Theme: Embracing Uncertainty

The quality of abstraction being the most essential attribute of a theme, we chose “Embracing Uncertainty” as ours because it signifies many different perspectives across people of all ages and fields, be it how a few seconds can change the color of a medal for a sportsperson, how the momentary lapse of judgment can mean life or death to a soldier or how having the faith to risk it all for a passion turned out to be a game changer for a well settled middle aged man.

Little do we understand that uncertainty is an existential constant. To be in control, to ascertain, to know the unknown is in our nature. Encouraged by an endless curiosity and drive to predict and assume, we tend to forget that the charm of life resides in steering your ship through uncharted waters, not knowing everything yet having faith, being clueless yet at peace with the unknown, open to the journey that the nomadic winds take you on.

Symbiosis Vishwabhawan
S.B. Road
Pune, Maharashtra, 411016
India

Apurv Inamdar

Performance

Bhushan Harshe

Mountaineer (Summited Mt. Everest in 2013)

Mr. Bhushan Harshe, born and brought up in Pune, began to go for small hikes in his schooldays. A passionate mountaineer and adventure lover, he completed basic & advance courses in mountaineering and got selected for the International Climbing Camp in 2009. He carved a career amidst the mountains by scaling Mt. Nun, Mt. DeoTibba, Mt. Island, Mt. Rudugaira and few others. In the year 2012, he missed the summit of Mount Everest by few meters but without giving up the dream he pursued and achieved success in climbing Mt. Everest in 2013. He is currently a part of the Guardian Giripremi Institute of Mountaineering, the first of its kind training institute in Southern India.

Dr. Shantaram Balwant Mujumdar

Founder and President, Symbiosis

Prof. Dr. S.B. Mujumdar is the Founder and President of Symbiosis, a multi-disciplinary educational complex of great repute. A distinguished academician & educationist, he is also the Chancellor of Symbiosis International University. He has published over 50 original research articles in several national and international scientific journals. He has authored several books on Life Sciences and has contributed over 200 articles on Science, Education and Youth Development. He has also been the Chairman of the Educational Wing of FICCI in 2005-2006. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards like, Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Punya Bhushan, Maharashtra Gaurav, and many more. Diligently recognizing the difficulties faced by the foreign students, he created ‘a home away from home’ for them, by founding the institution of Symbiosis.

Fr. Thomas Thadathil

Founder, Ashagram & Ashabhavan

Fr. Thomas Thadathil, founder of Ashagram & Ashabhavan is a social worker who has dedicated his entire life for the enhancement of the individual and collective well-being of special children. He has a totally different perspective to look at anything and everything in life. Always guided by intuition; he is fully submitted to the mission entrusted in him. Fr. Thomas has truly escaped the mundane uncertainties of life and has gone beyond the material boundaries.

Pradeep Lokhande

Founder, rural relations

Mr. Pradeep Lokhande, the founder of Rural Relations has seen and worked immensely towards a selfless dream of a developed rural India. He has gone into the depths of cultures and soaked in their ethos. This was a journey of some 49,000 key/feeder villages from 10 states of which he has personally visited 5,800 across the country. Fostering the use of Information Technology in villages, he established several successful projects with the help of Non-Resident Villagers (NRV), Gyan-Key Library (3,640 libraries in rural secondary schools in 1,390 working days) and VillagewiKY (information about 43,033 villages in 481 days) which improved the lives of many.

Revant Himatsingka

Bestselling Author, ‘Selfienomics’

The bestselling author of 'Selfienomics', a book on humorous philosophy on Indian youth and good living, published by internationally renowned publishers, Bloomsbury, reached the Amazon's Top 100 Bestseller list in the 1st week of pre-order itself. Revant Himatsingka is a double major in Finance and Management from NYU, Stern School of Business and also a Certified Health Coach. Embracing the change and seizing the day, he quit his prestigious Wall-Street job and turned down offers from IIM-Bangalore and ISB to follow his passion.

Smita Majumder

Co-Founder, Youngpreneurs, India

Ms. Smita Majumder is a US based entrepreneur, now in India working on an initiative called Youngpreneurs. The goal of the organization is to introduce entrepreneurship education starting at the high school level going up to college level. Having done her Masters in Cancer Biology from the University of Massachusetts and working in cancer research, she felt that her entire range of abilities was not being challenged in lab. Hence, it was after she did her MBA in Entrepreneurship from Johns Hopkins that she found her true calling in entrepreneurship and co-founded a tech startup while she was in business school. Now as a co-founder of Youngpreneurs India, a venture that embraces her two passions: entrepreneurship and education, her dream is to create the next generation of entrepreneurial citizens and help develop the true potential of Indian youth.