Why so serious? The Goa Project wants you to bring your big ideas to the beach

Exchange of ideas. It’s a powerful concept, a lure that has attracted humans to come together for centuries. It has created revolutions, changed regimes and disrupted existing forces. And while it doesn’t matter whether it happens on town squares, in speakeasies or in an open desert, it would presumably help a lot more if there’s a sandy beach by your side.   The Goa Project (TGP) is banking on these two elements – the exchange of ideas and the chilled-out beach vibe in Goa. The second edition of the Goa Project is being held on February 7 and 8 with talks, workshops, performances and lectures based on seven tracks – Performance, Society, Fringe, Geekery (Science, Tech & Life Hacks), Arts, Media and Entertainment, Design and Workshops.   “The idea grew out of several late night discussions that the organising team had late in 2012. All of us are interested in interesting people, and all of us informally try and put interesting people together just to see the sparks fly. The Goa Project is an attempt to do this at a larger scale while preserving the elements that make it innovative and fun,” a spokesperson for the Goa Project told tech2 in an email.   The Goa Project follows the so-called unconference model, encouraging an informal atmosphere and open sharing of ideas, but there are plenty of others with the same goal out there. What sets TGP apart, the organisers told us, is that it’s a platform for people to meet others who they would not normally meet at an ideas conference which might just focus on one field. “We realized that there is a need for a platform where burgeoning ideas and pathways can be nurtured and supported; and at a stage where people are open to collaboration and evolving their ideas. What happens when NGOs meet with technologists who can build things? What happens when painters meet with educators who are trying to teach kids creativity? What happens when two very different poles come together? That’s what the Goa Project is about.” [caption id=“attachment_217649” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Everything from comics to technology[/caption]   The first edition of the project attracted more than 250 participants across disciplines, with keynotes by the likes of John Kuruvilla of Air Deccan, Vijay Nair of NH7, Shiladitya Bora of PVR Directors Rare, and Sunita Maheshwari of Teliradiology solutions. Several interesting collaborations came out of the experience, examples being X, a movie with eleven different directors, and Menstrupedia, a comic book that aims to demystify menstruation for young girls. The topics for the two days of talks and workshops this year were decided after a funnel, where anyone could vote for the topic they found the most interesting. “We don’t even decide the sessions. You submit your proposal and then also get the audience to vote for it.” The whole process seems quite democratic, and as you skim through the list of selected and rejected topics, you will find a diverse bunch from talks focussed on travel, pop culture, gender issues, technology, travel apps, privacy, the environment and a lot more.   What you won’t find are talks specifically about religion or politics, which are explicitly forbidden. “This is a decision that has been taken by the core team. We would like to steer clear of certain topics.”   Notable speakers this year include former editor of Femina Sathya Saran, Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar, who will speak about his crowd-funded movie Lucia, wildlife photographer and naturalist Kalyan Verma, as well as mountaineer Arjun Vajpai, who conquered Mount Everest at the age of 16. These are the keynote speakers, but you will also find names such as entrepreneur Mahesh Murthy talking about his love for travel, humorist Krish Ashok, noted food blogger Nandita Iyer, sound recordist and editor Anand Krishnamoorti and a lot more. There are rank unknowns as well and that’s where the beauty of the project lies. “Most of the time, for a generation in India that is just starting to leap we don’t have role models. We don’t know who to look up to when we start off as musicians. We don’t know whom to talk to if we are a musician who’d like to launch on the web first. There are movie producers who are still not aware that YouTube probably has more eye balls than all of the theatres put together. We aren’t aware and hence we aren’t thinking out of the box.”   For TGP, the fundamental challenge is to bring together ideas from various fields to come at a problem or an issue from different angles. “There are unconferences, and there are idea platforms. They are all fabulous platforms in their own right, but there seems to be something missing fundamentally in the ecosystem. The world has starting throwing up some rather complex and unique problems - the solution to those are also going to come from rather unique combinations.” [caption id=“attachment_217651” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  The idea-sharing flyers from the 2013 edition[/caption]   It’s not just in the selection of topics that the project has reached for the ‘crowd’ for help to reduce dependency on a single sponsor. Through a campaign on **Indian crowdfunding platform Wishberry** , the Goa Project raised almost three times its target of Rs 1,50,000. Fifty-nine people contributed a total of Rs 4,01,000, much of which has gone towards covering the venue expenses, with food and miscellaneous costs being covered by the rest. “We were extremely humbled and happy at the same time that we not only surpassed this amount, but we also created a record for the fastest fundraising campaign by getting the amount in two days. We’re proud to announce that this year our largest sponsors and patrons are our contributors.”   While 2013 was a success and 2014’s fate still remains to be seen, the Goa Project guys know they have a good thing going. “We are definitely on the right track – we know that from the response we’ve got so far. From participants, volunteers, patrons, partners who want to collaborate with us. We want to keep the essence of what we started alive and not lose our purpose and goal.”   All images courtesy The Goa Project