TEDIndia 2009 commences in Mysore

The first-ever TED conference in Indiacommenced at the Infosys campus here today.

Speakers expected at the four-day TEDIndia include TonyHsieh, CEO, Zappos.com; Eve Ensler, playwright and activist;Horst Rechelbacher, the founder of Aveda and IntelligentNutrients; Charles Anderson, marine biologist; and JibEllision, sustainability expert.

Indian speakers include Minister of State for ExternalAffairs Shashi Tharoor, management guru C K Prahalad, filmDirector Shekhar Kapur, Yogi Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, filmactor Abhay Deol and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, amongothers.

TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to "Ideas WorthSpreading". It started as a four-day conference in California25 years ago.

Chris Anderson, TED curator and host, said, "The responseto TED in India has surpassed our expectations. A major stepin trying to make TEDTalks and ideas accessible to a wideraudience was our Open Translation Project, which we launchedwith the help of our partner Nokia in May this year".

Besides the three-day stage programme featuring TED's18-minute talks, the event would also include musicalperformances by Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan, UshaUthup and Mukul Deora, dance performances by LonginusFernandes and Sidi Goma, as well as comedy from Dan Nainan.