The real-life Tony Stark is back to making headlines

Good morning

Tesla Founder Elon Musk aka the real-life Tony Stark is as much an inspiration as an enigma for his many fans and followers across the world. 

Lately, he seems to have made it a habit of making the headlines with nearly every move of his, which is of course, tracked and followed very closely across the world.

Tesla has said it would begin accepting the controversial cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, as payment for its electric cars. The announcement comes in the backdrop of the electric carmaker investing $1.5 billion in Bitcoin; the biggest company to back the currency till date.

The Tesla founder has also been regularly posting about cryptocurrencies on micro-blogging site Twitter, where he has over 46 million followers.

After Tesla’s investment in Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency surged to an all-time high, jumping as much as 15 percent. 

The Interview 

The year 2020 was the year of edtech as schools being shut led to online learning becoming mainstream. For edtech startup Cuemath, the year was both challenging and rewarding as the startup had to redo its yearly plans in a matter of weeks, and shift from an offline-focused model to an online model. Its CEO Manan Khurma says that almost overnight, the company moved its entire user base — both teachers and students — to the live class platform, and has since seen tremendous growth.

Editor’s Pick: 

From working on Google Maps and Gmail to building a bitcoin platform

Mike Hearn started coding when he was just six years old buoyed by his father's interest. At the age of 14, he used to do open source programming by using a dial-up connection, but was never really interested in the theory of it all. So, to escape the academics, he took up an offer by Google and soon began working on Google Maps and Google Earth, learning technical skills and building new products — until the bitcoin phenomenon took the world by storm. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Bengaluru-based EV startup Simple Energy is building electric two-wheelers from scratch

The future is electric, however there are a lot of challenges in the way of achieving that goal including high battery replacement cost, limited range, charging time, and poor charging infrastructure. To address these issues, Bengaluru-based EV startup Simple Energy is building vehicles from scratch to boost the adoption of EVs. Read more. 

News & Updates

• The government has ordered Twitter to block 1,178 accounts after the IT Ministry, on February 4, shared a list of Twitter accounts that were flagged by security agencies as accounts of Khalistan sympathisers or backed by Pakistan and operating from foreign territories, and causing threat to public order amid the ongoing farmer stir.

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and a dozen of its organisations have moved to a homegrown Twitter-alternative platform Koo after the microblogging giant failed to respond to a notice filed by the government last week. The government is also mulling suspending Twitter in India for some time to put pressure on the social media giant.

• Spacetech startups Bellatrix Aerospace and Skyroot Aerospace have now entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to further India’s spacetech efforts. As a part of the deal, the Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) being developed by Bellatrix will be used in the upper stage of Vikram launch vehicles built by Skyroot.

• The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) annual financial literacy week 2021, which began on Monday, is focused on the theme of credit discipline and credit from formal institutions. The initiative will aim to spread the message of responsible borrowing, borrowing from formal institutions, and timely repayments of loans and EMIs.

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will work with the Reserve Bank for execution of the bank privatisation plan announced in the Budget. She also said that the government has no plan to form any bank investment company to house the government stakes in banks.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

"The idea is to build something that reaches every single person. You want to build and create an impactful product."

— Sujeet Kumar, Co-founder, Udaan

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