TEDxEgmore Women

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Abhishek Murali

  Abhishek Narayanarao Murali is an International Business graduate from the University of Birmingham. A full-time restaurateur, he manages brands such as Geetham Veg Restaurant and The Greenhouse Barbecue. Through Nimpaa Telecommunications Private Limited, a joint venture with HFCL Ltd., one of India's leading telecom infrastructure developers, he manufactures components of optic fibre cables. Through Nimpaa Holdings Private Limited, he promotes real estate in the Greater Chennai region and holds land in Southern Tamil Nadu. He has recently entered film production through his latest venture, Sambar Cartel Studios.

• Eka Sriram

  Eka Sriram is a teenage author and singer from Bangalore. Her parents put books in her hands very early, and from that grew a love of words. She published her debut novel in 2024, and was recently shortlisted among the top fifty entrants of the National Young Authors Challenge, her short story will be published by Penguin India. In 2025 she founded Bibliophilic Literary Magazine; she has published its first issue and is at work on the second. She is also a vocalist who has cleared exams in musical theatre, rock and pop, and performs both at school and outside it, sometimes for fun, sometimes in competition. She has been writing novels, poetry and music since she was six. Outside her creative life, Eka is an animal welfare advocate who has raised money for dog shelters several times over. She is currently balancing her second manuscript, her music and her academics, and aiming, eventually, to make her childhood dream come true and write full-time.

• Gayathri Shivaram

  Gayathri Shivaram is a therapist, manifestation coach, and the founder of Inner Sanctum LLP, a human potential company focused on helping individuals heal emotionally, transform subconsciously, and create aligned, fulfilling lives. Known for her unique blend of neuroscience, somatic healing, energy psychology, and spirituality, Gayathri has built a global community of millions through her powerful and relatable content on healing, self-awareness, manifestation, and personal transformation. Through her workshops, coaching programs, and digital platforms, she has impacted over 2,00,000 students across 17 countries. What makes her work deeply resonant is her ability to bridge science and spirituality in a practical, grounded, and emotionally powerful way. From overcoming emotional wounds and limiting beliefs to helping people step into clarity, confidence, and purpose, her mission is to help individuals reconnect with their true selves and unlock their highest potential. Gayathri is also the host of the podcast Evolve with Gayathri, where she explores conversations around consciousness, psychology, healing, spirituality, and human transformation with thought leaders and experts from around the world. At the heart of her work is one core belief: when people heal internally, their external reality begins to transform.

• Manjima Mohan

  Manjima Mohan grew up in Thiruvananthapuram, the daughter of cinematographer Vipin Mohan and dancer Kalamandalam Girija, in a household where film and the classical arts were everyday company. She first appeared on screen as a child in the late 1990s, in films like Kaliyoonjal, Madhuranombarakattu and Priyam, winning the Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist in 2001, and then stepped away from cinema through her school years. She moved to Chennai to read B.Sc. Mathematics at Stella Maris College, a stretch she has often described as the years that quietly shaped who she is. Her return to film came in 2015 with Oru Vadakkan Selfie, one of that year's biggest Malayalam hits, followed in 2016 by Gautham Vasudev Menon's Tamil debut Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada opposite Silambarasan. This work won her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South in 2017. Her filmography since has spanned Sathriyan, Ippadai Vellum, Mikhael, Tughlaq Durbar with Vijay Sethupathi, Devarattam, the NTR biopics, the 2023 horror-thriller Boo, and a special appearance in Season 2 of Suzhal: The Vortex. She married actor Gautham Karthik in 2022. Off screen, she has spoken openly in recent interviews about women's safety and about the realities of being a woman in public life in Indian cinema. It's the kind of plain-spoken honesty that has come to define how she shows up in conversation, just as much as her work.

• Palak Chauhan

  Palak Chauhan is a sixteen-year-old Western classical pianist and composer from Chennai. She began at five, studies under the virtuoso pianist Dr Surojeet Chatterji (alumnus of the Moscow Conservatory) and Mr Niteen Dongare at Dr A. R. Rahman's KM Music Conservatory, and learns piano theory and composition with the veteran musician-conductor Mr Augustine Paul. She holds the ATCL diploma from Trinity College, London. She has performed at Rashtrapati Bhavan for the President of India, given a solo recital at the Raphael Court of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (in the presence of Andrew Lloyd Webber), and played at the Grand Concert Hall of the Vietnam National Academy of Music. Her audiences have included the Jonas Brothers, Sting, Ed Sheeran, A. R. Rahman, and the world-renowned pianist Lang Lang, who featured her on his Instagram for Piano Day 2020. She is the youngest featured pianist at the Nagaland Brillante Piano Festival. She has been honoured with the National Icon Award 2025, the IWA Music Award 2024, the Child Prodigy Award and the Star Performer Award from the Consul General of Japan. Her debut album, Across 88 vol I, a collection of original piano works exploring the expressive range of the instrument's eighty-eight keys, is rolling out track by track on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Alongside performing, she volunteers with Teach For India, teaching music at a government school in Chennai.

