By Amith Prabhu

The weekend that went by witnessed the largest gathering of public relations professionals in one place, both consultancy based and in-house. Four hundred fifty professionals gathered in Mysore for the fourth edition of Praxis in what has come to become a signature event in the annual calendar of Indian communicators. As someone who has a small role to play in the co-creation of this summit it I’m thrilled with the outcome.

Getting together 35 speakers, 30 partners and the Who’s Who of Indian PR from Madan Bahal, Dilip Cherian and Ashwani Singla to Radha Roy, Papri Dev and Archana Jain to the global communication heads of Infosys, Arvind, Biocon, Suzlon, Aptech to Indian comms heads of Vodafone, Kellogg’s, GSK, Omidyar Networks and more it was the coming of age of Indian Public Relations. Almost every Indian ecommerce player was present. And with this edition every PR firm from among the Top 30 has witnessed at least one of the four summits.

What stood out was the overwhelming response from the community of senior professionals. Three keynotes representing three continents and a panel of young leaders. Rajdeep Sardesai’s session was certainly the icing on the cake. World renowned percussionist Sivamani performing live had the audience spell bound.  Startups such as Astrum and Value 360 and established players such as Adfactors and MSLGroup supporting the event along with 25 others added vibrancy.

The corporate communications panel chaired by Aparna Jain with corporate communications from Yahoo, Coke and Quintles was a hit with the audience. So were the keynotes by Shonali Burke and Andre Manning. The special address of Creativity by Kiran Khalap and on Analytics by Mike Ziviani had a lot to offer the young professional.

An important aspect of Praxis is the celebration of talent. Honouring young professionals has become a tradition. Two pairs of individuals have come forward to be generous donors of the prize money. I wish more professionals institute prizes to encourage exceptional younger professionals. Seema Ahuja and Shravani Dang have instituted the prize for the young in-house professional, which was won by Abhishek Mahapatra of Ford Motor Company. The consultancy-based prize went to Prasidha Menon of Edelman India. This year a lifetime achievement award was given to the indomitable Jayoti Lahiri of PRCAI.

The student volunteers make a big difference and this year students of St Joseph’s College put their best foot forward. The summit has grown since its inception in 2012. Having been part of the previous editions I can proudly say that we have come a long way as the largest gathering of PR professionals in the country and the only event of its kind that is neither organized by a trade association nor by a media outlet. But by a community of volunteers who spare time to bring this event alive.