Nicki Greenberg
Comic Artist and Illustrator

Nicki Greenberg is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. Her first books, The Digits series, were published when she was fifteen years old. They sold more than 380,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2008 Nicki’s innovative graphic adaptation of The Great Gatsby was selected as a White Raven at the Bologna Book Fair. She then went on to tackle Hamlet in a lavish 425-page “staging on the page”. Hamlet was joint winner of the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award.

Nicki’s recent picture books for young children include The Naughtiest Reindeer, Monkey Red, Monkey Blue and BOM! Went the Bear. She has also written and illustrated non-fiction for children, and her book, It’s True! Squids Suck! was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books.

Nicki is currently working on several picture books for children, including a sequel to The Naughtiest Reindeer.

www.nickigreenberg.com

Leonie Norrington
Artist, Author and TV Presenter

Leonie Norrington was born in Darwin and grew up among the Barunga community in central Arnhemland in the Northern Territory. She is a journalist, author and teacher. Being brought up within a mixed cultural environment, Leonie has always been very much a part of the Aboriginal stories and issues that surround her. ‘I am interested in the places where cultures and languages meet,’ she says, ‘especially how people use language and story to bridge cultural differences or to make statements about their separateness. She writes in a mix of English, Kriol and Indigenous language and her stories are a beautifully conceived reflection of the life she lives. Black and white characters merge, lives are entwined and for her there is no racial issue, merely a different way of looking. Leonie is a passionate supporter of Aboriginal people and demonstrates enormous respect for her neighbours within her writing. She is married and lives on a farm at Noonamah. She has three children and two grandchildren.

Leonie’s picture book Look See, Look at Me won the award for the honour book in the 2011 Children’s Book Council awards. Her novel The Devil You Know won the 2010 Territory Read award 2010. Her first children’s book The Barrumbi Kids was honour book in the Children’s Book Council awards 2002 and shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s prize 2003.

The sequel The Spirit of Barrumbi was shortlisted for the South Australian Festival awards 2004. The Last Muster was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s prize 2005. Leaving Barrumbi 2007 and You and Me: Our Place were shortlisted on 2008 Children’s Book Council Award.

As an author, Leonie works in schools throughout Australia giving workshops and author talks. She has presented lectures to luncheons and dinners and ‘meet the Author sessions’ at libraries and bookshops.

Leonie’s author talk is an inspirational riot of readings and anecdotes about life, writing, being an author and writing in general. Warning – includes spontaneous combustion, murdering crocodiles and exploding evil ‘badies.’

Arundhati Venkatesh
Author

Arundhati Venkatesh went to school in five towns (including the big, bustling city of Bombay and a sleepy hill town with a waterfall) and worked in four continents. Everywhere, she made up stories. Now she puts them down on paper.In her previous work avatars, she managed projects at an IT major and headed communications at a non-profit.
Arundhati has published picture books and chapter books with leading publishing houses in India. Her books have won several awards, including the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award 2015 for India, Middle East and Asia for Petu Pumpkin Tooth Troubles, the Comic Con India 2015 Best Publication for Children award for
Bookasura – The Adventures of Bala and the Book-eating Monster and the RivoKids Hindustan Times Parents and Kids Choice Award for Petu Pumpkin TiffinThief and Junior Kumbhakarna.
She also gives author talks in Bangalore where she lives, as well as at schools and literature festivals across the country.

Motti Aviram
Film/TV Director and Content Editor

Motti Aviram is a leading figure in the Israeli children’s television industry. He has created a large share of Israel’s most successful and appreciated children’s TV series. He has also served as the head director and content editor of Sesame Street shows in Israel, and directed the Shalom Sesame series in New York (starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Jerry Stiller, Joan Rivers and many more). Later, Motti became the content director of Hop TV, Israel’s leading pre-school TV channel, and then established Subtext, a content company specializing in children’s television shows. Motti has served as a senior lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and at Israel’s School of Screenwriting. He recently participated in an international workshop for television and movie content editors, funded by the British Council. Currently, he is the content director heading the creative team at Clasikaletet, a company specializing in the production and distribution of videos and books for children. Recently, Motti has published his book; The Complete Guide to Screenwriting for Children’s Film & Television. A book aimed at people who want to specialize in script writing for kids.

