Sep 07 2025 to Sep 07 2025 6 p.m.

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Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Adolescence has never been easy, but today’s teenagers face unique challenges: the pressures of a digital world, rising academic demands, and the aftershocks of a global pandemic. Rates of anxiety and depression are climbing, leaving parents searching for tools to support their children.

This discussion, inspired by Resilience Decoded: What Every Parent Should Know About Teen Mental Health, brings together author Dr. Sujata Kelkar Shetty, biological scientist, writer and resilience coach; philanthropist and education innovator Rohini Nilekani; and award-winning filmmaker Pavitra Chalam, who will moderate the conversation.

Together, they will explore how parents can better understand the adolescent brain, strengthen everyday habits that boost resilience, set healthy boundaries around technology, and communicate in ways that build trust. Drawing on neuroscience, lived experience, and practical strategies, the session offers parents not just guidance but a roadmap for action.

Because resilient teens begin with resilient parents, this conversation aims to equip families with knowledge, skills, and hope.

Dr. Sujata Kelkar Shetty

Speakers

Sujata Kelkar Shetty
Author, Scientist & Storyteller
A curious mind with a love for science and a gift for storytelling, Dr. Sujata Kelkar Shetty bridges cutting-edge research and everyday wellness with warmth and wisdom. Trained in the US as a biological scientist, she holds a B.S. in Genetics (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and a Ph.D. in Toxicology (University of Kentucky-Lexington), then dove into pioneering stress research at the NIH, Bethesda, under Dr. George Chrousos—a legend in the field. Her work? Decoding how stress tinkers with our immunity, one biomolecule at a time.

Back in India, she swapped lab coats for a pen, becoming a preventive health evangelist. For years, her lively columns in Mint (India’s top business daily) made complex science feel like a friendly chat—mixing modern medicine, ancient Ayurveda, and real-world doctor insights. Readers loved it so much, she turned her wisdom into the bestselling book 99 Not Out! Your Guide to a Long and Healthy Life (Penguin, 2019). The book was so popular, Penguin asked for an expanded edition (2023)

Dr. Shetty is also a certified Life Coach and Resilience Trainer, on a mission to help people and organizations thrive. From Infosys to PwC, her workshops crackle with energy, blending science, humor, and practical tools to build unshakable wellbeing. She trained with Coaches Training Institute and Dr. Sood’s Resilient Option.

When she’s not writing or coaching, you’ll find her reading, practicing yoga, or wandering nature trails with her husband, two sons and three dogs. And if the mood strikes? She’ll unwind with Hindustani classical music, because even scientists need soulful melodies.

Rohini Nilekani
Chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies & Director, EkStep
Rohini Nilekani is Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies and Co-founder and Director of EkStep, a non-profit platform for education. In 2001, she founded Arghyam, a foundation dedicated to sustainable water and sanitation, and from 2004 to 2014 she was Founder-Chairperson and chief funder of Pratham Books, which reached millions of children across India with affordable literature. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of ATREE, an environmental think tank, and has been on several national and international advisory boards.

A former journalist, Rohini has written widely for leading Indian publications. She is the author of the medical thriller Stillborn, the non-fiction work Uncommon Ground based on her TV series, and several children’s books published by Pratham Books, including the much-loved Annual Haircut Day. Her 2022 anthology Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar sets out her vision of strengthening society as the foundational sector to balance the state and markets.

Her philanthropy and public leadership have been recognized nationally and internationally. She was inducted as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017, named Best Grassroots Philanthropist by the Forbes India Leadership Awards in 2022, and awarded the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice in 2024. Frequently described as “India’s most generous woman philanthropist” by the EdelGive-Hurun Report, she featured in the top 10 of the India Philanthropy List in 2024. Along with her husband Nandan Nilekani, she signed the Giving Pledge in 2017, committing half their wealth to philanthropy.

Pavitra Chalam
Documentary Filmmaker
Pavitra Chalam is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been widely recognized for its impact and artistry. In 2019, she co-directed Rooting for Roona with Akshay Shankar, a moving story of a child with hydrocephalus that won the Women in Film (Los Angeles) Film Finishing Fund, received the Audience Award at the South Asian Film Festival of Orlando, and was acquired by Netflix for global release.

Her earlier film Indelible (2012), which portrayed the lives of people with Down syndrome in India, earned her the Asia-Pacific Award for Outstanding Documentary Talent at DocWeek Adelaide and continues to inspire her work. She is currently directing Babli, a feature-length documentary that celebrates the Down syndrome community, and I Am Home, on the lives of orphaned and abandoned children, while also developing a film on midlife wellness.

A graduate of the New York Film Academy, Pavitra began her journey in 2003 with Bus, created for the Youth Initiative for Peace in Pakistan, and went on to serve as a UN youth ambassador using film as a tool for dialogue across Europe. Since then, she has built a distinctive body of work that highlights resilience, dignity, and the power of untold stories.