Think Again Conclave

The Think Again Conclave is the official guest lecture series of APOGEE, the annual technical fest of BITS Pilani, usually held in the month of March.
Think Again is everything but an ordinary conventional lecture series. It aims at capturing the ideas and thoughts of those who have dared to think differently and out of the box in their field of interest. Since its inception in 2012, this lecture series has been a platform for an assortment of speakers ranging from Jeff Lieberman of “Time Warp” fame to Pawan Agarwal, the CEO of Mumbai Dabbawalas. It was also with Think Again that the first Ig Nobel Prize Winners' conference in India was organized. Other prominent personalities who have attended Think Again include adman Piyush Pandey and 'Chief Belief Officer' of Future Group Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik.
Conception
Guest lectures are an integral part of any technical festival and before 2012, APOGEE had featured several famous names like Jimmy Wales and Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as speakers. For the 2012 edition however, it was decided to introduce a twist in the lecture series by giving it a touch of “out of the box” thoughts. With an aim to empower engineering students with face-to-face talks delivered by exceptional achievers who dared to stray from the oft-beaten path, the Think Again Conclave was conceived and started. The name reflects its nature in making the audience think again about conventionally perceived concepts. The first edition was an astounding success with an audience of 2000 to bear witness to every lecture in the jam-packed BITS, Pilani central auditorium. The positive response to the talks made Think Again a permanent fixture in the subsequent editions of APOGEE.
Edition 1: 2012
Think Again Conclave was introduced for the first time in APOGEE 2012 and captivated everyone’s attention by the first ever Ig Nobel laureates’ conference. With a jam-packed auditorium, the speakers instilled a sense of novelty in the audience's minds and added a different dimension to their thinking. In its maiden attempt, the Conclave was very well received by the audience.
Lectures
Kees Moeliker
Cornelis W. (Kees) Moeliker is a Dutch writer and curator of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. He is also European Bureau Chief of the Annals of Improbable Research. He was awarded the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize for biology for his study of Homosexual necrophilia in male mallards. Kees Moeliker, with his research work in homosexual necrophilia, brought out a sense of wittiness in his talk.
Gauri Nanda
Gauri Nanda, the renowned inventor of Clocky, the alarm clock that forces its owner to wake up owing to its intangible attribute won the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics. Her short but highly interesting talk expounded Clocky’s conception and growth. She stressed on various virtues of sleep with a satirical note.
Dr. Ilja Van Beest
Dr. Ilja Van Beest is a professor in the Department of Social Psychology at the Tilburg University. He was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for his research on asthma. Dr. Van Beest spoke how he with his colleagues used roller coaster rides to induce emotions and showed that the valence of emotions affected the relation between self-reported breathlessness and actual lung function. He portrayed the difference between how men and women react to social exclusions, bringing in some comical justifications.
Dr. Elena Bodnar
Dr. Elena Bodnar is the founder and President of the Trauma Risk Management Research Institute in Chicago and is an internationally recognized scientist with experience in clinical research and development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. Dr. Bodnar, with all her panache, described how she designed the Emergency Bra, for which she was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Public Health in 2009. She talked about how she drew inspiration from her gloomy days as a physician in Ukraine during the Chernobyl disaster and came up with an invention decked with filters to remove hazardous chemicals.
Dr. Richard Stephens
Dr. Richard Stephens is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Keele University. He is a recipient of the 2010 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain. Stephens described how he began the study after striking his thumb with a hammer and found that volunteers could tolerate more pain if they repeated swearwords rather than neutral words. He suspects that "swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception".
Dan Meyer
Dan Meyer is the recipient of the Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine for his report on ‘Sword Swallowing and its side effects.’ He is a corporate entertainer and known for his daredevil acts like sword swallowing and eating fire and glass.The “Swordman”, in the last talk of the Conclave, inspired the audiences to do the impossible in their lives. Bowing to popular demand he went on with a spectacular display of sword swallowing.
Edition 2: 2013
The Think Again conclave 2013, keeping up with the expectations of the gathering successfully raised the bar set by the 2012 conclave. The keynote speakers Dr. Pawan Agarwal, Jeff Lieberman, Devdutt Pattanaik and Piyush Pandey catered to the inquisitiveness of the young audience with exceptional talks by offering their "out of the box" take on things.
Lectures
Dr. Pawan Agarwal
Dr. Pawan Girdharilal Agrawal is the CEO of the revered Mumbai Dabbawala Association and has been honoured with numerous awards and accolades for his unparallelled research, including the Rajiv Gandhi Puraskar. Sporting the quintessential Nehru cap and a "dabba" in his hand, his persuasive mix of Hindi and English was received with high spirits. He explained the complex system of the Mumbai Dabbawalas and it’s efficient and accurate service. Despite having no technological backup, Dr. Agrawal went on to explain how it became possible to be bestowed with the prestigious Six-Sigma Quality Certification. In his words, “Our watches can go wrong, but not the dabbawalas. Work is worship.”
