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Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 152nd 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: Recruitment solutions

Hiring the wrong people can have serious repercussions for a company. Furthermore, smaller firms suffer from a lack of resources dedicated to background checks. How can tech solutions help here?

Q2: Driver safety

Monitoring driver behaviour holds a key to improving road safety. How can technology raise the bar by not only monitoring rash driving behaviour, but also flagging alerts in real time?

Q3: Inclusive education

People with hearing impairments face serious impediments to not just their basic education, but also in gaining professional skills in areas like stock trading or photography. How can technology help here?

Q4: Safety and respect

Toxic masculinity can harm women as well as men in society. The roots of such aggressive behaviour are deep and complex. How can education be improved so that such issues are effectively analysed, monitored and tackled?

Q5: Technology and law

The legal profession involves lots of research, contract analysis, and due diligence. The profession is under pressure to increase efficiency and improve decision-making. What kinds of digital technologies can help here?

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: Recruitment solutions

AI-enhanced background checks offer more efficient and cost-effective solutions than traditional methods, according to Jaibir Nihal Singh, Founder of Traqcheck. Cutting-edge algorithms can rapidly and precisely assess vast amounts of data.

“These tools sift through public records, social media feeds, educational credentials, employment histories, and criminal files to provide a full picture of an applicant’s history,” Singhal describes. Read more here about how AI can also detect patterns or anomalies that human reviewers might miss altogether

A2: Driver safety

“AI has the potential to transform the future of driver safety systems, with detailed monitoring and alerts to keep both drivers and fleets safe,” explains Anshul Jain, Co-founder of Roadcast. For example, AI dashcams can use advanced image recognition to raise alerts when drivers start smoking.

Sensors can monitor the distance between vehicles and flag a warning when a collision is imminent. AI dashcams can also track over-speeding in real-time. Read more here about how sophisticated algorithms can issue alerts about harsh acceleration, abrupt braking, and driver fatigue.

A3: Inclusive education

Founded by Nita Gopalakrishnan, Chaithanya Kothapalli, and Rahul Jain, the organisation Yunikee runs a programme called Sign Medium which offers skill-building for deaf people. Yunikee means I exist in Telugu.

“The goal is to empower the deaf community by providing access to all products and services in Indian Sign Language,” Kothapalli explains. Around 80% of the workforce of Yunikee is also deaf. Read more here about the platform’s 70 courses in varied domains from banking to blouse design.

A4: Safety and respect

In the landscape of gender-based violence prevention, Delhi-based YP Foundation offers an outstanding approach to engaging men and boys in conversations about toxic masculinity. Founded by Ishita Chaudry, it addresses how gender, sexuality, caste, and class intersect to create hyper-masculine ideals and behaviours in Indian society.

It helps men and boys reflect on their own experiences and cultural conditioning to flag and correct harmful and unethical practices. Read more here about how the 30-member team has developed a policy guide for university students to promote gender-inclusive practices and prevent gender-based violence on campuses.

A5: Technology and law

AI legaltech startups are giving leverage to lawyers to be more efficient at work, better decision-makers, and lay more emphasis on strategic advisory tasks, according to Anushita SP Karunakaram, Co-founder and CEO at Lawyer Desk.

Analytics, ML and NLP solutions help in legal research, contract analysis, due diligence, and compliance management, leading to increased efficiency, reduced costs, and more accurate legal work. Read more here about how AI legaltech can help ensure better decision-making and the sociocultural change needed in the profession.

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).