ZEE’s Hipi takes on content bigwigs; Designing inclusive schools

Hello,

BYJU'S continues to be the top news—though not exactly for the right reasons.

At the EGM called by several key investors, shareholders voted for a change in the leadership at the troubled edtech company as well as the reconstitution of its board. 

However, the edtech company said these resolutions were invalid.

The BYJU’S family trio, Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran, Co-founder and his wife Divya Gokulnath, and his brother Riju Ravindran—all current members of the company’s Board—did not participate in the EGM.

Meanwhile, a group of four BYJU'S investors—Prosus, GA, Sofina, and Peak XV—has filed an oppression and mismanagement suit against the company’s management before the Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal.

Elsewhere, in a new development in the Paytm saga, the central bank has advised National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to consider the request of One97 Communication to become a Third-Party Application Provider for UPI transactions. NPCI will also certify 4-5 banks for migration of '@paytm' UPI handles.

Speaking of fintech, Razorpay crossed the milestone of $150 billion in total payment volume (TPV). 

ICYMI: There exists a nearly 10-million-year-old Anaconda species. 

The world had almost missed it until a group of scientists discovered it in the Amazon while shooting a documentary!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Chasing after short video market 
• Designing inclusive schools
• A coming-of-age story in rural India

Here’s your trivia for today: What percentage of the world's oceans have humans explored?

Content

Chasing after short video market

Among many players in the short-form video game, Hipi—ZEE’s offering in the short video space—appears confident of its success. Launched in 2020, Hipi claims to be having about 60 million monthly active users. Between 2020 and 2024, Hipi users grew from 43 million to about 60 million.

Entertainment and discovery:

• GBS Bindra, the Chief Business Officer at Hipi, says it has been able to crack the monetisation problem by allowing brands to showcase their products through user-generated content.
• Hipi also targets creators who are struggling to be seen on Instagram. “The algorithms are designed to sell popular videos to more people, and that’s why every algorithm reaches a saturation point,” says Bindra.
• Under Hipi’s Creator Programme, creators will be able to earn a share of the revenue generated through click-throughs.

Top Deals of the Week

Startup: Rentomojo

Amount: Rs 210 Cr

Round: Series D-D1

Startup: Orkes

Amount: $20M

Round: Equity

Startup: Walko Food

Amount: $20M

Round: Growth

Education

Designing inclusive schools

The School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, located in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, caters to the needs of the visually impaired and blind students through its architectural design. 

“The idea behind the design was to make the school more accessible and easy to navigate for the students,” Anand Sonecha, Founder of SEALAB, tells SocialStory. 

Sound, smell, touch:

• Other than the smooth interior of the classrooms and a rough exterior, the longer, uninterrupted sides of the corridor have horizontal textures, whereas the shorter side has vertical textures to help students navigate.
• Sonecha has used contrasting colours on the doors, furniture, and switchboard frames so that students with low vision can easily differentiate between the elements.
• The architect also designed skylights and openings in a way that the sunlight gets filtered into the private courtyards as the students with low vision are sensitive to direct sunlight. 

Books

A coming-of-age story in rural India

Thirteen years ago, Sarmistha Pritam wrote a book about a young woman named Paridhi, who waged a life-long battle for identity in a village in Assam. Last month, the book Rang (colour) was translated into English by Ranjita Biswas and published by Simon and Schuster.

Turning a page:

• Titled ‘Beneath the Simolu Tree’, the book chronicles Paridhi as she builds a life in an environment where poor social determinants, cultural stigma, and patriarchal abuse steer the status, growth, and choices of women.
• Pritam says her own observations growing up in the village of Phulagiri in Nagaon, Assam, have united in her consciousness to create Paridhi's world, lending it the premise and breathing life into its characters. 
• In addition to poverty and alcoholism, Pritam’s characters also include people with caste supremacy and those who have been generationally oppressed.

News & updates

• At the zenith: Nvidia is set to become the first semiconductor firm with a $2 trillion valuation, another milestone in its ascendancy as the biggest beneficiary of a rush into AI-related stocks. The chipmaker’s shares rose to 2.7% in premarket trading on Friday after closing at a $1.96 trillion valuation in the previous session. 
• Shut down: Vice Media, the edgy media outlet that courted millennials and Gen Z, will cease publishing new content on its flagship website and lay off several hundred staff in the latest blow to the struggling media industry.
• Outpacing: Apple’s long-term bet on India is beginning to pay dividends. The company’s revenue in India jumped 42% YoY in 2023 to $8.7 billion, as per Morgan Stanley. The iPhone shipments in India grew 39% YoY in 2023 to 9.2 million units, making it the iPhone’s fifth-largest smartphone market. 

What percentage of the world's oceans have humans explored?

Answer: 5%. 

It might be shocking to find out, but only 5% of the ocean has been explored and charted by humans. The rest, especially its depths, are still unknown.

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