NICEorg partnered with the Shankaraa Foundation for its flagship cultural event – SOMA: Festival for the Arts, organized in Bengaluru from 10 – 12 February 2023.
The three-day festival was a rich cultural immersion with several artisanal products on display by cultural enterprises as well as craftspeople from across India. Seven NICE Cultural Enterprises exhibited their products at SOMA: Festival for the Arts and engaged with school and university students, art lovers and others. These enterprises are:
- Zishta: Traditional and handcrafted cookware and home decor products.
- Calpod India: A creative learning and craft platform offering a variety of handcrafted accessories, souvenirs and artworks.
- Well O Sip: Offering immunity-boosting concoctions through tisanes made from natural Ayurvedic herbs
- Tamaala: wooden products, ancient Indian games, handicrafts, and stationery made by artisans from Channapatna and other clusters in India
- Bhogaraju Foods: Healthy pickles, spice powders, chutneys and snacks made using traditional family recipes.
- Indic Inspirations: Home decor objects that celebrate India – its culture, history, scientific achievements and more.
- Coolture Designs: Fun and interactive games to learn Sanskrit and the art of design thinking based on Indian knowledge.
Arunima Gupta, Principal at NICEorg also moderated a session with cultural entrepreneurs on Bringing Cultural Brands Home. Panelists included Vasudha Bhogaraju, Director at Bhogaraju Foods, Meera Ramakrishnan, Co-founder at Zishta and Neelacantan, Co-founder at Coolture Designs. The panelists shared their entrepreneurial journeys, inspirations and the motivation to build unique Indian cultural enterprises
SOMA: Festival for the Arts also had theatre performances, music concerts by Vasu Dixit as well as Dr Suma Sudhindra and Manasi Prasad and a dance recital by Rukmini Vijayakumar.
