The Guest Author of the 41st session of An Author’s Afternoon was Dr. Kiran Karnik. It was held on 13th February, 2017. In conversation with the IT entrepreneur was Nilisha Agarwal. The event was sponsored by Shree Cement and hosted by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in association with t2, Siyahi and Taj Bengal.

Dr. Karnik spoke at length about his latest book Crooked Minds: Creating an Innovative Society. He spoke about how Calcutta is not a great entrepreneurial city compared to Ahmedabad, but has a great potential to become one. He described himself as a “public non-intellectual” with a strong interest in public policy and strategy. His last full-time job (2001-2008) was as the President of Nasscom, the premier IT trade body. Currently he is involved with a lot of educational and civil society organisations. He also writes regularly for various publications.

Dr. Karnik’s book Crooked Minds: Creating an Innovative Society describes how to create a movement across people where innovation is the norm. And to do that people have to start young. “Calcutta is one of the greatest places where innovation has to come up in a big way because this is the centre of creativity. Whether it is writing, films, art, music… all come from here,” said Kiran Karnik. He also confessed that he envies people who churn out books every six months as he needs time to think before writing a book.