Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 41st 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 340 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.
Q1: The green tech opportunity
‘Green Tech’ refers to the use of science and technology to minimise the harmful human impact on the environment. But it also opens up a wider range of opportunities. What is the broader scope of green tech?
Q2: Importance of nature
Awareness about climate change has increased, but more concrete action is needed to reverse global warming and cut down on waste and pollution. But nature is much more than something that has to be protected – in what ways is nature also a source of innovation?
Q3: The creator economy
The wide proliferation of social media and digital devices has spawned the ‘creator economy,’ in domains ranging from music and art to comedy and cuisine. However, not all creators are adept at online community engagement and building viable business models. How can this issue be tackled?
Q4: The data boom
Data is the new oil (or gold), and a wealth of data along with smart tools can yield valuable analytical and predictive insights. Skillsets in Big Data analytics, AI, ML and visualisation help here. But what’s another important capability to have in this data economy?
Q5: Customer engagement
A wealth of tools is available today for brand managers to plan, deploy, assess, and refine marketing and advertising campaigns. Some of them have real-time capabilities as well, with prescriptive insights. But how can brands go beyond a campaign-centric view of customer engagement?
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: The green tech opportunity
“The primary purpose of green technology is to enhance investment in natural infrastructure, promote renewable energy, minimise non-recyclable waste, and protect the world’s ecosystems,” explains Amit Singh, Founder and CEO of TelioLabs, a deeptech company with offerings in EV, solar, and telecom.
‘Green tech’ also promotes ways to gather data on plant ecosystems and animal behaviour, he adds. Technology can be used to study and protect wild animals.
“These efforts are combined to make people aware and awakened to meet conservation of wildlife and forest needs,” Amit says. Read more about green tech dynamics here.
A2: Importance of nature
“Biomimicry approach has helped industries and businesses build innovations that are not only sustainable but also profitable, while mitigating risk and reducing costs,” according to Seema Anand and Prashant Dhawan, Founders of Biomimicry India.
Biomimicry aims to emulate nature to innovate solutions for humans. Examples include wind turbines inspired by whale fins, solar panels inspired by butterfly wings, and train design inspired by the elongated beak of the kingfisher. Read more here about how Biomimicry India has conducted workshops across engineering colleges, business schools, design schools, K-12 education, and corporates.
A3: The creator economy
“Creators want to cultivate deep authentic relationships with their fans,” explains Saurabh Pandey, Co-founder and CEO, Eloelo. The live video streaming platform claims to have 3.5 million users and 40,000 creators on its platform, and helps creator-fan engagement via video rooms, interactive communities, and monetisation.
“There is an entire generation of first-time internet users who are now able to build a direct channel to their fans to sell their unique products and offerings,” adds Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital, an investor in Eloelo. Read more about creator-fan engagement here.
A4: The data boom
“With data continuing to grow in volume and complexity, the skills to manage, protect and move it around in hybrid and multi-cloud environments, will become even more in demand,” explains CN Ashwath Narayan, Minister for IT & BT, Government of Karnataka. Bengaluru is the destination for the new R&D centre of California-based IT company Pure Storage.
The hub will further foster data management capabilities in India, according to Ajay Singh, Chief Product Officer, Pure Storage. More than 10 percent of the worldwide talent pool of data management professionals and more than a quarter of Asia Pacific is in India, according to Zinnov. Read more about data’s cloud environment here.
A5: Customer engagement
“Consumer brands today are moving beyond campaign-centric tools and are adopting an insights-led multi-channel approach to customer engagement,” explains Raviteja Dodda, Co-founder and CEO of MoEngage.
The AI-first platform helps companies retain customers and give insights on user journeys across channels.
“It helps companies engage and retain over 1 billion users on the platform globally,” adds Kabir Narang, Founding General Partner at B Capital Group, an investor in the company. Read more about cross-channel engagement insights here.
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).