• Prithika Chary

  Dr. Prithika Chary is a pioneering figure in Indian medicine, the first and only woman in the country qualified as both a Neurologist and a Neurosurgeon. Her career across these two specialties spans over 50 years, with deep expertise in epileptology, cognitive and behavioural neurology, and brain disorders ranging from stroke and dementia to Parkinson's disease, developmental delay and aphasia. She holds an MBBS, MD in General Medicine, DM and PhD in Neurology, MCh in Neurosurgery, and MNAMS in Neurology, and has been teaching since 1974, mentoring generations of postgraduates, undergraduates and paramedical staff. She is the Founder Director of EPICENTTRE, the Epilepsy Institute & Centre for Treatment, Training, Research & Education at Kauvery Hospital, Alwarpet, Chennai's first private centre dedicated to epilepsy care. In 2024 she was honoured with the Indian Women Achievers Award for Excellence in the Medical Field, recognising both her clinical contribution and the path she has opened for women in Indian neurology and neurosurgery. Alongside her clinical practice, Dr. Chary works as a Brain Health and Resilience Coach, Mind Mastery Mentor, facilitator and public speaker. Her approach is influenced by positive psychology and a strengths-based method, bringing neuroscience concepts into soft skills, life skills and resilience coaching. She runs health literacy and confidence workshops in schools, colleges and corporates, and is an active member of the Rotary Club of Madras Temple City, the FICCI Ladies Organisation, the Intercultural Women's Association and the Duchess Club Chennai.

• Selvi Radhakrishna

  For more than two decades, Dr. Selvi Radhakrishna has built a career around one quiet idea, that healing from breast cancer is about more than surgery. Trained in India (MBBS, Madras; DipNB) and the United Kingdom (FRCS Edinburgh; PG Diploma in Clinical Oncology, Birmingham), she returned home in 2009 to start Chennai Breast Centre, then a small, women-led clinic in MRC Nagar that did something no centre in South India had done before: bring screening, imaging, surgery and recovery under one roof. Fifteen years on, the Centre has cared for more than 4,500 women and now sees around 2,800 new patients and 340 new breast cancers each year, a designated Hologic Centre of Excellence with a hub-and-spoke network across Tamil Nadu. She has published over twenty peer-reviewed papers and authored three books, including All About Breast Cancer (Macmillan, 2012), also published in Tamil, and Breast Diseases (Springer, 2014). Her research collaborations with IIT Madras, IIT Hyderabad and St. John's Bangalore look at tumour biology, breast MRI, and the metabolic–oncology link in South Asian women. Through the Sharana Breast Cancer Relief and Research Foundation, which she founded and serves as Managing Trustee, she supports preventive screening, breast cancer awareness, and structured financial and emotional support for underprivileged women diagnosed with breast cancer. The Foundation funds diagnostic work-up, treatment and follow-up care, supports post-operative rehabilitation through its Hakuna Matata recovery workshops, and produces hand-knitted breast prostheses through trained volunteers. It also operates a fully equipped breast pathology laboratory.

• Shobana Rajendran

  Dr. Shobana Rajendran is a Lead Neonatologist at Rainbow Children's Hospital, Anna Nagar, with specialised qualifications in DNB Pediatrics and DNB Neonatology. She completed her schooling in Trichy and her undergraduate medical education at Coimbatore Medical College. She began her post-graduation in Nuclear Medicine at AIIMS, but her deep interest in child care led her to transition into Pediatrics, where she went on to become an All-India Gold Medalist in DNB, before super-specialising in Neonatology and building a career focused on clinical excellence, teaching, and newborn care advancement. Her areas of expertise span neonatal intensive care and NICU development, designing and planning NICU infrastructure, nutrition in preterm babies, retinopathy of prematurity, and the promotion of exclusive breastfeeding, including NICU policies built around exclusive human-milk nutrition. She is an active trainer in both Advanced and Basic Neonatal Resuscitation Program initiatives, a national faculty member for Training of Trainers programmes aimed at reducing neonatal mortality in India, a former State Coordinator for Advanced NRP training, and faculty for the Neonatal Ventilation Workshop module. She served as the State Academic Coordinator of the National Neonatology Forum, Tamil Nadu, for four years, during which she helped organise both a national and a state conference in neonatology. Over the last eight years she has established two milk banks, reflecting her commitment to neonatal nutrition and breastfeeding support. She has authored three indexed publications and one text article.

• Shritha Baskar

  Shritha Baskar is a Kathak dancer and educator in the Lucknow Gharana tradition, born and raised in Dubai. She began at the age of five under Guru Smt. Ketaki Hazra (a disciple of Smt. Bela Arnab), and earned her Senior Diploma in Kathak from the Surabharati Sangeet Parishad, Kolkata, by the age of seventeen. Her early years were spent performing across the Arabian Gulf, at the Indian Embassies and consulates, the Festival of India in Middle Eastern cities, and for the Indian Diplomatic Corps. Alongside performance, she taught Kathak and semi-classical dance to children at the Dubai Centre for Special Needs, work that earned her recognition in the UAE's cultural and social sectors. In 2011 she moved to Chennai, and continues to train under Guru Smt. Nayantara Parpia (a senior disciple of Smt. Yogini Gandhi and Padma Vibhushan Pt. Birju Maharaj), with regular workshops under Pt. Birju Maharaj and Vidushi Saswati Sen. In 2015 she founded the Taraana Academy of Kathak. Now in its tenth year, Taraana has grown into one of the largest Kathak institutions in Chennai, with more than 300 dancers and learners. Equally rooted in Nrtta and Abhinaya, Shritha's choreography is known for its technical precision and emotive storytelling. From performance to pedagogy, from tradition to innovation, Shritha Baskar continues to be a passionate torchbearer of Kathak, leaving an indelible mark on every stage she graces and every student she inspires.