TEDxChange,a Gates’ Foundation initiative joins hands with TEDxDelhi to spread powerful ideas that can change our lives

The future is not fixed. We all have a hand in how it plays out. Small acts add up.” That’s a line from Melinda Gates’ blog. A series of small acts lead to an idea; an idea to transformative energy; transformation by itself is a Eureka moment. Reverse the process and a Eureka moment is powered to lead you to a small act. Either way,you realise,that the small act can never be awfully small. That’s also how Gates interprets TEDxChange,a series of global conversations to catalyse work on maternal and child health.

Today,the purposeful co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,will speak at a TedxDelhi event on scaling women and children’s health.

TEDx described as a local,self-organised event is a vertical of TED (Technology,Entertainment,Design),a global platform for ideas that matter. Its tagline is modest: Ideas Worth Spreading,but some attendees from past events have billed it as a “four day journey into the future” while others have likened it to “a brain spa” that pulsates with enlightening stimuli. TEDxChange,a Gates Foundation initiative,added a relevant dimension to it last year. It reflected on the progress made against the eight social and economic Millennium Development Goals (Md Gs) set forth by the United Nations that are intended to be achieved by 2015.

TEDxDelhi carries forward the same spirit of big daddy TED,except that it is by Delhi,from Delhi,of Delhi. Also of India. The second such event hosted by Delhi art enthusiast Feroze Gujral,this time it brings besides Gates,Sushma Devi Vishwakarma,a health activist from Babaganj village,Manoj Kumar,founding CEO of Naandi Foundation who will soon release the first ever Citizens Hunger and Malnutrition report,Vishwajeet Kumar from the Habitat of Global Health in Shivgarh,Uttar Pradesh,and Dr Peter Singer,an expert from Canada. Each person will speak on a life-saving innovation and each speech will be web cast live. “We were chosen by the Gates Foundation for this collaboration,” says Gujral who acquired a license to pioneer TEDxDelhi after she attended the first TED conference in India,in Mysore in 2009. “This is the most influential speech forum in the world and there is nothing like it to join the dots for the big picture in global welfare,” adds Gujral who will organise the event with a group of volunteers.