Education, mobility, AI: Test your business creativity with Edition 208 of our weekly quiz!
This insightful feature from YourStory tests and strengthens your business acumen! Here are 5 questions to kick off this 208th quiz. Ready?
Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 208th edition of the quiz, we present issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.
What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs and innovators themselves actually did. Would you do things differently?
Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 355 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.
Q1: Corporate commutes
Large companies can find it difficult to smoothly manage commutes for their employees by juggling multiple fleet vendors. Moving entirely towards EVs for sustainability can also pose challenges. What’s an effective tech solution here?
Q2: Drone power
Battery-powered drones have a short lifecycle, which poses a financial and operational challenge for agritech usage. What’s a better solution here?
Q3: Candid conversations
The fear of speaking up is a common issue in large organisations, with employees hesitant to share honest opinions due to concerns about potential retaliation. How can this be effectively addressed?
Q4: Agriculture and food
While much attention understandably focuses on digital startups, the larger problems to be solved are in sectors like agriculture. How can opportunities be tapped in areas like sustainable farming and soil diagnostics?
Q5: Tech education
Effective tech education requires hands-on experience beyond classroom lessons. Attending exhibitions can help here, but they call for more active engagement as well. What’s an effective solution here to improve tech creativity?
Answers!
Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come – answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning—and happy creating!
A1: Corporate commutes
Founded by Sriram Kannan and Kavitha Ramachandragowda, Routematic makes office travel more convenient, safe, reliable, and environmentally friendly. Its B2B2C model for employee transport platforms is now deployed by over 300 companies across 25 cities, including Infosys, HCL, American Express, and Barclays.
It handles over 350,000 rides a day and is helping businesses move towards electric mobility. Read more here about its Operations Command Centres and its fundraising from climate-focused investors for its expansion.
A2: Drone power
Founded by Vinay Yadav and Hitesh Borana, agritech startup Visron is building hydrogen-powered drones that are light enough to carry heavy payloads. They range in weight from 10 kg to 16 kg.
The lifecycle for hydrogen fuel cells is close to 22,000 hours, as compared to just 300 hours for lithium batteries. Read more here about how such cells can significantly lower replacement and operating costs for agritech applications.
A3: Candid conversations
Founded by Niresh Gunasekaran, Blunt empowers employees to share feedback, insights, and concerns anonymously, ensuring that every voice is heard without fear of repercussions. Such safe spaces help employees openly communicate, fostering a culture of trust and transparency.
For example, users have the ability to choose specific individuals to share content with each time. Read more here about its other features that allow users to comment anonymously on posts, thus catalysing genuine self-expression and authenticity in personal and professional issues.
A4: Agriculture and food
Founded by T Vigneshwaran, Sri Nandha Infotech has developed portable devices powered by IoT and AI that deliver soil health reports in just minutes instead of weeks. Protivore, founded by Swathi Gopalakrishnan, is developing affordable plant proteins designed for Indian households.
Prema Chinnasamy’s Premac Foods makes healthier millet-based noodles, pasta, vermicelli, and ready mixes. Read more here about how such startups are being supported by StartupTN’s TANSEED programme in Tamil Nadu, with early-stage funding, mentorship, and market access.
A5: Tech education
Moosa Mehar MP, Abid Aboobacker, Nidhiya V Raj, and Praveen Sridhar founded the TinkerHub Foundation to make tech learning accessible to young people. It runs open, peer-led, and community-based programmes, especially for girls.
Launched in Kochi, it has centres in other locations as well, with over 16,977 learners engaged across schools, colleges, and early-career programmes last year. Read more here about its record-breaking Tink-Her-Hack women-focused hackathon and its Women in Tech initiative.
YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators.
Edited by Kanishk Singh