For more information about our speaker, visit www.mottiaviram.com

Sudeshna Ghosh
Editorial Director, Red Turtle

Sudeshna Shome Ghosh has worked in the publishing industry for over 18 years. She began her career at Penguin Books India where she headed the children’s imprint Puffin before moving to Rupa Publications where she started the children’s imprint Red Turtle. She is currently the Editorial Director of Red Turtle and also works as a freelance editor.

Ameen Ul Haque
Storyteller

A storyteller, story coach and consultant, Ameen Haque is also the founder of StoryWallahs – a company that trains people in the art of storytelling. No matter what you do, today’s world revolves around stories and Ameen has coached leaders, teachers and children alike to be powerful storytellers.

A Graduate in Business Administration from MICA, he has also participated in a program in Luxury Management from IIM-A in collaboration with Essec, Paris. Formerly a Vice President at Ogilvy & Mather, Ameen has over 20 years of experience in advertising, theatre & consulting. These stints have exposed him to stories, human behavior, team dynamics and strategy. It is these themes that have influenced and informed his storytelling work today.

Aruna Ganesh Ram
Performance Director

Aruna is a performance director, deviser, designer and founder ofVisual Respiration. She holds an (MA) in Advanced Theatre Practice from TheRoyal CentralSchoolofSpeechandDrama,London,UnitedKingdom.Sheisalsoa graduateinCommunicationandDesign.Arunaisinterestedinengagingwith audiences in unique ways and creating multi-sensorialperformance experiences. She is interested in making work that is visual, througha combination of elements that are aural, gestural anddigital.

Aruna has been in theatre and performance for the last 15 years. Her most recent work, Re:play,an
immersiveperformanceinspiredbyTraditionalIndianGameshasbeenperformedover35timesin Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Singapore and London. It was also showcased at theKala Ghoda Arts festival in Mumbai in2014.

Her other directorial performances include A moment of memory (2015) Visual Respirationthe performance (2013), which premiered in London as part of the Accidental Festival, Swamiand
Friends(2011)byRKNarayanwhichtouredaspartoftheMetroPlusTheatrefestivaltoBangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, Kingdom of Fools (2009), a folklore which ran over 20 performancesin Chennai,India Arunaisalsoafacilitatorintheatreandtheatrebasedlearning,wheresheusestheatrebased processes in areas of communication skills, team dynamics and leadership. She was theArtistic
DirectorofLandingStage,ayouththeatregroupthathastrainedandintroducedover100youngactors on stage. She is an ATSA fellow 2014-15, an arts management fellowship, focusedon grooming art managers in SouthAsia.

Anand Ramachandran
Game Developer and Author

Anand is a game designer based in Bangalore who makes mobile games for players in India. Previously, he has also written comic books, children’s stories and satire columns.

Deeptha Vivekanad
Storyteller and Founder, Ever After

Deeptha Vivekanand has been a professional storyteller and story-educator for the last 6 years; her previous experience as a corporate trainer made her explore the use of storytelling in the teaching-learning process. Through her company Ever After Learning, her work is focussed on promoting the use of narratives that aid learning, for both young people and adults. At her workshops and performances, she encourages educators, teachers, corporate managers and parents alike to actively spend a little extra time on storytelling while interacting as it makes the learning environment highly charged, creative and personal. Deeptha has learnt the art of traditional oral storytelling by observing some of the best minds in the business including Dr. Margaret Read McDonald & Jeeva Raghunath; she is also trained in digital storytelling by Barrie Stephenson, ex-Producer, Telling Lives, B.B.C. Wales. Some of her notable sessions and projects include:

