TEDxAshokaUniversity

Speakers

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

• Abaan Ali Ansari

  Abaan Ali Ansari is a Computer Science student at Ashoka, deaf from birth, and the founder of UpliftiQ, a platform built specifically for deaf students across India. He built it almost entirely alone, investing more than 1,700 hours into its development.

• Akshai Narain

  As the closing talk of the evening, Akshai's session pulls together an unlikely set of references — the Bhagavad Gita, Gen Z slang, and a surprisingly rigorous theory of commitment — to unpack what it means to have a "situationship" with truth itself, rather than a fixed, lifelong marriage to it. He argues that many of us inherit a single script about success, identity, or purpose early in life, and then spend decades being unnecessarily loyal to it, even after it stops serving us. Drawing from his own unconventional career — corporate consulting, spiritual renunciation, and teaching across three continents — Akshai makes the case that the most honest way to live is experimentally: staying open to revision, refusing to treat any one identity as final, and retaining the right to exit a belief, a path, or a version of yourself the moment it no longer fits.

• Anya Gosain

  Anya Gosain is a fourth-year student at Ashoka University, where she balances academics with a deeply personal creative and physical practice. She is an eating disorder survivor whose recovery has shaped much of her worldview and work. Anya is also a singer-songwriter with a debut studio album already released on Spotify, blending personal narrative with music as a form of processing and healing. Alongside this, she is a trained ballet dancer, bringing years of discipline and body awareness to her understanding of how we relate to ourselves physically. Her talk draws directly from lived experience rather than theory.

• Mitali Nikore

  Mitali Nikore is an economist, policy advisor, and founder of Nikore Associates, a research and advisory firm. She has extensive experience working alongside global institutions, including the World Bank, on issues of gender equality, sustainable infrastructure, and inclusive economic development. Her work has earned her recognition among India's top women in STEAM, and she was featured in Forbes' "22 for 2022" list. Mitali brings a rigorous, data-driven lens to conversations that are often treated as purely social or emotional issues, making the economic case for structural change that is too often ignored.

• Papa CJ

  Papa CJ built a career on paper that looked flawless — Head Boy at one of India's premier boarding schools, a place at Oxford, and a management consulting role at IBM in London. But behind the achievements was a growing sense that something wasn't right. He later became an internationally acclaimed stand-up comedian, executive coach, and speaker, performing across 25 countries and selling out shows on five continents. In 2014, he was named Asia's Best Stand-up Comedian. Today he uses both comedy and coaching to help people question the scripts they've inherited about what success should look like.

• Roshni Patra

  Roshni Patra is a Psychology student at Ashoka University, an eight-time national para swimming gold medallist, a national-level blind chess competitor, and a trained voice artist.

• Ved Iyer

  Ved Iyer trained at the KKR Academy and played club cricket in Kent, England, during a period when cricket wasn't just a sport to him — it was his entire sense of identity. When that ended, he faced an extended period of uncertainty, including four months of doing very little and an early, unsuccessful attempt at building a personal brand at age 15. He later spent thirteen years creating content, long before it became a recognized career path, and eventually founded VRSZ, a brand operating at the intersection of fitness, mindset, and lifestyle. He once applied to Ashoka and was rejected — he now speaks on its stage.