Mr. Sharanya Chattopadhyay, Goethe – Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan, Dr. Debanjan Chakrabarti, Director – East & North East, British Council India, Mr. Aaquib Hussain, Founding Partner, Freeflow Venture Builders, Mr. Nick Low, Hon’ble British Deputy High Commissioner to Kolkata, Mr. Manfred Auster, Hon’ble Consul General, German Consulate, Mr. Meghdut Roychowdhury, Founder, Make Calcutta Relevant Again and Chief Innovation Officer, Techno India Group, Ms. Pauline Laravoire, Co-Founder and CEO, Y-East, & Sustainability Director, Techno India Group, Mr. Amyt Dutta, Musician, Mr. Manish Pandey, Consultant to India’s Biggest Content Companies and Coach to Content Creators, Mr. Satrajit Sen, Indian Film Director, Producer & Entrepreneur graced the launch of the first edition of The CCU Festival.

Established more than 300 years ago, Kolkata was praised as the crowning achievement of previous tyrants. In addition to being the coveted center of business and industry, it was the richest province in the British Empire and a wonderful potpourri of rich arts, crafts, and culture. But while they ruminate, people in the state today invariably ask themselves, “How much longer do we bask in our previous greatness when other states have obviously taken the lead?”

To address this issue, ‘Make Calcutta Relevant Again’ announced the launch of the first edition of ‘The CCU Festival’.

The innovative and optimistic event seeks to celebrate some wonderful facets of Calcutta -sustainability, fitness, design, innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, food, and music.

The CCU Festival will have 14 events that would be hosted in 17 hours. The event will also feature a creator’s fest with 500 creators to foster national-level discussion. Eighty investors from across the country, including ones who have never come to Calcutta before, will be present to evaluate and assess the entrepreneurship initiatives. The aim is to thereafter create a thousand start-ups from the East.

Another distinct part of the event will be the launch of the ‘Moving Kolkata, Kolkata Moving’ Project, an EU-funded project especially powered by EUNIC Global, European Spaces of Culture, and further supported and implemented by the Embassy of Spain in India, Instituto Cervantes, the Goethe Institut, General Consulates of Germany and Italy, Alliance Française, British Council and Y-East.

There will be six conventions at The CCU Festival. For each of the selected conventions, there will be 3 awards, celebrating history, celebrating the present, and celebrating the future.

The events that will make The CCU Festival a class-apart initiative are FLOPTCH(Day-long deal flows &start-up exhibition), MRKT(All-day flea market ft. Curated Local and National Brands), CCU GOT SOUL(All-day live music, busking and comedy bringing life to MRKT and the Festival), BLPRNT (Design Convention for designs that touch and change life), BUIDL (Web3 Convention to plunge into new technology universes), JAMSTEADY (Live Music by Top Local, National & International Artists), CYPHER (Live performances from local Hip-Hop artists and Beatboxers), MOTOR CORTEX (Audio-visual electronic dance music experience ft. national and international DJs), MKKM (Sustainability Convention to shed light on sustainable urban solutions), CLOUT (First-of-its-kind Content Creators Convention), FLOW (The Fitness Convention), DSRPT (Innovation Convention to leverage the latest trends and most innovative brands and talents) &FINE DINE (Invite-only VIP Networking Dinner).

The CCU Festival will be held on Saturday, 29th October 2022 from 9 am – 2 am at Taal Kutir Convention Centre.

Tickets for participation will be available at https://www.makecalcuttarelevantagain.com/event-details/ccutickets.

Priyanka Dutta