Shivam Sai Gupta for TED 2013!

Earlier this month I posted an article about how I am using gaming to combat obesity by educating children about food and exercise.

Shivam Sai Gupta - TED at Bangalore Salon

My TED @ Bangalore talk is about "advergames". Advergames are games in which fast food companies brain-wash little children by advertising them unhealthy junk (they even advertise junkfood to children using video-games that they pledge they'll NOT market to children).

I gave my TED@Bangalore talk in June. (Read:Shivam Sai Gupta - My game to fight obesity crisis )
It was an audition for TED's Global Challenge Search. The comments and ratings will decide whether the speaker will be selected for TED 2013 or not.

Deadline is approaching. Comment, rate and share the link.

Shivam Sai Gupta - My game to fight obesity crisis

Update: Click here to read this article on the main website.

I've been making games for about 5 years now. During this journey, the evil 'games' caught my attention. These evil games are video games that are developed by big fast food companies to brain wash little children into liking their junk-food.

Studies have shown that these games increase children's consumption of junk-food by 56%. This is an alarming statistic.

"You believe it or not, but as you read this webpage, a child dies due to Child Obesity because of the landscape of food we've built around them."

Gaming is quite a powerful tool, and I wanted to use this incredibly powerful tool to make a change in this world. Save these innocent children's lives and protect the Earth from deadly obesity crisis.

I'm currently developing a game that is just the opposite of "evil" games. Studies show that the game I'm creating have the potential to increase kid's fruits and vegetables consumption and reduce fast food consumption. 

Unfortunately, the time allotted to me by TED was too slim to make the talk more emotional and persuasive. So, I tried to make it funny. 

 Click Here to watch the TED@Bangalore Talk 

Be sure to rate the talk using the stars on the right.

   

Why are we letting preventable dieases such as diabetes, cancer, obesity wipe the world out? Why?

It's alarming that most American kids can't recognize fruits and vegetable's name. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A small game can cause so strong impact on children that they can finally understand and learn about healthy foods and can differenciate between them.

Join the fight with me.

Shivam Sai Gupta at TED@Bangalore

UPDATE July 2012: The talk is released now! Click here to go to the updated page.

TED is doing a worldwide talent search for TED 2013. As quoted from TED's website:

The best moments at TED have often come from unexpected places. But this year, we're pushing that to an entirely new level. We're staging a global talent search to bring together the most remarkable lineup in TED's history. A series of special TED salons in cities around the world will enable us to discover a broad new array of thinkers and doers. And the best of them will be invited to California in February 2013 to share their work with the world. The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered.

TED@Bangalore


I thought of it as an audition (as they said it is). But it turned out much more interesting and larger event. All the speakers were awesome. The audience did a great job at reacting to the speakers. All the talks will be posted on TED.com in last week of June. People all over the world will be asked to vote. And number of votes will decide who will go to Long Beach, California for TED 2013.

Ira Trivedi, also one of speaker of TED@Bangalore

Meeting Chris Anderson, Kelly Stoetzel and Lakshmi Pratury was a great experience.

Shivam Sai Gupta   Chris Anderson   Lakshmi Pratury

The preparations put into a TED event is enormous and India should learn from it.The rehearsals were nerve wracking. I was very nervous what the people will think about me.

Then, when the time came to give my final talk. I thought, fuck it, I don't care what people will think. I just know my passion and I'm gonna express it. And I thought, "the only person I want to be better than, is the person I was yesterday".

After all, I've spent a whole month working on my presentation and practicing my talk. I worked my ass off as if this talk is going to be the best talk I've ever given. I'm gonna do the best I can or I'm gonna die, it's that simple.

With this I walked  ran to the stage full of confidence and passion.

Shivam Sai Gupta at TED@Bangalore

It was a great experience that I'll never forget. I don't know if I'll get selected for TED 2013 or not, but I know one thing for sure, that I did all I could, and as John Wooden describes:

Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

iGun - Real Gun on your iPhone UNBELIEVABLE

Wow, it's been quite long since I posted something. Well, I created this quick video about 2 months ago, YouTube kept crashing while uploading it. Today was lucky day i think, it finally got uploaded.

Here ya go:
Be sure to watch in HD for best quality.




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What is SOPA? Is it the END of the Internet?

Watch the video and find out.

Things you NEED to know about SOPA and PIPA and how you can stop it. Don't just sit there, do something. Make a difference. 

To make a difference:
http://americancensorship.org/

How to blackout your website for SOPA protest

On 18 Jan 2012, many websites around the globe is planning a blackout to protest against SOPA / PIPA. The websites includes Wikipedia. 

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA—and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States—don’t advance the interests of the general public.

While I support that people should not pirate Hollywood movies, and it's 100% true that people ARE losing jobs and a loss in economy is there, because of pirated media. But the bill the US government is going to pass is extremely stupid, I won't go into much detail because this post is about how to blackout your website for anti-SOPA protest without hurting your SEO.

Pierre Far, earlier posted in Google+ about how to do website outages and blackouts the right way (without hurting your SEO and crazy shit), if you really want to blackout your website, you may consider reading the entire Google+ post by him.

I've created a short animated video to create awareness among people about SOPA/PIPA. Because people NEED to know about this and even today, many don't know what is SOPA/PIPA. The video is currently in editing stage and will be up before the blackout day.