– ‘Stories to Teach Fractals and Optimization’, at the Mathematics of Planet Earth Exhibition, organized by Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore

– A lec-dem on ‘Using Stories in Science Education’, at the People’s Science Fest organised by Breakthrough Science Society, Bangalore

– ‘Stories about World’s Largest Dinosaur, the Spinosaurus’ at Viswesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum, Bangalore

– Storifying the Social Sciences Curriculum (CBSE) for Grades 6 to 10 for a private school in Bangalore

Sayoni Basu
Founder, Duckbill Books

Sayoni has had a long and joyful career in publishing. She is currently primary platypus, Duckbill Books.

Vinutha Mallya
Principal, LineSpace Consulting

Vinutha Mallya is the Principal at LineSpace Consulting, a publishing advisory based in Bangalore. She is a consulting editor to Mapin Publishing, a contributing editor to Publishing Perspectives, and an advisor to the Publishing Next conference. Vinutha has a keen interest in documenting and reporting on the Indian book-publishing industry. She manages and edits Booksy.In, a web resource for the publishing industry in India.Vinutha has a master’s degree in Journalism from Goldsmiths College, London, and a master’s degree in Communication from Manipal University. She has reported for newspapers and written for online news sites. She has developed content for e-learning courses and also been a faculty for the NBT’s publishing course . She began a career in book publishing about a decade years ago, and she has since edited illustrated books, environmental research publications, motivational learning books, fiction and poetry.In her work, Vinutha endeavours to identify and plug information gaps. Her effort as a journalist and as editor/publisher is oriented towards asking questions, and propelling ideas for further discussions.

Shalini Menon
Founder, Educator’s Collective

Shalini Menon is the founder of Educator’s Collective which started as a social experiment in March, 2013. Passionate individuals, artists, trainers, youth workers, experiential educators and classroom teachers were brought together to work for low and middle income groups to extend meaningful learning experiences for children, youth and communities. She has also been the lead facilitator for Campaign Bootcamp India and Jagriti Yatra. She has also been invited by ‘Google for Educators and INK Talks,’ where she delivered a public talk titled, ‘Why should kids have all the fun?’ She looks forward to forging new partnerships and work opportunities that allow her to apply experiential learning methodologies in diverse context, especially within the global development sector where young people are empowered through deep exposure and authentic understanding of world challenges.

Julia Regul Singh
Author

Julia Regul Singh is the author of Boris the Bench (Urban Crayon Press, 2010), a children’s book. Leap of Faith is Julia’s first fiction novel for adults. Julia is currently working on publishing her second children’s story, My Cousin Max, which combines her passion for writing for young readers and promoting cross-cultural understanding and acceptance. Before turning her hand to writing, Julia worked as an Urban Planner and Urban Designer in Germany and the US. She holds a bachelor degree of geography from the University of Bayreuth (Germany) and a master degree of urban planning and urban design from the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg (Germany) and attended Columbia University in New York City as part of her masters. Julia currently resides in New Delhi with her husband and their three children, trying to raise them in Punjabi style and improve her Hindi.

R. Sriram
Social Entrepreneur

R.Sriram is best known as co-founder of Crossword, a pioneering organized retail venture. Walden in Hyderabad (1990) was his first entrepreneurial venture; he found his first calling at Landmark, Chennai (1988-89).He co-founded Crossword with Ms. K. Anita in 1992 & helped build it into India’s leading bookstore chain. Sriram stepped down from Crossword in August 2006 & co-founded “Next Practice Retail” that offers business design, incubation & consulting services for consumer & retail businesses. He has also served as President of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Mumbai, the global not-for-profit organization that fosters entrepreneurship & entrepreneurs (2010-12). He’s an advisor to Seedfund, the early stage venture fund and to some of its investee companies. He is an Independent Director on the Boards of Kokuyo Camlin Ltd and Alphakids Learning Ltd. Sriram serves on the board of trustees of the non-profit – Society For Nutrition Education & Health Action (SNEHA) for women & children in urban slums. He serves on the board of advisors of the non-profits Pratham Books, Junoon Theatre and Toybank. He’s a visiting faculty at IIM A & a guest lecturer at IIM L & other business schools as it helps him keep learning. He advises & mentors individuals & firms. He’s is particularly interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, business strategy & incubation, design thinking, purpose & culture, leadership & next practices.

