Are you an artist who is looking for ways to popularise your talent? Is your spectacular theatrical skills ensconced only within the peripheries of your college campus? Have you been struggling to present your talent across before a larger public? Here’s a unique platform that aims to help young talents collaborate and network. A Hyderabad based startup called Checkerboard is hosting a first-of-its-kind networking event called Fest N Fiesta in the city on September 24 to connect people, especially youth and students, possessing different skill sets.
The brainchild of Veera Sai Raja, B.Tech graduate from Guntur’s Vignan University, Checkerboard has so far conducted four similar events in Hyderabad, Guntur and one in France. “Checkerboard, in general sense, is a board game with different colours. We are trying to depict the same by showcasing various talents on one platform,” Veera Sai Raja, founder and organiser of Checkerboard told The Hindu .
The startup is trying to clear two ‘pain points’ of the students’ community and the youth in general. One is the boundaries which restrain their skill to be known to others. Most often, the individual’s talent gets restricted within the colleges or among their friends’ circle. So, Checkerboard looks to create a platform where students and young talents from various colleges and groups come to one place. The other is collaborations. “We are trying to create cross-connections among different talents wherein someone from literature background can collaborate with a theatre group or someone from modelling can team up with a fashion illustrator. That’s how success stories are created,” Mr Raja said. The Visakhapatnam event is expected to see a turnout of 400 students from 17 colleges.
The startup that is completely bootstrapped hopes to do six events every year with five Checkerboard events in major cities and one event specifically aiming at foreign student community living in India. “We wanted to start with Vizag in our initial round of events as the city has a very vibrant youth community and many hidden talents that are looking for channels to present their work. In the next leg, we will be hosting events in Bangalore and Chennai,” Raja added.
The Vizag event will see rappers, fine art artists, surfers, hip hop artistes, singers, fashion designers and bloggers converge at the venue, ie. VUDA Children’s Arena, and be a part of the networking event. “This is a great platform for artistes in the city. I have been struggling to popularise my work as a rapper and old school hip-hip in the city. Till now I have been sharing my works through my YouTube channels. This platform will help us to connect with other artistes and work out ways to network,” said Dennis Devraj, B.Tech graduate and a rapper. For further details, check out the Facebook events page of Checkerboard Visakhapatnam.
