Unconference Info Kit

Sit

and

Gandhi Study Centre

Proudly Present

Sit, Chennai! An unconference on Chennai Sit and Think, Sit and Share! st

31

May 2009

Smt Narayani Ammal Kalyana Mantapam, New #2/Old #9 Jeth Nagar, 1st Cross Street R A Puram, Chennai – 600028.

Introduction In today’s world, the obsession with formality is taking a toll on our innovative faculties. It has been often been proved that casual interactions facilitate efficient knowledge sharing. This is clearly evident from the mushrooming growth of blogs, virtual chatting, short messaging services (SMS), facebooking, orkuting etc. 'Sit' has always believed that an informal and equanimous mode of dialogue is the most effective way to share knowledge. Hence, 'Sit' meets every Sunday on the Marina Beach and discusses sundry yet crucial subjects which, unfortunately, overshoot our priority moulds. Unconference is an attempt to engage a larger group of individuals into this style of thinking and interacting.

Why an Unconference? Popular sources describe an unconference as a facilitated and participantdriven symposium centered on a basic theme or interest. Generally, an unconference tries to avoid the conventionalities of a formal conference. It substitutes customary/traditional conference practices with casual and accessible ones. In spite of its apparent affinity with the ‘geek community’, this fashion of conferencing holds a lot of significance to us. The following two factors, we believe, substantiate our above claim. i. Accessibility – 'Sit' aspires to improve the accessibility of opportunities, to meet and interact, to people from all walks of life. One of the founding ideals of 'Sit' is to remain accessible to everyone. This event of ours will have an open door policy to everyone who is interested to share and care. ii. Relevance - We are neither a formal body which wishes to relay ideas/ideologies, nor an organized institution which aims to deliver standardized returns. We are an experiment, an experiment to find relevance. 'Sit' believes that this event will help us expand our scope of interaction to a wider reach and in the process gain greater relevance.

What is the Theme? 'Sit' believes ideas and thoughts cannot be captured in the frame of a specific subject. Ideas transcend subjects and lead to an overarching integration of perspectives. However, it is important to trigger these ideas. The right fuel to breed opinions and ideas comes from an interesting subject. We chose the theme ‘Sit, Chennai!’ because it fits into the above mentioned parameters. This topic is simple enough to remain accessible to a large section of people and relevant enough to engage us. This theme persuades the participants to understand and discuss about the evolving dynamics of life in Chennai.

Participants may learn about progressing perspectives on Chennai in several dimensions including Social, Cultural, Political, Economic and Structural processes.

What do the Participants Gain? Participants would gain knowledge in its purest form, coming with no mincing, no political passivity and no fear of accountability. It is a podium for reasonable discussion on useful issues by sensible individuals as this event is an avenue for dialogue not a monologue.

Program Structure & information Itinerary The event will go on from 10 AM to 4.30 PM with 1 hour of lunch. The rough itenary is as follows. Time Duration

Activity

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM

Welcome Ceremony

10:30 AM – 01:00 PM

Discussion “Chennai – Life, Opportunities and Challenges”

01:00 PM – 02:00 PM

Lunch and Networking

02:00 PM – 04:00 PM

The Brawl - “Is Chennai Conservative?”

04:00 PM – 04:30 PM

Closing Ceremony

Further details on the structure follow.

Welcome Ceremony The Welcome Ceremony would involve a small talk on 'Sit', its activities and its path. This would be followed by an Introduction to the Unconference and its theme. The ceremony would be very informal and nothing like a conventional one.

Discussion This activity would be our typical Sunday Meets (the trademark activity of 'Sit') on a bigger scale. It would be loosely styled on the lines of the show 'We the People' from NDTV, where everyone sits in a circle or any manner and the moderator kickstarts a discussion and pulls the right threads through the discussion. Everybody participates equally and there is no Speaker-Audience concept. The topic for discussion would be "Chennai - Life, Opportunities and Challenges". The topic is generic in order to accomodate various subjects, topics, people and perspectives. There would be a small break in between. It is upto the moderator to pull the right threads and the sub-topics for discussions. However, we would suggest some for guidance. The list is

constantly being updated by the organizing team after brainstorming for mroe and more sub-topics. Changing Lifestyles - The youth, middle and old aged Expenditure Patterns The Inequalities Values- how have they changed? Idealism or Realism Culture and Art – Are they degrading? How do we revive them? Infrastrutual, Economic Development and Environmental Challenges Real Estate - Boom or Recession or what is it? Education - The present situation and vision Social Structure – Chennai Sports -What are we doing and what we need to do? Chennai - How do we compete nationally and internationally? Chennai - the business hub? How do we develop entrepreneurship?

The Brawl The Brawl is an activity loosely styled around the show 'The Big Fight' from NDTV, with four panelists on the stage. The panelists would argue over a topic and the audience can pose questions (moderated by the moderator). The topic chosen for the discussion is “Is Chennai Conservative?”. Conservative would mean in terms of Culture, Broad Mindedness, Risk Averse, Less Adventurous, Gender Equality and Prejudice, Not social , etc. This discussion would go on for about 2 hours with/without a small break in between.

Closing Ceremony The Closing Ceremony would include distribution of mementos, thanking everyone for their presence etc. We wish to make it as informal as possible.

Contacts

Participant Registration: VidhyaShankar L : +91 9962396281

Invitees, Media and Sponsors: Prashanth Krishnaswami : +91 9884673544 Srinath Varadarajan : +91 9962262233

Website: http://www.sitchennai.org/

Email: [email protected]