Vimala Malhotra
Founder, Hippocampus

Vimala R Malhotra– fiercely protective of her private collection of books, never dreamed of being involved in a business where the main target is getting books borrowed, with the occupational hazard of them not being returned!

She also learned – the embarrassing way – that you cannot make tall claims to children and get away with it. When her son was about 6 years old she mentioned wanting to start a library for children. Two years later her son innocently asked her what happened to the library idea. Shamed into acting upon it, the spadework started in 2002 and Hippocampus was set up in 2003. She says, “Every good idea requires a catalyst and he was mine, I guess!”

Vimala has a background in English Literature and Mass Communication. She started her work life with half-hearted forays into freelance journalism. She then got into technical writing working with the Indian Institute of Science and later Infosys. She discovered literature for the very young when reading to her son and got addicted.

Today, over 12 years into the business, Hippocampus has forayed into a lot of areas – all associated with children – theatre production, children’s carnivals, international storytelling festivals, author/illustrator themed parties, author/illustrator interactions with children, and more recently offering library support programs in schools – but at the end of the day it is their book collection that is the mainstay. Hippocampus aims at promoting reading for joy amongst children, and that will always be THE reason for its existence.

Vimala is also a founding member of Bookalore – a group of enthusiastic authors, illustrators, editors and librarians for children’s literature – which does its best to bring books and children together in novel ways.

Vidya Mani
Managing Editor, Goodbooks

Vidya Mani is an editor and writer, who has put together many children’s magazines. She believes that reading magazines is like biting into an eclair – it shows you there’s a whole world of chocolate out there waiting to be eaten! She is the managing editor of Goodbooks.

Sowmya Rajendran
Author

Sowmya Rajendran has been with Goodbooks since its inception. She has written books for people of all ages. This year, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar for her children’s book Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, which she co-authored with Niveditha Subramaniam.

Usha Mukunda
Librarian

Usha Mukunda has greatly enjoyed interacting with children and books for thirty years. Just recently when she thought she should retire, she came upon a book called, Miss Moore Thought Otherwise, which tells the story of Anne Carroll Moore who created libraries for children in the US in the early 1900s. The story goes that when Miss Moore became seventy years old and people thought she would retire, she “thought otherwise”… and set out with a suitcase to all parts of the country to enthuse people to set up open children’s libraries. That has inspired Usha to continue what she has been doing for the last five years. Interacting with government schools, rural schools and schools in remote areas throughout India, helping to set up open, interactive libraries. She has also authored a manual for running a school library, articles on reading activities and written innumerable reviews of children’s books.

Amukta Mahapatra
Amukta Mahapatra is an independent consultant and has been involved with school education for the past few decades. She taught at the The School, KFI and was the Founder-Principal of Abacus School, Madras. She also set up a centre for educators, called SchoolScape that focuses on the development of the teacher and other support cadres to enable schools, organizations and education departments to enhance the quality of learning in the classroom. She has worked in a variety of situations; setting up and helping learning centres, schools and teacher development programmes in rural and urban India. She has worked with small schools and also developed programmes that have been implemented by the education departments across a state or many states in India. At present she is involved on the committee that is reviewing Activity Based Learning and its variations in seven states, including Karnataka. She is also working with UNICEF on CCE (Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation) that will be brought out as a guidebook for teachers and administrators.The centre promotes quality education based on democratic principles, practices and processes.

