Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 169th 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: Multilingual videos
Video content creation in multiple languages faces challenges in getting different presenters for each language, multiple shoots, and lengthy production times. How can these challenges be met while also ensuring consistency across all language versions?
Q2: Edge computing
While much attention understandably focuses on the power of cloud computing, there are compelling needs for edge computing as well. However, there are constraints like power requirements at the edge. What opportunities lie at the edge?
Q3: Traditional products
Traditional products from India such as turmeric and saffron have become popular overseas. How can their adoption by increased in India also via new types of innovation?
Q4: AI integration
As AI adoption accelerates, seamless integration and uninterrupted workflows are critical for companies to stay competitive. How can these challenges of efficient and reliable agent integration be tackled?
Q5: Lending to farmers
Smallholder farmers face substantial financial problems, and have limited options to borrow from institutions due to challenges like lack of collateral, complex procedures, and inadequate credit history. How can loan disbursement be enabled for such needy segments?
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: Multilingual videos
Co-founded by Akshay Sharma and Rishabh Sharma, Personate.ai leverages the power of AI for synthetic avatars to create engaging videos at scale. It produced India’s first AI news anchors, including “Sana” for Aaj Tak and “Bhoomi” and “Krish” for Doordarshan.
Users can create videos by entering a few prompts or selecting pre-designed avatars from a pre-set library. Read more here about its subscription rates, and its plans to include diverse ethnicities and scenarios for avatars.
A2: Edge computing
Founded by Akshar Vastarpara, Vicharak is pioneering edge computing solutions and empowering the next generation of engineers. The devices help in optimising computational processes, offering efficiency for industries reliant on robotics, autonomous vehicles, and drones.
“Our products are designed for low-power, high-performance applications, making them ideal for the growing demand in edge computing,” says Vastarpara. Read more here about how it aims to compete with global leaders like Raspberry Pi, and its other products that are ideal for applications like real-time AI and ML.
A3: Traditional products
Founded by Inara Dhrolia, Rivona Naturals is a personal care brand that merges traditional Indian ingredients with modern formulations. They are “rooted in Indian traditions and global sensibilities.”
The product line includes saffron-infused creams to matcha-based gels, addressing consumer concerns like hyperpigmentation, hydration, and sensitive skin. Read more here about how the startup has generated revenue via e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart and collaboration with micro-influencers.
A4: AI integration
Founded by Karan Vaidya and Soham Ganatra, Composio provides tools that enable developers to quickly create reliable AI agents for interaction with external software for CRM and email. Its platform speeds up the process of building and connecting agents to external services.
By cutting down on development cycles, companies can accelerate time-to-market, lower costs, and focus on business needs. Read more here about how this platform has gained traction on GitHub, with over 12,000 developers building on its framework.
A5: Lending to farmers
Timmana Gouda D and Vidya TG founded WhatsLoan as a neo-lending platform for farmers and MSMEs. Its loan-as-a-service (LaaS) mobile-first platform is designed to empower the borrower.
It uses AI to identify and match faces, names, and other important information across documents, thus speeding up approval processes. Read more here about how the paperless, branchless multilingual platform aims to bring down the cost of loan processing by more than 90%, and the turnaround lead-to-loan time to just minutes.
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).
