Ignite Pune at ThoughtWorks

On 19 June 2009, ThoughtWorks successfully hosted Pune's first Ignite event.

Ignite is a platform where people from different walks of life can address a diverse crowd for just 5 minutes each, talking about something that they are passionate about and wished that society at large was listening.

Ignite Pune started as an idea pushed by Rajiv from ThoughtWorks' Bangalore office. He had helped coordinate such an event in Bangalore and thought that it was high time our Pune office did something similar too.

Nimarta, Manav, Mukesh, and I, all from Pune office, began preparing for the event, along with Rajiv's inputs. It was the first time we were holding such an event in our Pune office and we were all excited about it, especially since it was a non-techie event and seemed relevant to society in general... frankly speaking, it was such a fresh change from the hardcore techie events that we typically support.

In due time, we finished preparing our e-invites, our webpage, posters, etc, and began accepting topics from potential speakers. We tried our best to reach a diverse crowd, besides our IT regulars. In the end, we were pleased with the result of our efforts.

On THE day, we had a list of varied topics, and over 150 registrants from different backgrounds. We had doctors, teachers, students, government officials, and social activists among those who attended, besides IT professionals of course.

The event started with people trickling in, and ThoughtWorkers wrapping up their project work (it was Friday evening). While Manav, Nimarta, Mukesh helped set up the sound system and projectors, and coordinated with the speakers, I "entertained" the audience by grabbing a mike and going around among them asking random people random questions. I started by telling everyone how happy and proud I was to see such diversity in our typically tech-focused office, and how I'd like to know more about what backgrounds people came from. I ended up talking to an IT manager, a homeopathic doctor, a very young boy who wanted to become a scientist (and definitely not join IT!!), and so on.

Not long after, Nimarta took over and officially began the event. She gave everyone a brief background about what Ignite is and what we hoped to collectively achieve from it. She did a good job of setting the context, and then passed on the baton to our keynote speaker: Chai, our former GM of TW Pune, now our IS Global Head.

Then onward we had speaker after speaker come up on stage, each introduced by Nimarta (who had collected interesting tit-bits about every one of them!). Most of the speakers took only 5 mins or lesser (the timer, projected along with the presentation, might have helped). The ones who did cross the allotted 5 mins were rudely interrupted by an irritatingly noisy buzzer (we rang it once at 4 mins and again at 5 mins). Nimarta and I had originally hoped to get a huge gong, but sadly in these days of high-tech solutions, we weren't able to locate such a traditional low-tech tool.

We took a snack break midway where everyone gathered for some samosas and talked to each other. Sadly, most of the coordinators though were involved in preparing for the next round and didn't get to network as much.

Finally, after all the speakers had spoken, Nimarta invited Scott, TW Pune's new GM (recently moved in from TW Australia) to speak a few words and conclude the event. In the end, before people left, some of them spoke to us to let us know how much they appreciated our organizing such an event, and that they looked forward to more of such get-togethers in the near future.

It was a proud day for us, and we felt the success of the event said a whole lot about people's interest in bettering our society and our country in general.

I look forward to the next time we do an Ignite. Until then, if you missed the event, get a hold of the talks on YouTube:

• Chaitanya N, IS Head at ThoughtWorks, set the tone with his keynote speech "Give till it Hurts"
• Anthony Hsaio, Director at Sapna Solutions, contrasted the brain with computing machines
• Dr. Deepa Patil, a homeopathic doctor, spoke about the importance of spiritual healing
• Chirag Doshi, a developer at ThoughtWorks, shared his joy of flying kites, with great visuals and personal stories
• Joel Xavier, an instructor, impressed the crowd with a funny story tied to mentoring, attempting to convey the benefits of having a right mentor and becoming a good mentor yourself
• Audry, a social activist, drove to heart the fact that children have definite rights, and that we have a responsibility to ensure that they are upheld
• Gaurav Arora, a Project Manager with Alcatel Lucent, spoke of the need for innovation to come from India, and how such attempts can bring people together while helping India achieve visibility and acknowledgment
• Jay Nair, designer of the first telex machine in India, gave a session on recession, how it comes about, and the trends related to it
• Tarang Baxi, a Business Analyst at ThoughtWorks, made a hilarious case of how to ruin the planet in 10 easy ways, the satire clearly conveying a strong message to the audiences in a way they could relate
• Govind Rajan, a Project Manager with ThoughtWorks, talked about interviewing skills, with crisp, easy-to-remember points that can be directly implemented by an interviewer
• Paritosh Lal, a Business Analyst with Barclays, straightly told us all: "Its not you, its me!", basically conveying that if we desire a change in society, we have to be the first to implement it
• Dipali Ekbote, a marketing expert, showed us the importance of branding and how to do it right, taking industry examples
• Suneet Kotwal, a polymer engineer, gave a presentation on sustainable urban living, emphasizing the changes we'll need to bring about to build societies that can last longer without stressing out the environment around us
• Anushya Prasad, a Technical Writer at ThoughtWorks, used her experience of teaching underprivileged kids to speak about how to educate the right way, following up on themes touched upon by Chai and Audry
• Pankaj Sisodiya, a farmer turned software engineer, spoke about his passion for bikes, along with entertaining trivia about the history of bicycles, their various types, and benefits of biking
• Praveen Selvam, a developer at ThoughtWorks (UX being his specialty), engaged the audience with an anecdote about "Mr Oversmart Jr"
• Scott Shaw, GM at ThoughtWorks Pune, was called on impromptu to conclude the event

Tags: general:events, technology:thoughtworks, personal Last modified 14:05 Tue, 1 Sept 2009 by AmanKing. Accessed 440 times Children What Links Here Share Except where expressly noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.