of media.

TEDxJMI was Jamia’s own TEDx event and it brought the worldwide popular TEDx format to Jamia. TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “Ideas worth spreading”. The programme was designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.