TEDxGateway: 5 Passionate & Amazing People Who Prove That No Dream Is Impossible

This article has been published in partnership with TEDxGateway

Passion, determination and hard work are three important things needed to achieve any goal or dream. However, having a role model who has made a name for themselves in the same field is equally important for the times when you feel like giving up.

Why? Well, sometimes just listening to people who braved all the odds with their unconventional routes can be incredibly motivating.

That’s exactly what will happen at TEDxGateway this year, which is all set to be held in Mumbai on 23 February 2020. This edition, 20+ speakers who have ideas and innovations that matter in diverse fields across technology, innovation and entertainment, will be invited to share their stories and experiences. And readers of The Better India can use the code ‘TBI05’ and avail 5% discount to book their tickets for the event. Book here at www.tedxgateway.com

Here’s an insight into the lives of some of the speakers.

1. Dr. Shruti Kapoor

Dr. Shruti Kapoor was among the many who were left shaken by the brutal rape of a 23-year-old female in Delhi. Unwilling to be a silent bystander any longer, she decided to help women take charge of their own safety, and it is to end the violence against women she started Sayfty. The organisation primarily provides training in self-defense for women, she conducts workshops on good touch and bad touch for children. They also educate women about their legal rights and how to deal with assaults.

To bridge the knowledge gap for survivors, the organization has created a ‘Sayfty Survivors’ toolkit for survivors of sexual assault. The toolkit has interviews with professionals and survivors that give an insight about legal procedures, emotional support, mental healthcare, and so on.

Dr. Kapoor is an active member of the UN Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development and Gender Equality Task Force. For her impactful work, she was named as one of the most influential people in global policy in 2019 by Apolitical. The same year, the Ministry of Women and Child Development honoured her as one of the “30 #WebWonderWomen.” In 2016, The White House nominated Dr. Kapoor as a change-maker for The United State of Women’s Summit.

2. Danish Siddiqui

Mumbai-based Danish Siddiqui was a part of the seven-member Reuters team that won Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2018.

Their series that documented the atrocities faced by Myanmar’s minority Rohingya community and their mass exodus to Bangladesh.
A picture of a Rohingya woman falling to her knees on a shore with a group of men offloading their belongings in the background taken by Siddiqui is one of the most striking images that is a part of the series.

Danish has undertaken varied assignments–including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Nepal earthquake and a photo series on Muslim converts in England.

His work has featured in various prestigious newspapers and magazines like National Geographic Magazine, New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

3. Rishab Jain

After receiving his title of ‘America’s Top Young Scientist’ in October 2018, Rishab Jain, an Indian-origin teenager from Oregon, USA, was named amongst Time’s 25 Most Influential Teens the same year.

The honour was bestowed upon him for coming up with an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to accurately locate and track the pancreas in real-time during MRI-guided radiotherapy.

Since the tools track the pancreas in the scan itself, the radiation can directly hit the pancreas, thus treating the tumour more effectively during chemotherapy.

He tested his algorithm using images of the human digestive system and found it could correctly detect the pancreas with a 98.9 per cent success rate.

His pioneering work also went on to win the top prize at the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge that got him a grant of $25,000.

4. Vrishab Krishna

It only takes two pictures for a mobile application called ‘Kanna’ to detect amblyopia, a visual development disorder where a child slowly loses vision leading to blindness.

All one has to do is click two images, one in low light and other in ambient light and upload it on the application, which uses patent-pending image processing and machine learning algorithms to detect amblyopia and releases the results immediately.

The application has been built by 16-year-old Vrishab Krishna and his elder brother Viswesh from Bengaluru and is so simple that even a layman can operate it.

5. Jigyasa Labroo

Jigyasa’s experiences as a teacher in a low-income community made her question power & privilege, but bringing poetry to her children also brought her hope.

Deeply passionate about equal opportunity for all children, her fellowship at Teach For India made a segway into designing learning experiences to build a culture of student leadership.

Gradually, she started focusing on the deprioritization of art education around the world and started Slam Out Loud – a non-profit mission to enable children from disadvantaged communities find their voice through creative expression.

Slam Out Loud currently reaches 50000 children across 4 states in India. It was recognised as one of the most inspiring education innovations in the world by HundrEd and won the social entrepreneurship challenge at Unleash+.

Jigaysa has also been an Arts for Good fellow at the Singapore International, a recipient of the Gold International Award for Young People and as an entrepreneur has been incubated by the Government of Delhi.

Edited by Gayatri Mishra

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