Talks, Ideas and Desire to Conquer the World; Josh Talks Depicted It All

The first conference of Josh Talks in 2017 was a huge success. From youngsters to elderly people, more than 250 people were in attendance at The High Spirits Café on the 8th April, Saturday. This was the first event in the series called #StartAb, which Josh Talks have started in association with Facebook. With speakers from various fields, the topic ranged from technology, entrepreneurship to social activism.

Speakers for the event were Kalyani Khona, co-founder of Inclov, the world’s first matchmaking app for the differently-abled, Kanika Tekriwal, founder of Jet Set Go, Vidhi Jain, who runs an organising named Shikshantar Andolan based in Udaipur, Swapnil Chaturvedi, who is popularly known as the Poop Guy and Kapil Shelke, founder of Tork Motorcycles.

The event began with a recital of a beautiful poem by Mansarovar Project, which talked about ideas, stories and our combined future. They kept the audience enthralled and also informed them about what the event had in store for them. Supriya, co-founder of Josh Talks, was the host of the event. She began by introducing the audience with the series and the vision behind the Josh and the association with Facebook.

After her, Ritesh Mehta, who is the Head of Programmes, South Asia at Facebook spoke to the audience about the deficit in job creation in India. He also emphasised that people should start thinking about becoming more entrepreneurial in nature and literally #StartAB.

Kalyani Khona commenced the conference by speaking about great ideas and passion for a much-needed idea of inclusion and acceptance. Kanika Tekriwal captured the attention of the audience by sharing her personal insights from her story of the beginning of her venture, which in itself is a revolution in personal charter business.

The listeners were given a different perspective on education and schooling when Vidhi Jain spoke about her concept of unlearning and changing the present schooling with sheer honesty. The spectators were charmed by the beautiful Urdu-poetry session by The Mansarovar Project. It’s pretty sure, they transferred their love of this genre to the audience.

Kapil Shelke, kept the audience amazed by presenting his idea of India’s first electric motorbike. The audience was captivated by the benefits of the concept and its sheer brilliance.

The conference was concluded with the last talk of the day by Swapnil Chaturvedi. He shared some hard-hitting facts about the widespread problem of open defecation in the country and how it restricts movements of individuals, which not only harms their physical well-being but also their dignity by depriving them of the rights they are entitled to.

While the Talks were educating and engaging, Supriya added a little fun element by asking the audience to do an activity after the first 2 talks. She asked the spectators to turn around in their seats and talk to the stranger sitting behind them for 5 minutes. They had to just share their stories, their interests and what brought them to Josh Talks.

The audience was also given networking break for 30 minutes. They were also given the chance to share their ideas with everyone. 7 people came up on the stage and shared their ideas and what they were working on. The brilliant ideas ranged from stand-up comedy to entrepreneurs to students with a desire to change world problems.

All the speakers were given a standing ovation when they walked up on the stage for a photograph. The fantastic speakers and the great audience made sure that the first event in Pune was a great success.