Jeff Lieberman
Jeff Lieberman holds two B.S. degrees, in Mathematics and Physics, and two M.S. degrees, in Mechanical Engineering and Media Arts & Sciences with a focus in Robotics, all from MIT. He is popular for hosting the show Time Warp on Discovery Channel.His lecture showcased his phenomenal hold focusing on the perception of human mind and its capability to understand the world around us. He exemplified his ideology by showing how different people have different notions of simplest things
like pain, happiness and color.
Devdutt Pattanaik
Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian physician turned leadership consultant, mythologist and author. He is the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group, bringing the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian business, especially in human resource management.His speech revolved around the idea of “Subjective Reality and Maaya”. Taking the audience back to the days of Mahabharata and Ramayana, he illustrated the similarities between these epics and the quandary faced by modern day administrators in choosing between the measurable and the immeasurable.
Piyush Pandey
Piyush Pandey is an advertisement magnate and serves as the Executive Chairman and National Creative Director of Ogilvy and Mather, India and has been the guiding light behind the Fevicol, Cadbury Dairy Milk and Vodafone’s ZooZoo ad campaigns. He spoke about his love, that is advertising. In his words, any person involved in advertising had to be agile in accommodating the entire ongoings throughout the world in one single ad. He stressed upon innovation saying that customers cannot be served the same cup of tea daily. The advertisement of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board was also released during the lecture
Edition 3: 2014
The high standards set by APOGEE 2013 were more than just catered to by the grandeur of the third edition of the Think Again Conclave during APOGEE 2014. With its charismatic line-up of eminent speakers, the lecture series met with extremely positive response from the audience.
Lectures
Walter Lewin
Walter Lewin is a Dutch astrophysicist and former professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lewin has received numerous awards for outstanding teaching and is well known for his popular lectures on physics and massive online courses taught on edX and MIT OpenCourseWare. He was received by an auditorium that roared with jubilation. His well known innovative methods of teaching and his experimental outlook towards his subject Physics induced immense enthusiasm in audience. His lecture covered a plethora of topics ranging from Doppler Effect to birth and death of stars.
Johanna Blakley
Johanna Blakley, PhD, is the managing director and director of research at the Norman Lear Center, a research and public policy institute. She is popular for her studies on mass media and the impact of the entertainment industry on society. With eye catching visual material to her aid, she presented a very engaging talk on topics like social media's effect on advertiser-consumer relationships, India's presence in the social world and the impact of internet.
Mansoor Khan
Mansoor Khan is a famous Bollywood director and producer. He made his directorial debut with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988). He attended some of the very well-known colleges like Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi, Cornell, MIT. He has also launched a book 'The Third Curve'(Oct 2013) which talks about world economy.His high spirited talk covered Indian Economy and the issue of resources. His lecture drew a lot from his book 'The Third Curve'. Mr. Khan's lecture was met with a standing ovation from the audience for at least a couple of minutes.
John Beck Hofmann
John Beck Hofmann is a director, cinematographer, composer and actor. He currently serves as a director of photography for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. His work has appeared in the IMAX feature film Roving Mars, James Cameron's "Aliens of the Deep", and NOVA's "Mars: Dead or Alive?" and "Welcome to Mars". In his unquestionably interesting talk, he emphasised on his journey in NASA and his philosophy of film-making : "treating scientists as people with strengths and dreams, weak spots and vulnerabilities". He spoke of his experiences while filming the scientists in NASA and also his TV series ‘Tyranny’.
Ryan Woodward
Ryan Woodward is a highly regarded animator and filmmaker, known for his exceptional work with Marvel Entertainment in films like Iron Man 2, Spiderman 2, The Avengers etc. Starting his presentation with a funky clip of Walter Lewin's lecture from the previous day he had made, he went on to give the audience an insight into his artistic sensibilities and motivations, before treating them to a portfolio of his own artwork. He also discussed his experience in his movie projects along with sharing few personal childhood encounters with the awestruck audience.
Dr. Anil Gupta
Dr. Anil Gupta is a professor at the Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM, Ahmedabad. He is also the founder of the Honey Bee network. Dr. Gupta briefed the audience about his role in increasing participation in bringing innovations to the grassroots level through the Honey Bee Network. He made the audience realize the importance of these innovations and also tried to convince the audience as to how people residing in villages were much wealthier than they thought.
Edition 4: 2015
The Think Again Conclave is expected to be a major crowd puller during APOGEE 2015. The 33rd edition of the technical festival will be held between 25 to 29 March 2015.

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