Theme: Soaring High: Ideas Scaling New Heights

"The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Future is restricted only by the realms of our imagination. All through the history, the people who dared to dream, who refused to give up and pushed the limits of what is possible while actively chasing the impossible are the ones who are adored as pioneers. As Henry says, great people reach great heights, not because they are born great but because of the passion burning within them which spurs them on to the soaring heights.

In this edition of TEDxXLRI with the theme as Soaring Heights, we would be showcasing individuals who transcended the norm to achieve the impossible. We are looking at trailblazers who are actively redefining the limits of what is achievable. With a wide array of speakers we aim to inspire the student community to pursue greatness, do the unthinkable. Sky is not the limit to the committed mind!

XLRI -Xavier School of Management, Circuit House Area, Sonari
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, 831001
India

Anand Pillai

Managing Director of Leadership Matters Inc. and ex-Sr. Executive Vice President at Reliance Industries Ltd

Mr. Anand Pillai is the Managing Director of Leadership Matters Inc. and ex-Sr. Executive Vice President & Chief Learning Officer at Reliance Industries Ltd. He has been appointed to become a Member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership 2011, given his thought leadership in the field of Leadership & Innovation. With more than 31 years of rich experience in the corporate world, he has handled challenges in companies such as TATA Group (10 yrs), Hughes Network Systems and Bay Networks and HCL Technologies Ltd (14yrs). He has also been recognized as “HR Professional of the Year” 2008-09 and also given the HR Leadership award at the Global HR Excellence Awards and Pride of the Industry at the Star of India awards. Anand has been featured in the book “Leading with Wisdom” along with 30 other leaders (Steven Covey, Abdul Kalam to name a few) in the world.

Archana Sardana

BASE Jumper,Skydiver,Scuba Diver

Archana Sardana is India's first woman civilian BASE jumper, a certified skydiver, mountaineer and scuba diver. She has done 335 skydives, multiple BASE dives across the globe and is the first woman master-scuba diver trainer in India. She did India proud by unfurling the tri-colour at a depth of 30-meters in the ocean, off the Andaman’s Neil Island, and set a new record in the process. Apart from registering her name in the Limca Book of Records 2011, she has also performed a ‘free fall’ from a height of 13,500 feet, a BASE jump from a 400-feet high bridge in Utah, and mounted the KL Towers in Malaysia with the national flag. Interestingly, these dangerous feats have only come about post her marriage to a naval officer. Additionally Archana also has diploma in Interior Design and runs her own Scuba Diving Academy in Delhi.

Harish Iyer

Social Rights Activist

Harish Iyer is an activist for a number of socio-cultural and environmental issues. He is an equal rights activist, known for his campaigns for the rights of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community, children, women, animals as well as survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Pink Pages named him one of India's seven most influential gay and lesbian people and one of the ten individuals to be awarded the Zindagi Live Awards for his work in creating awareness on child sexual abuse. The Guardian, the British national daily named him in the list of the 100 most influential LGBT people in the world for 2013. He has engaged in several awareness campaigns to educate the general population. He has not only written articles and letters on the subject, but also appeared on top national television news shows to highlight the plight of the LGBT community in India.

Kunal Rao

Comedian

Kunal is a retired chartered accountant who decided to ditch his day job of filing tax returns to pursue a life of comedy He debuted his comedy from comedy tour Holy Krao in 2012 , successfully touring it across 6 cities in India. Having performed over 300 shows across India and appearing on ET Now and Channel V as a comedian, Kunal is one the most experienced comedians in the country. He has also written humor columns for Mid-Day, HT Brunch, Hindustan Times and Maxim.

Mani Vajipeyajula

Founder and CEO, Banyan Nation

Mani Vajipeyajula is the founder and C.E.O. of Banyan Nation, an organization that aims to transform the solid waste management landscape in India through technological innovations, better practices and grassroots activism. Banyan is a high technology social venture that takes an integrated approach to recycling by innovating across the entire value chain right from pre-sorting and collection to post-sorting and processing. He has dual M.B.A.s from Columbia Business School and UC Berkley. Mani quit his lucrative job in the Silicon Valley to achieve his purpose of solving waste management crisis in India.

Meghna Pant

Novelist and Financial Journalist

Meghna Pant is an Indian novelist and financial journalist. After completing an undergraduate degree in Economics and Statistics from St. Xavier College, Mumbai, Meghna won a scholarship for a MBA in Finance at Nanyang Business School, Singapore, and a Masters in International Management at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. After her MBA, Meghna moved on from a job in corporate finance to become a business journalist. She began her career as a TV anchor with Arnab Goswami at Times Now, and went on to work for NDTV Profit in Mumbai and Bloomberg-UTV in New York City, where she reported from the New York Stock Exchange. She has met and interviewed President Obama, Mukesh Ambani, Sir Richard Branson, Hillary Clinton, Ratan Tata and Shah Rukh Khan, among others. Meghna is the author of One & A Half Wife and Happy Birthday!

Rajiv Jayaraman

Founder and CEO, KNOLSKAPE

Rajiv Jayaraman, an INSEAD MBA and a BITS-Pilani alumnus, is an entrepreneur. He is the founder-CEO of KNOLSKAPE, a Singapore / Bangalore based software company that focuses on management training, assessment and research. KNOLSKAPE's products and services are used at top-10 B-schools across the world and in Fortune 500 companies. He has been featured in Economic Times, ET Now, Digital Learning magazine, Entrepreneur magazine. He trains senior managers and consultants at leading companies on technology management skills. Prior to KNOLSKAPE, Rajiv worked at Oracle USA in the server technologies division, where he led numerous product development efforts from the ground-up. His technology experience combined with his business skills give him a unique edge in helping companies bridge the Business-IT divide.

Rasika Shekar

Musician

Rasika Shekar is a trained vocalist and flautist both in Carnatic and Hindustani classical music. Born in Dubai and raised in the US, Rasika Shekar's global footprint is evident in her sound. Rasika started her journey with a tour of the U.S. accompanying the Ghazal legend Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan as a vocalist. She then made her Bollywood playback debut with national-award-winning composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. She is also the voice behind Bollywood songs ‘Hulla Re’ from Karan Johar’s movie 2 States and ‘Daiyya Maiyya’ from YashRaj Film’s Kill Dil. Rasika has been performing solo Carnatic flute concerts at various venues in the United States, Dubai, Chennai and Mumbai and has won numerous awards along the way. She performed on MTV's Coke Studio season 2 as a featured flautist on Ehsaan & Loy's production single 'Man Patang.' Her playing received a striking response and won hearts across the subcontinent.