Under 25 Summit opens tomorrow

It brings prominent young achievers, such as the Tinder CEO, to the city; about 15,000 are expected to participate.

One of city’s most popular youth festivals, the Under 25 Summit, is back. This year, it’s a two-day event on February 2 and 3. It begins at 9 am, and the venue is Jayamahal Palace Hotel.

The organisers, inspiring to be the voice of the creative youth, will have multiple specially-curated workshops and experience zones with around 130 speakers for more than 15,000 attendees.

Co-founder Shreyans Jain told Metrolife the festival had grown bigger than the organisers had imagined in the last six years.

“When my partner, Anto Philip, and I started this summit six years ago, we were just in college. Our motive was to find people who we thought would be interesting to listen to and be inspired by. We wanted to find people who could add value to the youngsters’ lives.”

This year, speakers include Elie Seidman, CEO of Tinder; Sadhguru, founder of Isha Foundation; Anand Ahuja, fashion businessman; Harun Robert, popular for his show ‘M.A.D Stuff with Rob; Rohan Joshi, co-founder of AIB; Chef Thomas Zacharias, chef and partner of Bombay Canteen; Niharika N M, Benglaurean YouTuber; Rega Jha, founder and ex-editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed India and Auditya Venkatesh, self-taught Bengaluru photographer, among others.

“Our aim has always been to bring in speakers who will be relevant to the youth of today. The focus of this year was to bring forth people to talk about the effect of social media, mental health, fitness, food, film and so on,” adds Anto Philip.

Bollywood actor Yami Gautam will be present at the event on Sunday.

Interactive theme-based zones

- The ‘Ice Breaker Zone’ will allow three minutes of time for people to speak to each other and then shift to the next chair. If you’re still confused, it’s like speed dating for creative youngsters to meet.

- There will also be zones dedicated to food, education and jobs.