The upcoming season of Ted Talks will feature 26 speakers from different walks of life. They will shed light on ideas describing how to tackle major issues confronting India like healthcare, environmental awareness and sexual abuse, among others. This time, the show is titled Ted Talks India: Nayi Baat.
Shah Rukh Khan has returned as the host of the show. At the press meet, the actor started by saying that he is looking forward to hosting the show. “Ted Talks India: Nayi Baat is like going back to school, the only difference being that I have to sit on the front bench and look nice and listen to everyone expounding on new ideas,” SRK chuckled.
He continued by saying that in school he would always sit on the back bench and hide himself from the teacher. “Whenever we talk about growing up we talk about dreams, and everyone says dream big. However, dreams were a figment of our imagination. Nobody believed that these dreams may turn into reality. What I noticed a year-and-a-half back when I met the participants of Ted Talks: Nayi Soch is that they are a set of new people - innovators, scientists, thinkers, young Indians - who aren’t just dreaming but they believe it can be turned into reality,” Shah Rukh Khan said, adding that many of them came from underprivileged backgrounds but what they were doing was not selfish.
“They weren’t trying to achieve their goals to become famous, rather they wanted to make the lives of those people better who were better off than them. That to me was very motivating,” Shah Rukh added.
Shah Rukh also mentioned how the young people he has met through the show have inspired him. “There was 13-year-old Geetanjali last year who has figured out how much lead there is in the water that we drink at home. At 13, I used to just sharpen pencils to take the lead out,” he smiled.
Shah Rukh signed off by saying that at times when people are just glued to OTT platforms, it’s important that we all watch something as a community and TED Talks is that family show. “TED Talks will help parents like me understand what the young India is heading towards.,” he said.
Here are some pictures from the event:
The second season is set to be filmed simultaneously in English and Hindi and will also be dubbed in Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. It will premiere on 2 November.
The selection of 26 “change-makers is about going deeper and finding ideas that matter and that can make a difference in India,” said TED head Chris Anderson.
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