Leonardo Da Vinci: The Intersection of Philosophy and Science

Akshay Chavan is the Co-Founder and Head of Research at Live History India, India’s first digital platform dedicated to Indian history and culture. An expert on princely India, he has also been researching and chronicling the lesser known history of Indian princely states, for the last two decades.

Ashish Jaiswal thinks that most of our current practices of education are dangerously outdated and we need to bring a paradigm shift in the way we are preparing ourselves for the coming future. Ashish has spoken and taught all around the world on the shift needed. Fluid, his latest book, assimilates lessons from the approach applied by geniuses throughout history and offers a fresh model of learning and thinking. His last book, How to Reform a Business School, includes an on campus multi-year case study of how Yale transformed its business school. Ashish’s debut book, True Dummy, is an internationally acclaimed inspirational fiction. His written work has appeared in several publications, including The Guardian, India Today and The Hindu and has been covered by international media including BBC – Oxford, CKLN – Toronto, 33voices, USA, Gulf Today, UAE, NDTV, The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Asian Age and The Indian Express. Ashish also advices schools, colleges, universities around the world on innovative curriculum and pedagogy. Ashish holds a doctorate and a master’s in the field of education from the University of Oxford and is currently a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (OxCHEPS). OxCHEPS is an Oxford based independent think tank that works on improving understanding of higher education. Ashish is also the founder of iHER (India for Higher Education Reforms), a community platform with over 100,000 of students, educationists and policymakers with the aim to discuss transformative ideas on education.

Shivaprasad Khened is currently the Director of the Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. He has served as Director of Science Museum in Delhi and Bangalore and National Gallery of Modern Art, (NGMA) Mumbai. He is credited with more than 50 scientific papers, exhibition catalogues and articles. He has curated several exhibitions on varying subjects and his latest exhibition is the Cricket Connects: India–UK exhibition. The “Information Revolution” gallery, which he co-curated won the Dibner award instituted by the Smithsonian. His other curatorial works include; Our Technology Heritage, Our Science and Technology Heritage, 100 Years of Nobel Prize, Human Genome and Beyond, Our Body Guards (Immune System), Pulses the Smart Food, Cricket Connects exhibition for Australia and South Africa. He is also involved in the setting-up of the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Films Division campus. One of the exhibition that he curated “Sir M Visvesvaraya: The Legendary Nation Builder”, was selected for the “Pride of India” award for exhibition, which he curated and exhibited during the 102nd India Science Congress, at the Mumbai University. He is the recipient of the Smithsonian scholarship (1988) and the 16th NES, Jagadguru Shankaracharya, H.H, Sri Jayendrasaraswathi, National Eminence Award (2017). Under his able leadership, Nehru Science Centre received the prestigious National Award (2017) for the Best Communication Campaign (External Publics) instituted by the Public Relations Society of India for the exhibition “The Future of Food: Pulses”.

Zarina Screwvala is a member of New Acropolis Cultural Organisation, a School of Philosophy in the classical manner, where members endeavour to practically implement philosophy in their daily lives, beyond mere intellectual understanding. Through various initiatives, New Acropolis strives to extract universal principles from the combined heritage of humanity across civilisations and cultures, and apply a consolidation of ancient wisdom in the present, in order to create a bridge to our future. Zarina is also the Co-founder and Managing Trustee of the Swades Foundation which operates with the single-minded focus of empowering 1 million rural Indians every 5 to 6 years, through holistic and sustainable development. Zarina was also one of the Founder-Directors of UTV (now a part of the Walt Disney Company India), one of India's foremost media and entertainment conglomerates.