Lab Head Parmesh Shahani selected as Senior TED fellow
Team Culture Lab
10 January 2017
We are excited to share that our Culture Lab head Parmesh Shahani has been announced as a TED Senior Fellow. Parmesh joins an illustrious group of inspiring individuals from around the world – 414 from 87 countries to be precise!
This year’s class of TED Senior Fellows also includes a biologist using novel, low-cost materials such as legos, apples and asparagus to develop next generation medical innovations, a policymaker whose non-profit RISE worked with US legislators in 2016 to pass the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, and a choreographer dedicated to the ancient art of Cambodian classical dance who founded Cambodia’s first all-male and gay-identified dance company. View the complete list here.
Parmesh says, “I am deeply humbled by this selection. I feel that rather than a personal honour, it is a recognition of the good work that we have been doing at Godrej, especially around the Culture Lab as a platform for conversations about society, and the LGBT friendly policies that we have implemented through HR with the aim of creating a more diverse and inclusive work place. I look forward to learning from the other TED Senior Fellows, TED Fellows and the TED community at large about how to create more impactful change.”
Parmesh was previously selected as a TED Fellow in 2009, when the TED Fellows program was started. In its eight-year history, the TED Fellows program has created a powerful, far-reaching network – made up of scientists, doctors, activists, artists, entrepreneurs, inventors, journalists and beyond -- leading to many meaningful and unexpected collaborations including BRCK, the self-powered, mobile WiFi router that can work anywhere, even in the harshest conditions; Mappr, the data visualization platform recently acquired by Slice Technologies; and Brick x Brick, a public art performance inspired by the 2016 election that builds human “walls” against misogyny. You can watch the top 10 TED talks by TED Fellows here.
TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. The conference has morphed into several different initiatives – such as an annual TED prize, a TED Talks website with videos that have had more than 2 billion views to date, a TED Institute and the TED Fellows program.
On the occasion of the announcement of 2017’s TED fellows, founder and director Tom Rielly of the programme said, “Our Fellows tell us that the biggest benefit of the program is the other Fellows themselves – the mutual support, professional and personal, and the deep, lasting connections. The collaborative spirit of the program yields a powerful network where each person profoundly influences each other, and the group as a whole functions as a supercomputer to which each fellow has personal access.”