Lateral Sparks, from the weekly quiz your story Tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see previous version here). In this 166th edition of the quiz, we present the problems real-life entrepreneurs have solved in their startup journey.
What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you’ll find out what entrepreneurs and innovators actually did. Would you do things differently?
Check out YourStory Book review Also section, Creativity and Entrepreneurship, and our weekend with takeaways from over 355 topics PhotoSpark Section on creativity in art.
Q1: Climate change
Climate finance has become an urgent need for organizations working to tackle climate change. How can such climate finance be made accessible, scalable and easy to adopt?
Q2: Women’s health
Women looking for healthcare solutions are often unable to find the right fit when it comes to gynecologists, nutritionists or therapists. How can they find the right expertise and relevant programs in such situations?
Q3: Fintech security
Fintech players have mushroomed in recent years, but so has the risk of payment fraud. New technologies can also increase the level of threat. How can these challenges be met?
Q4: Retail and distribution
Small retailers rely heavily on phone calls and WhatsApp messages to manage their orders. This results in slower delivery compared to the big ecommerce players. How can this performance be improved?
Q5: Motor functions
Millions of people suffer from motor function loss due to conditions such as stroke, cerebral palsy, old age and accidents. How can their ability to perform daily tasks be improved?
Answers!
Congratulations on getting this far! But there’s more to come—answers to these five questions (below), plus links to articles with more details on entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning — and happy creating!
A1: Climate change
Anirudh Gupta and Siddhant Jayaram founded CLIMS, a climate technology startup that has developed a digital finance engine to facilitate the flow of capital to climate projects. Clims Carbon Counter is a data-driven carbon accounting tool designed to help logistics and transportation providers calculate their carbon footprint.
It also has a carbon financing facility that helps brands purchase and distribute carbon credits, both physically and digitally. Read more about how Climes has worked with the likes of travel tech platform MakeMyTrip, sustainable footwear startup Neeman’s, and snacking brand Nutty Gritties.
A2: Women’s Health
Swarnima Bhattacharya co-founded Gytree as a femtech startup that provides products, services and programs to address diverse aspects of women’s health. “We’ve consciously built it as an ecosystem for women’s health across life stages,” she explains.
Gytree has over 100 panelized experts, and offers multiple programs to address nutrition, weight management, midlife challenges, diabetes management, and psychological assessment. Read more here about how it has a referral network, and works with corporates for the healthcare of their female employees.
A3: Fintech security
“A large number of fintechs are still in the stages of developing their infrastructure and security measures, therefore appealing to hackers,” warns EGP CEO Shams Tabrez. Advanced technologies such as peer-to-peer payment systems and cryptocurrencies have increased the threat level.
“The best way to drastically reduce fraud is to implement multi-factor authentication,” he advises. Read more here about how AI and ML tools can help detect fraudulent activities in real time, and why fintech players need to regularly educate customers about phishing scams and weak passwords.
A4: Retail and distribution
Alok Chawla, Neeta Rizwani and Virender Kumar launched Kiko Live as a SaaS solution to help small retailers build, manage and grow their home delivery businesses. They can create digital storefronts in as little as 24 hours.
The platform supports sellers with product inventory, user-friendly interface, and hyperlocal logistics solutions for fast delivery. Read more here about how it reduces operational complexity by acting as a consolidator, connecting stores and third-party delivery partners.
A5: Motor functions
Subtlebotic, founded by Sivasanthosh A, has developed a product called Limb Assist to restore limb mobility for people who have lost motor functions. A lightweight, external wearable motor system provides support to the fingers for fine motor functions.
Limb Assist helps users hold and carry objects such as cups, plates, utensils and bags. Read more here about how it helps with typing, writing, buttoning clot
hes, and tying zippers.
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).