Anshumani Ruddra
Anshumani Ruddra is an author, game designer and screenwriter based in Bangalore, India. He predominantly writes in the speculative fiction genre. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies and he is currently putting finishing touches to his first novel for adults. He also conducts workshops for children and college students in the areas of writing, speculative fiction, scriptwriting and comic books.

Asha Nehemiah
Asha Nehemiah has written picture books, chapter books, short stories and full-length mysteries for children. Her stories capture the colourful, funny, zany world that we live in — in a way that children can enjoy.

Whether it’s the Rajah with the curly-whirly-twirly moustache who wants everything in his kingdom to match the shape of his moustache, or Bambaram Jones in hot pursuit of the Hullagullabul seeds, there is a sense of playfulness as wonderfully funny characters tumble into crazy adventures.

Granny’s Sari, The Rajah’s Moustache, Mystery of the Secret Hair Oil Formula, Mystery of the Silk Umbrella, the Meddling Mooli books and Trouble with Magic are some of her titles.

Some of her books have been translated into Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali.

Nury Vittachi
Nury a.k.a. “Mr. Jam” is the founding chairman of the Scholastic Asia Book prize, the Asia Literary Review, the Man Asian Literary prize and the Australia-Asia Literary Award. He is one of Asia’s most successful and widely translated children’s book writers.

Nury has hosted several T.V. shows, published thousands of articles and has penned more than 30 books, ranging from non-fiction to novels including the much-loved ‘Feng Shui detective series’

JIGGY GEORGE

Jiggy George is CEO and Founder, Dream Theatre. He set up Dream Theatre in 2010, a brand management and licensing agency that creates and manages iconic brands in the kids & youth space in South Asia. Dream Theatre represents Angry Birds, Warner Bros., DreamWorks Animation, Noddy, Mister Men among other brands for Licensing & Merchandising in India and South Asia.

Jiggy has over 15 years of experience in marketing, sales and the licensing industry – having worked with Viacom, Turner & the Times Group. He has set up and successfully run the licensing businesses for both Viacom and Turner. In his last avatar, Jiggy was Executive Director Cartoon Network Enterprises and was responsible for making it the leader in Licensing arena in India; he also headed up the Turner Theatrical Team and the Sesame Street India production for India.

In Dream Theatre, Jiggy has built the first professional Licensing enterprise of its kind in the country and is creating out of box licensing models for brands across innovative categories, taking licensing to a new level and exploring possibilities in the digital world for extending licensing.

At Jumpstart, Jiggy will speak of kids, new media and how L&M in its digital avatars can impact kids and their world and drive publishing – the mother lode of storytelling.

Shilpa Ranade
Shilpa Ranade teaches Animation at IDC, IIT Bombay. An alumnus of the IDC and the JJ Institute of Applied Art, she later completed her M. Phil in Animation from the Royal College of Art, London. Shilpa Ranade has directed short animation films for Channel 4, UK, and her films have travelled all over the world winning accolades in some of the most prestigious film festivals.

Shilpa has illustrated children’s picture books for publishers including Scholastic, Pratham, Karadi Tales, Eklavya and Hogsback. She is a founding member of Damroo, a project involved in creating content for children.

Her animated feature film for the Children’s Film Society of India, Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya, based on the original text, Goopi Gayne Bagha Bayne by Upendrakishore Raychowdury, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has been screened at Busan Korea, MAMI India and DIFF Dubai among several other film festivals. It has won the ASIFA Award for best animated feature film and the Jury Award for best Art Work at ICFF in Hyderabad and was nominated for best film at APSA Brisbane, the Orbit Live Industry award for best animated feature, the WIFTS award in Los Angeles and others.

Shilpa’s work has been screened at the Bombay International Short Film Festival, the British Short Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Festival of European Films in Turkey, Feminale in Cologne, the Oxfordshire Short Film Festival, the Tokyo Short Film Festival, the Ankara International Film Festival, the Cine Film Club in Porto, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Hiroshima, Annecy, the Mumbai International Festival, Zagreb and others. She has been awarded a three-month residency by the Museum of the Moving Image, London.

