Lakshmi Pratury is an entrepreneur,
curator, and speaker. She is the founder and CEO of INK. She also is the host and curator of live events and inktalks.com.
Lakshmi also serves as director of the SingularityU India Summit in association with INK, the first ever summit in Asia by
Singularity University
Singularity Education Group (using the public names Singularity Group, Singularity University or SingularityU) is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a business incubator, and business consultancy services. Although ...
. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including being named as "Inspirational Icon" at the Audi Ritz Awards in 2015 and being included in ''
Forbes Magazines 2010 list of "Women to Watch in Asia". Lakshmi has also spoken at conferences such as the
TED
TED may refer to:
Economics and finance
* TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar
Education
* ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association
** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey
** Transvaal Education Depa ...
conference in the US, the
DLD Conference in Germany, and
WIRED conference in UK.
Prior to this, Lakshmi spent two decades in the technology,
venture capital, and non-profit industries in the US. She has lived in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently splits her time between Bangalore and the Bay Area.
History
Life and career
Lakshmi was born in
Visakhapatnam, India. She studied at the
Nizam College of
Osmania University in Hyderabad where she received a Bachelor's degree and was awarded a Gold Medal in Mathematics as well as graduating at the top of her class. She went on to attend
IIT Mumbai
The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay or IITB) is a public research university and technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is considered as one of the best engineering universities in India and is top ranke ...
. She completed an MBA from the Bajaj Institute, India. She later earned a second MBA from
Portland State University in Oregon. During this course of study, she minored in Theatre Arts.
Lakshmi worked at
Intel in US for 12 years in the fields of finance, marketing, business development and strategy. She worked with software developers, media companies and content companies to develop strategic relationships with Intel. She was also part of the team that started Intel's investments into a larger technology ecosystem; this later evolved into Intel Capital. In 1999, she went on to join
Global Catalyst Partners
Kamran Elahian ( fa, کامران الهیان) is an Iranian-American entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond ...
, a VC firm in Palo Alto, California where she focused on connecting India's software-development community with the US tech community.
She then moved to the
America India Foundation (AIF) in 2000 and founded the AIF's Digital Equalizer program, offering technology education to approximately 80,000 children and 2,000 teachers across India. She also launched the AIF Summit to showcase social entrepreneurs and the annual AIF Gala Program to cultivate philanthropic giving by the Indian diaspora. Together with Anu Sethuram, Lakshmi founded a firm, Ixoraa Media, in 2005 "to create a bridge of intellectual exchange between India and the US".
The pair's first project
Lakshmi's Lounge highlighted the stories of "global doers" through interviews.
The firm's next project was the Aamra Grove Conference, held in Napa Valley in 2007 and at
Mohonk Mountain House, New York in 2008. This conference emphasized culture and personal experience and "brought together 50 of the world’s most influential Indian leaders through conversation that explored the Indo-US corridor and re-imagined India’s international presence".
Association with TED
A
TED
TED may refer to:
Economics and finance
* TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar
Education
* ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association
** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey
** Transvaal Education Depa ...
attendee herself since 1993, Lakshmi co-hosted TEDIndia in
Mysore in 2009 along with
Chris Anderson, the curator of the TED conference. She has compared this feeling to one of bringing your best friend home, and has stated:
The independence that Chris Anderson gave me to co-curate, identify the stories and interact with India opened my eyes to the stories that exist here and need to be told. It also showed the power of the stories — Pranav Mistry
Pranav Mistry (born 14 May 1981) is a computer scientist and inventor. He was the President and CEO of STAR Labs (Samsung Technology & Advanced Research Labs). He is best known for his work on SixthSense, Samsung Galaxy Gear and Project Beyon ...
's talk is still very popular. Talks by people like Devdutt Pattanaik and Sunitha Krishnan catapulted them from being local intellectuals to being global personalities.
Nearly 1,000 attendees from 46 nations traveled to Mysore, India, for the conference, which featured speakers from a range of fields, as well as one hundred young TEDIndia Fellows.
Following the enthusiastic response to TEDIndia, Lakshmi stayed in India and founded INK.
