Lakshmi Pratury brought TED to India in 2009, when the first TEDIndia conference was held in Mysore. In December 2010, she curated and hosted the first INK Conference, in association with TED, which carried forward the momentum created by TEDIndia. She is featured in the list of ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ by Forbes Asia in 2010 and since then has traversed an incredible distance professionally. Her rich and diverse experiences consist of for-profit enterprises, venture capital and non-profit organizations.

As a social entrepreneur, Lakshmi was a leading force at the American India Foundation (AIF), where she was part of the management team that raised over $30M in five years to channel towards development activities in India. Another accomplishment as the founder of the Digital Equalizer Program was bringing technology education to over 100,000 children and 2,000 teachers in India.

One can find her published articles in San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Chronicle, Mint. In addition to being published, Lakshmi has interviewed celebrities, contributed to radio shows, including National Public Radio, and acted in local (US) theatre.

Lakshmi has spoken at conferences like TED Conference in the US, the DLD Conference in Germany, WIRED conference in the UK, and more.

Read more of Lakshmi’s blogs at: http://lakshmislounge.com