‘Catalysts for Change’ is the lecture series started this year by the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai.  The theme ‘Catalysts for Change’ comes from our deep-rooted belief that media plays a crucial role in development and progress of a society. Media not only reflects the society but also carries the power to intervene and change it for the larger common good.

In the ‘Catalysts for Change’ series, we invite speakers from a wide range of disciplines – both within and outside the media, but connected to contemporary social, economic and international issues. These invited speakers who can make a fundamental difference to a media student’s views and perspectives on the subject are otherwise rarely heard on college level mass communications platforms. Media students who otherwise have limited access to these speakers will now have the opportunity to hear them firsthand. 

Through the ‘Catalysts for Change’ lectures, we believe that each speaker can inspire and motivate young people who are on the threshold of joining the media industry to think about larger issues before the country and the world. The lecture format is an interactive one which enables young people to meet inspiring speakers in person and be able to ask questions that could often help them in key work or career decisions. Our emphasis is to invite undergraduate students from a cross-section of Mumbai colleges for the ‘Catalysts for Change’ lecture series.

Our idea behind the series is that SCM becomes the platform for young people to connect with the work and thoughts of people who are respected across continents not only for their work but also path-breaking concepts and new lens perspectives. They have impacted and influenced the course of debates on issues of vital social or national importance. Hearing them, interacting with them, being able to converse with them could be a life-changing moment for many young people on the threshold of their life-work. Such platforms to expose young people to ideas and people have shrunk in the city; we hope that the ‘Catalysts for Change’ will be the small but necessary addition in contemporary times.

The inaugural lecture will be delivered by Dr Vandana Shiva, the world renowned environmentalist and feminist on Wednesday, 16th December, 2009.

We are proud to announce that the Social Communications Media Department, Sophia Polytechnic has been ranked as one of the ten best media institutes in India in independent surveys conducted by leading broadsheet, Hindustan Times and highly respected news magazine, Outlook, in June 2008.