In December 2010, Lakshmi curated and hosted the first INK Conference in
Lavasa
Lavasa (Marathi: , lavāsā) is a private, planned city built near Pune, India. It is stylistically based on the Italian town Portofino, with a street and several buildings bearing the name of that town.
A or project being developed by HCC, ...
, India around the theme of "Untold Stories".
INK
INK describes itself as "India's foremost platform for cutting-edge ideas and inspiring stories". INK is known for its events such as the annual INK Conference, INK Asia, and INK Salons. The organization has grown significantly over the years. As of February 2016, INK had conducted seven conferences (across multiple cities in India and abroad) and approximately 100 events; hosted 350 speakers and 70,000 attendees across these events; and received 20 million video views on inktalks.com and on various other social media platforms.
The 2015 INK Asia conference was a notable expansion for the organization because it was the first time a major INK event took place outside of India. This conference, held at the iconic
Marina Bay Sands
Marina Bay Sands (abbreviation: MBS) is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay in Singapore. The resort is owned by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and at its opening in 2010, it was deemed the world's most expensive standalone casino prop ...
in Singapore with the theme of "Designing the Future", was created as a forum for business leaders, entrepreneurs and technologists to connect and collaborate with their counterparts.
Prominent speakers at previous INK conferences include:
*INK 2010: Hollywood filmmaker
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
who directed the blockbuster films
Titanic and
Avatar; visual data scientist
Alexander Tsiaras
Alexander Tsiaras is an American photographer, entrepreneur, technology innovator, and journalist whose work has appeared on the cover of over 150 magazines. He is the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief oTheVisualMDanStoryMD
Tsiaras’ awards inc ...
; French designer
Philippe Starck
Philippe Starck (; born 18 January 1949) is a French industrial architect and designer known for his wide range of designs, including interior design, architecture, household objects, furniture, boats and other vehicles.
Life
Starck was born on ...
; and Indian activist
Sunitha Krishnan, who works in the areas of anti-human trafficking, psychiatric rehabilitation and social policy.
*INK 2011: American film, opera and theatre director
Julie Taymor; and Indian innovator
Arunachalam Muruganantham
Arunachalam Muruganantham (Padman) is a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad-making machine and is credited for innovating grassroots mechanisms for generating awareness abou ...
, who designed, tested and implemented a sanitary napkin making machine for rural India.
*INK 2012: Cartoonist
Matt Groening, who created the longest-running television comedy, ''
The Simpsons''; and
Grammy Award winning graphic designer
Stefan Sagmeister.
*INK 2013: Deep ocean explorer David Gallo; tech pioneer and
MIT Media Lab director
Joi Ito; and business executive
Nikesh Arora
Nikesh Arora (born February 9, 1968) is an Indian-American business executive. Arora was formerly a senior executive at Google. He served as the president of SoftBank Group from October 2014 to June 2016. On June 1, 2018, Arora took on the role ...
, who is now president and CEO of Softbank.
*INK 2014: Mountaineer
Arunima Sinha
Arunima Sinha is an Indian mountaineer and sportswoman. She is the world's first female amputee to scale Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania), Mount Elbrus (Russia), Mount Kosciusko (Australia), Mount Aconcagua (South America), Mount Den ...
, the first female amputee to scale
Mount Everest; and Pakistani filmmaker
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ( ur, ; born 12 November 1978) is a Pakistani-Canadian journalist, filmmaker and activist known for her work in films that highlight the inequality with women. She is the recipient of two Academy Awards, seven Emmy Awar ...
, who has won both
Academy and
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
awards for documentary films.
*INK Asia 2015: Iranian-American engineer
Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist; and Swiss magician
Marco Tempest, known for his multimedia magic and use of interactive technology and computer graphics in his illusions.
*INK 2015: Roboticist and surgeon
Catherine Mohr; award-winning Indian actor
Irrfan Khan; CEO of
Epibone Nina Tandon
Nina Marie Tandon is an American biomedical engineer. She is the CEO and co-founder of EpiBone. She currently serves as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at Cooper Union and is a senior fellow at the Lab for Stem Cells and Tissue Eng ...
; and American actor and director
Josh Radnor, who portrayed
Ted Mosby in the CBS sitcom ''
How I Met Your Mother
''How I Met Your Mother'' (often abbreviated as ''HIMYM'') is an American sitcom, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays for CBS. The series, which aired from September 19, 2005 to March 31, 2014, follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his ...
