Women to take centrestage at first TEDx session in Asia on May 29

MUMBAI: "Empowered women empower women," said Yashraj Akashi, senior ambassador and curator of TEDx India, about the rallying cry behind the upcoming TEDxGateway women's conference on May 29.
It's the first-ever TEDxGatewayWomen, an independently organized conference in Asia to focus entirely on the ways in which women are effecting global change and contributing to the future.
Akashi spent three months meticulously selecting 12 dynamic women as speakers from across the world, including entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors, artists and activists. "But we don't look at finding the speaker first, instead taking an idea and working from there. It's not just about getting some big-name speaker, as the idea should be bigger than the persona," he explained.
So following through on TED's slogan, "Ideas worth sharing," Akashi has honed on a number of topics that bear mentioning in today's time, but approached in novel ways. These include issues around menstruation, artificial intelligence, inheritance and our judicial system. "We pride ourselves by saying that our audience is a flash mob of helpful people. You give them an idea that has a defined boundary and they will jump onto it," he added. And it is for this reason that many of the speakers thrilled to be on the roster, like Upasana Makati, who sees "getting to meet a thousand energetic like-minded people as a very big opportunity." As the founder and publisher of White Print, India's first English lifestyle magazine in Braille, Makati is familiar with the impact TEDx conferences can make having spoken at one in Hyderabad last year.
"After the talk, the subscriptions increased. But more importantly, I met really wonderful people who volunteered to help me in my venture," she said.