Over a thousand thinkers and doers — and even those in between — from across 46 countries have gathered in the clean never-never land of the Infosys campus in Mysore for one of the buzziest conferences in the business and non-profit world.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conferences began in 1984 in Monterey, California. The TED brand has ballooned over the years, embracing all kinds of provocative topics from the sciences, arts and social sciences and the cusps of these domains. Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation took over TED in 2001.

TED India is the first event in Asia, though there have been conferences in South Africa and TED Global was held in Oxford in July. The conference usually costs $6000, and while TED India has been reduced to $2000, that still makes the event inaccessible — and highly coveted — to most.

In fact, most Indians know of the conference through the famous TED website, where the greatest hits from the conference are edited and presented, free of charge. Does throwing it open for everyone on the Web take away from the cachet of the conference?

“It’s exactly the other way round,” insists Anderson, who curates the conference. “TED is about ‘ideas worth spreading’, and it’s central to the whole mission that these ideas be made available to anyone who’s interested. In fact, as the talks went viral, there was much more awareness of TED around the world.”

TED.com has talks uploaded everyday and volunteers can translate them for the world. Conference proceedings are also tweeted in real time. “I came here because of the online talks, after someone directed my attention to them — they were fascinating”, says Subbiah Murugappa, erstwhile head of the Murugappa group and enthusiastic TED first-timer.

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