''.
INK is a platform for innovation at the intersection of science, technology, community and culture. In a 2015 interview, Lakshmi stated: "We need to look at the new India with new eyes and focus on bringing digital access to everyone and cater to the needs of the youth in a whole new way. We need to give them a platform to shine and we need to listen to them more".
[ Beyond live events, INK also serves as a community and has programs such as INK Fellows, an initiative started in 2010, which identifies young change-makers from different fields and provides them the support necessary to leverage their impact across the world. To date, 133 Fellows have been part of the program. INK states that it is "independent of TED, but values a continued warm relationship with the New York based TED organization".]
Conferences curated and hosted/co-hosted by Lakshmi Pratury
*SingularityU India Summit in association with INK: 26-27 Feb 2016, Mumbai, India
*INK Conference 2015: "Disrupt", 16-18 Oct, Mumbai, India
*INK Asia 2015: "Designing the Future", 21 August, Singapore
*INK Conference 2014: "Beyond Boundaries", 31 Oct – 2 Nov, Mumbai, India
*INK Conference 2013: "All that Matters", 25-27 Oct, Kochi, India
*INK Conference 2012: "Designing the Future - NOW", 11-14 Dec, Pune, India
*INK Conference 2011: "Power of the Journey", 8-11 Dec, Jaipur, India
*INK Conference 2010: "Untold Stories", 9-10 Dec, Lavasa, India
*TED India 2009 (co-hosted): "The Future Beckons", 4-7 Nov, Mysore, India
Talks by Lakshmi Pratury
*Talk at TEDxBayArea 2013, SF, US.
*"Learn to Let go and Keep on" at TEDxTaipei 2013, Taiwan.
*"Remembering and Responding Online" at TED 2013, LA, US.
*"Understanding India" at DLD Conference 2012, Munich, Germany.
*"Moving into the Future while Taking the Traditions Along" at TEDxASB 2012, Mumbai, India.
*Talk at WIRED 2012, London, UK.
*Talk at DLD Women 2011, Munich, Germany.
*Talk at DLD Conference 2011, Munich, Germany.
*"What the West Can Learn from the East" at TEDxDanubia 2011, Budapest, Hungary.
*Talk at WIRED 2011, London UK.
*Talk at AdAsia 2011, New Delhi, India.
*Talk at ideaCity 2012, Toronto, Canada.
*Talk at TEDxNUS 2010, Singapore.
*"The Lost Art of Letter Writing" at TED 2007, California, US.
Other projects
Lakshmi is the host and interviewer of ''Talk at 12 with Lakshmi Pratury'', a show on Radio One, 94.3 FM in Bangalore, India. She has also published articles in the '' San Francisco Chronicle'', the '' San Jose Mercury News'' and ''Mint''. Furthermore, she has contributed to radio programming on National Public Radio; has been featured in a podcast on ''An Organic Conversation'' show on the Organic Media Network; and has acted in theatrical productions. Lakshmi was featured in the seventh anniversary issue of '' Vogue India'' in 2014, which was themed on women empowerment. She also appeared in the 2016 video "Hum Honge Kamyab", an initiative of Paper Boat
Paper Boat is a brand of traditional Indian beverages and foods produced and marketed by Hector Beverages, which is headquartered in Bengaluru, India.
Paper Boat was launched by Hector Beverages in August 2013. The product consists of a range of t ...
which featured some of India's celebrated entrepreneurs and for Ford India
Ford India Private Limited was a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company for its operations in India. Ford India Private Limited's headquarter is located in Sholinganallur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Ford also has integrated manufacturing facilities in Sana ...
, where she was featured along with Indian actor Farhan Akhtar.
References
External links
INK Talks
Website
TED Profile - Lakshmi Pratury
Singularity University India Summit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pratury, Lakshmi
Portland State University alumni
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Businesspeople from Visakhapatnam
Intel people
Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon
Businesswomen from Andhra Pradesh
Osmania University alumni
20th-century Indian businesswomen
20th-century Indian businesspeople
21st-century Indian businesswomen
21st-century Indian businesspeople