Her latest curatorial work includes two large volumes: Plant Life and Child Farmers. Plant Life is an anthology of children’s writing and drawing on how they perceive higher and lower plants while Child Farmers is a book based on the lives of children of Vidarbha who have lost their farmer fathers to suicides.

Sophie Benini Pietromarchi

Sophie Benini Pietromarchi is a Franco-Italian artist, author and illustrator of children’s books. Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1965, she grew up and studied in Paris. After high school, she obtained a degree in graphic design and a BA and MA degree in Literature at the University of Florence with a thesis on Charles Perrault’s Fables.

Sophie has conducted workshops at international festivals including Edinburgh International Book Festival, Fiera del libro de Madrid, in Bibliotèque de Mouscron during Europalia Festival, Eurokidsfestival in Washington; and in various venues such as schools (Lycée Chateaubriand, The Art and Technology Academy Public Charter School in Washington), public libraries (Mediatèque de l’Institut Français de Rome, Library of Congress Washington) and museums.

Some of her work as an illustrator includes collaborations with best-selling authors Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Teheran and Frank McCourt.

In India, she has published books with the multi-award winning publisher Tara Publishing. The Mexican Department of Education selected the Spanish edition of the Book Book to be part of their national primary school curriculum for school libraries.

Sophie’s books have been published in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Israel, Switzerland, India and China.

Sujata Noronha

Sujata Noronha lives and works in Goa where she runs an organisation called Bookworm that privileges opportunity for all children to learn to love books. Bookworm began nearly 10 years ago with the idea of access to good children’s literature for all children and presently finds itself delightfully engaged with building relationships with books in critical and meaningful ways across various social groups and demographies.

Sujata consults with SRTT ( Sir Ratan Tata Trust) on Library and Early Literacy projects and works with various groups and institutions that are seeking to empower learning through children’s libraries and reading programs.

E.K. Shaji

Shaji is the founder member trustee of Jodo Gyan since its inception in 1998. He has been involved in conducting workshops for principals, parents, teachers, and teacher-educators across the country since last 12 years. He has conducted around 1200 such sessions on Maths and EVS curriculum design as well as on school mathematics policy.

Ralph Möllers

Born in Northern Germany in 1956 Ralph Möllers went to school and University in Germany. He holds degrees in German Literatur and Theology. In the Theology Department of the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg he worked as a scholar and assistant professor. In an amazing turn of his biography Möllers started working in the publishing industry in 1986 by accepting a position as editor at a computer book publisher in Munich, Germany. His work has ever since bridged the gap between literature, the humanities and technology.

In 1987 Ralph Möllers founded, together with his wife Iris Bellinghausen, the very successful book and software house Systhema, an immediate success and the first publisher to sell low cost software through bookstores in the German speaking countries.

In cooperation with The Voyager Company, New York, Systhema was then the first fully fledged CD-ROM/Multimedia publisher in Germany.

After selling Systhema to the Holtzbrinck group in 1993 Möllers moved on to run another Multimedia Publishing House, Navigo. After several international bestselling titles, among other the CD-ROM version of “Sophies World” Ralph Möllers and Iris Bellinghausen founded Möllers & Bellinghausen Publishing which has been operating under various imprints like Terzio, Quartino, Quinto (you see the pattern) and book2look.

Terzio published the best selling edutainment series “Löwenzahn” in cooperation with the German ZDF (TV Network) that sold 4.5 Mio copies Germany alone. Also under the Terzio imprint Möllers and his team have developed the children’s musical series “Ritter Rost “ (Rusty Knight). The books with music CDs are now also a very popular TV series and a feature 3D movie.

Book2look is an online marketing tool that Möllers & Bellinghausen has developed in a joint venture with the Mumbai based WITS Interactive Pvt. Ltd. and that is now internationally distributed by Nielsen Book Data.