Platforms, AI, innovation: test your business creativity with Edition 220 of our weekly quiz!
This insightful feature from YourStory tests and strengthens your business acumen! Here are 5 questions to kick off this 220th 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 220th 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: Renewable energy
Climate change is forcing many nations to look at adopting solar energy solutions. But the cost of the panels is only one part of the answer – what else needs to fall in place for a solar energy ecosystem?
Q2: Mutual funds
There are thousands of mutual fund distributors (MFDs) who provide citizens advice to invest their money. But most operate with outdated and largely manual workflows, and can’t compete with banks. Where is the entrepreneurial opportunity here?
Q3: Justice system
India’s justice system is under heavy strain, with over 40 million cases pending in various lower courts. The country has only around 21 judges per million people, leading to long delays. How can technology help here?
Q4: Seaweed
Seaweed is known to be rich in nutrients, but skills in identifying locations for seaweed cultivation are still nascent in many areas. How can technology and effective business models help here?
Q5: The interview process
Many industries struggle with interviewing employees at scale, at a time when skill requirements are rapidly changing. Where is the entrepreneurial opportunity and impact here, beyond cost and speed?
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: Renewable energy
Founded by Anand Jain and Vikesh Agrawal, Aerem Solutions is a full-stack distributed solar platform. It streamlines solar financing, system design, equipment procurement, and asset monitoring for MSMEs, installers and lending partners.
This helps remove the 'trust deficit' that has historically fragmented the market. Read more here about how the company has facilitated 1,200 MW of solar capacity, financed more than 2,000 projects, and built a network of over 3,200 installation partners across 150 cities.
A2: Mutual funds
Founded by Prashant Gupta and Aditya Agarwal, the startup Wealthy empowers independent advisors with an AI-powered platform to run their businesses efficiently. It brings together client onboarding, product research, transaction execution, and portfolio tracking in one system.
It uses AI to reduce complexity and standardise user experience, and supports over 5,000 distributors across more than 1,000 cities. Read more here about how Wealthy now facilitates investments across mutual funds, stock broking, and insurance, and manages assets worth Rs 5,000 crore.
A3: Seaweed
Founded by Devleena Bhattacharjee, Susanta Kundu and Rahul Mehta, deeptech startup ClimaCrew is helping ramp up cultivation of seaweed. Its AI-driven marine technology platform analyses satellite data to identify suitable spots for seaweed cultivation.
It engages with marine biologists, coastal communities and end-user industries to finalise spots for seaweed cultivation and production. Read more here about its CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organisation) model which has been deployed in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
A4: Justice system
Founded by Utkarsh Saxena and Arghya Bhattacharya, Adalat AI offers an end-to-end justice stack to eliminate delays, streamline workflows, and ensure timely justice. AI tools like speech-to-text systems help understand Indian languages and accents, and offer real-time translation.
They also conduct virtual workshops, in-person training sessions with small groups of judges, and partnerships with state judicial academies. Read more here about how judges across nine states are using AI tools for summarisation, grammar correction, and better drafting.
A5: The interview process
Founded by Mohit Jain, FloCareer focuses on structured interviewing, calibrated evaluators, and assistive AI to enable hiring decisions at scale. It has over 600 corporate clients, and its offerings touch nearly 20% of India’s IT workforce.
“Interviewing needs structure, governance, and accountability, just like any other critical enterprise function,” Jain explains. Read more here about how its AI-assisted interview platform helps bring structure, consistency, and insight into interviews, along with human inputs.
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 (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).