Drone sector’s Budget wishlist; Making learning a child’s play

Hello,

K-beauty’s living in the year 3000.

South Korea finally has a solution to the problem of matching your foundation to your skin tone—AI and robots.

From bespoke robot-mixed colours to recommendations for lipstick shades and detailed skin analyses, artificial intelligence is helping the beauty industry tailor itself to its customers’ needs like never before.

This all-pervasive AI demand was also why Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) joined the trillion club this week.

On the topic of good results: TCS kept optimism going as the bellwether of India’s techscape.

The company met market expectations as it reported Rs 12,040 crore in net profit for the first quarter of FY25, an 8.7% annual rise.

ICYMI: Astronomers just found an elusive black hole in a star cluster hidden in a galaxy far, far away.

Moving on, are your night owl habits actually good for you? Scientists say, possibly.

A recent study found that participants who stayed up late scored higher on intelligence, reasoning, reaction time and memory tests. 

Here’s to hoping we can finally retire the late-sleeper stereotypes!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Drone sector’s Budget wishlist
• Making learning a child’s play
• Eco-friendly choices made easy

Here’s your trivia for today: What do scientists call the disk that encircles a black hole?

Union Budget

Drone sector’s Budget wishlist

India's drone sector is raring to go. It has everything going for it—rapid innovation fuelled by startups, strategic investments, and a supportive government framework. 

Many analysts YourStory talked to agreed that the upcoming Budget for FY25 needs to include pro-technology policies that promote growth by investing in digital infrastructure, supporting businesses and startups, and encouraging emerging tech sector investment.

Take off:

• The National Deep Tech Startup Policy (NDTSP) is a significant step towards fostering innovation and economic growth in the drone sector. 
• The central government launched the Drone Didi scheme in November 2023 to empower women in self-help groups and agriculture by training them as drone pilots for agricultural tasks. The initiative provides agricultural drones to 15,000 women-led self-help groups to generate extra income opportunities.
• Establishing dedicated testing facilities and expanding schemes like the Drone Didi Yojana will further empower rural agri-entrepreneurs and foster inclusive economic development through drone technology, says Prem Kumar Vislawath, CEO and Founder of Marut Drones.

<Funding Alert>

Startup:  Planet Marathi OTT

Amount: $5M

Round: Undisclosed 

Startup: Jugyah

Amount: $1.5M

Round: Undisclosed

Startup

Making learning a child’s play

Founded in 2021, Mangalore-based CherriLearn is a social impact startup that helps primary school students learn with animated and gamified lessons. Its founder is 21-year-old Shrinidhi RS, who wanted to enable students to access high-quality educational content across several languages.

Learning curve:

• CherriLearn is a multi-device platform available on the web and Android and is compatible with smart TVs. It is also rolling out to iOS soon.
• The application has a free trial, where 30% of the content is available for free, after which users need to pay a subscription fee to access the rest of the content.
• The CherriLearn app subscription is priced at Rs 365 per year for vernacular languages and Rs 999 for English. With a Re 1 per day pricing, Shrinidhi says CherriLearn is the most affordable subscription-based education app.

Sustainability

Eco-friendly choices made easy

Impacto is a marketplace for sustainable products across categories like fashion, beauty, and wellness products. It serves individual customers and the B2B segment, and supplies to multinational companies, hotels, and large institutions.

Founder Shivang Singh says the platform is a “conscious movement towards eco-friendly choices”.

Go green:

• Impacto provides recycled notebooks, bamboo-based toiletries such as tissues, kitchen rolls and wipes, compostable and disposable tableware, and eco-friendly gift hampers to schools, restaurants, hotels, and companies.
• The brand earns revenue by charging a 30% commission on sales in the B2C space. For B2B, Impacto purchases the required number of products from the brand and then sells them at a higher price.
• It is now moving towards the business-to-government (B2G) sector, where it is working with the Delhi government.

News & updates

• Return: The first two astronauts to fly Boeing's Starliner capsule said from the International Space Station on Wednesday they were confident in the spacecraft's ability to return them home whenever the company and NASA solve thruster issues that have kept them in space far longer than expected.
• Digital payments: The European Union has accepted commitments from Apple over how it operates Apple Pay to settle a long-running anti-trust investigation.
• Postponed: Tesla is delaying its planned robo-taxi unveiling to October from August to allow teams working on the project more time to build additional vehicle prototypes.

What do scientists call the disk that encircles a black hole?

Answer: An accretion disk. It is a disk-like flow of gas, plasma, dust, or particles surrounding a massive central body, often a star.

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