About one thousand delegates from 35 countries have gathered at the Infosys campus in

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Mysore for TED’s first conference in Asia. The conference devoted to ‘ideas worth spreading’ is brought to India by TED (short for technology, entertainment, design).

The conference will see speakers representing diverse fields of specialisation from India and abroad sharing their ideas in the typical 18-minute TED-style presentation. Hans Rosling, global health expert, and a person who identified a new paralytic disease in rural Africa, will open the conference on November 5. Other speakers on the first day include scientist RA Mashelkar; Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos; Pranav Mistry, a PhD researcher at MIT Media Lab; and software guru Scott Cook.

Other speakers include the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, management guru, CK Prahalad, Sendhil Mullainathan from Harvard University, herpetologist Romulas Whitaker, playwright Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologues fame, actor Abhay Deol and film director Shekhar Kapur. Interspersing these 18-minute talks will be performances by percussionist Sivamani, singer Usha Uthup and choreographer Longinus Fernandes of Slumdog Millionaire’s ‘Jai Ho’ fame.

TEDIndia has also announced 103 TEDIndia Fellows selected through a unique programme to identify outstanding individuals who have shown “unusual accomplishment, exceptional courage and moral imagination”.

Lakshmi Pratury: TEDIndia director, said: “It is the greatest knowledge equaliser in the world.” Ram Shriram, founder of Sherpalo Ventures, calls it the “brain spa where you get your brain enriched”. “I am excited because it is the first opportunity to be able to put together a quality programme with great content like this for a diverse and remarkably smart Indian audience,” he said.

“I look forward to the day when some young kid on the intenet in India looks at one of these TED talks. Here’s it. And gets inspired to do something life-changing for himself and all Indians,” said Shriram.