The 21-year journey of a MakeMyTrip intern

It's never too early to start up. 

Jasmeet Singh hadn't even reached adulthood when he joined MakeMyTrip— a little known travel booking company back then — as an intern in 2000. 

Despite pressures from his family to earn a college education, Jasmeet didn't give up, and went on to work long nights as a database operator at MMT.  Soon, he would find himself taking up leadership roles at the firm, which became one of India’s earliest internet majors. Twenty-one years later, Jasmeet now serves as the Senior Vice President of MMT, and — along the way — has built his dream house, and bought his dream car (a BMW 3 Series M Sport). 

MakeMyTrip Founder Deep Kalra often says that the company is not enamoured by just degrees. Jasmeet Singh has been a great example of that.

The Interview

With climate change becoming a critical conversation globally, the need to switch to renewable sources of energy is becoming more imperative by the day. Sumant Sinha, Chairman and MD of ReNew Energy — one of India's largest cleantech startups — shares insights on the changing paradigm of energy, and how India is taking strides towards achieving its renewable energy goals.

Editor’s Pick: Techie Tuesday

For Sathvik Vishwanath, just being well-versed with technology was never enough; he always wanted to know more about its business implications and use cases. Having had an interest in computers early on, he learnt to build websites, develop programmes, and even work on popular games like Second Life. By 2013, as blockchain and cryptocurrency started gaining attention in the West, Sathvik —  a natural early adopter — jumped onto the bandwagon to set up Unocoin — a bitcoin exchange. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Grahaa Space is developing nanosatellites to stream high-resolution videos

Last year, India opened up the space sector to private players to meet the rising demand for space-based applications. Founded in 2018, Grahaa Space is involved in designing and developing a cluster of earth-observation nanosatellites that can be programmed to stream near real-time, high-resolution videos. Read more.

News & Updates

• Reliance is developing JioBook — a low-cost, 4G-enabled laptop that could launch by the end of 2021. The "larger-screened device" is expected to run a version of Android OS — which could be dubbed JioOS — and will bundle Jio's suite of apps that can be accessed through a Jio 4G LTE connection.

• Zostel Hospitality, which was embroiled in a legal battle with OYO for the last three years after merger talks broke down, claimed that it had won against Oravel Stays, which owns and operates the hotel chain, and was entitled to get a cost from the hospitality unicorn. 

• Zerodha recorded Rs 442.4 crore in standalone profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, helped by a massive jump in users and trading volumes on its platform. Zerodhacounted 3.14 million users on its platform as of January 31, 2021, according to the NSE.

• Prosus has announced the launch of its new higher education and employment initiative called 'Prosus FLIGHT' for marginalised women and girls in India in partnership with UN Women. 

• Google announced a series of efforts to support the economic empowerment of women at the virtually held Google for India event called ‘Women Will.’ Google announced $25 million in grants to nonprofits and social enterprises in India and around the world.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“I believe the greatest lesson this pandemic has taught everyone, even the sceptics, is that scientific discovery is crucial to human flourishing.”

— Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairman, Biocon Limited 

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