‘Experts over celebs’ at Kosambi festival this year

Panaji: Experts with great oratory skills have been given priority over celebrity status at the 10th edition of DD

Kosambi Festival

of Ideas, that will be inuagurated on February 13 at 5pm at Kala Academy.

“Over the decade, we have had to attract crowds by inviting glamourous speakers. But this year, we have given importance to good orators over celeb quotient. These speakers will deliver strong content in their talks,” said art and culture director Prasad Lolyekar.

The festival will open with Sandesh Kadur’s talk on India’s mountains of life on February 13. An award-winning wildlife photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Kadur, through the use of still images and videos, exposes the need for conservation and protection of the planet’s biodiversity.

On February 14, Shubha Tole, a neuroscientist whose research involves investigating the development and evolution of the mammalian brain, will speak on ‘wiring up the brain’.

Sugata Mitra, known for his ‘Hole In The Wall’ experiment wherein a computer was embedded in a Delhi slum wall in 1999 for children’s use, will speak on the future of learning on February 15.

Co-founder of NGO Sangath, Vikram Patel will speak on ‘people’s health in people’s hands: reimagining health care’ on February 16. Patel was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

The concluding session on February 17 will be by Jack Sim, who founded the World Toilet Organization in 2001. Sim, widely known as ‘Mr Toilet’ for breaking the taboo around sanitation, will speak on creating a global movement for sanitation. It is due to Sim’s efforts that November 19 has been declared as UN World Toilet Day.

The festival will be inaugurated by IAS officer Daulat Hawaldar.