The Samsung Galaxy M31, a successor to 2019’s popular Galaxy M30s, has two main highlights – the massive battery unit and an upgraded camera setup.
The Galaxy M31 ships with One UI 2.0 (based on Android 10) out-of-the-box. Apart from the upgrades to the battery, camera, and software, there isn’t much else separating it from the Galaxy M30s.
The 6GB RAM/64GB storage variant of the phone is priced at Rs 16,499 (Rs 14,999 on Amazon.in) while the higher-end 6GB RAM/128GB storage variant is priced at Rs 17,499 (Rs 15,999 on Amazon.in).
Other phones in the range include the POCO X2, Redmi Note 8 Pro, Realme XT, among others. As Samsung has decided not to discontinue the Galaxy M30s, let’s find out if the Galaxy M31 can win this already-crowded market.
Samsung, known for making stellar displays, doesn’t disappoint with the Galaxy M31. With a 6.4-inch FullHD+ AMOLED display, the phone is a notch above its competitors.
The colours are vibrant and punchy and the text is sharp (props to Samsung’s One UI 2.0 here) and the sunlight legibility is also quite good. Additionally, the Samsung Galaxy M31 has a Gorilla Glass 3 for protection.
Needless to say, streaming on apps like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video is a treat, especially because it has the Widevine L1 certification for high-definition videos.
The smartphone has an Infinity-U notch on top of the display, which houses the 32-megapixel selfie camera. The bezels are kept to a minimum. However, the bottom chin is a bit thicker for a smartphone in this price range.
The Galaxy M31 has a glass build on the front and polycarbonate elsewhere. As a result, the rear panel can attract fingerprints, ruining the aesthetics of an otherwise well-designed smartphone.
As discussed in our previous Samsung reviews, the One UI 2.0 has proven to be quite an improvement over its older TouchWiz. A smooth Android skin, it works well on most Samsung smartphones and has a few nifty features – Always-On Display, Ultra Data Saving, and Dual Messenger – that add to the package.
However, one cannot expect to escape bloatware. Despite that, the One UI 2.0 provides a more fluid software experience consumers will be delighted with.
The Samsung Galaxy M31 has two big wins. First, it comes with a massive 6,000 mAh battery. Just like the Galaxy M30s, the device can last two days on a single charge with over six hours of screen-on-time (SoT).
Our usage included gaming, watching videos, scrolling through Twitter, browsing multiple tabs, and some photography. If you play videos at 50 percent brightness and at full volume, you get about 19 hours of playback – an impressive feat.
The second and more important win is the smartphone’s quad-camera setup.
The Samsung Galaxy M31 consists of a 64-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, a 5-megapixel macro sensor, and a 5-megapixel depth camera, which produce great results in day-time. The images captured by the 64-megapixel sensor have good details and great dynamic range.
Portrait shots come out quite well too and have a good edge detection. The ultra-wide sensor is a fine addition and most avid Instagram users would be quite pleased.
A shot in daylight
The only downside is taking low-light photography. Samsung’s software processing leaves a lot to be desired, and you may not want to use the Galaxy M31 in low-light conditions.
Areas that need improvement
The two departments where the Galaxy M31 could have been better are design and the placement of the fingerprint sensor.
Having the fingerprint sensor on the rear dampens the aesthetics of the device. It is not very well-designed and misses your fingerprint often. It is also placed a bit too high for comfort. Of course, the sensor is better placed than the one on the Galaxy M30s, but still needs some work.
While the build quality is good and the phone feels sturdy, having a plastic rear has its downsides.
First, the back of the phone becomes a massive fingerprint magnet. Smudges are way more visible on the black model (which we reviewed). Even if you clean it, they come back to haunt you in seconds.
Second, the plastic is very soft and is prone to scratches easily. Also, the rear surface is a bit uneven. There isn’t a protective case in the box, which is a bit of a let-down.
Lastly, the Samsung Galaxy M31 comes without any dust or water resistance features.
On the performance side, the smartphone houses the same Exynos 9611 processor as the Galaxy M30s did. It performs decently for regular usage but might not be your best bet when it comes to gaming and multitasking.
Samsung also did not give the Galaxy M31 fast charging, and the device takes over two hours to go from 0-100 percent battery.
A Night Mode shot
Verdict: Should you buy the Galaxy M31?
Overall, not much has changed vis-a-vis the predecessor. Since the Galaxy M30s was released only a few months ago, the Galaxy M31 may not be worth an upgrade.
But Samsung has done a fine job of improving its M-series handsets in the last few months. With a beefy battery, an AMOLED display, and a trustworthy brand name, the Galaxy M31 can be a good option for those using older phones and looking to switch. Its affordable price point will also make it viable in smaller towns.
Some users might even consider the Galaxy M31 as a backup phone.
If you want a long-lasting smartphone with surprisingly good daylight photos and a great AMOLED display for watching videos, the Galaxy M31 is a great choice. But, if you are looking for more action at the same price point, the Poco X2 might be a better bet.
Design is viewed as an important vertical in any organisation. It is positioned in a way to enhance the experience, gain attention, and a way of showing impact, creating, and building things.
Sharing his insights and expertise on the same was Jay Dutta at the third edition of YourStory’s Future of Work, India’s largest product-tech-design conference. He has worked as the Head of UX Design at companies like Adobe Systems, Flipkart, among others.
As the Founder of Southeast Asia's largest design-in-tech conference DesignUp and the Senior Vice President in MakeMytrip, Jay spoke about the importance of the design sector in the tech world.
During the session, Jay explained the report that DesignUp had come up with – ‘DesignUp Deconstruct: Understanding the State of Design-In-Tech.’
Jay Dutta
Released last year, the report has three parts - the past, present, and future of design. “While working on the report, we realised that one-third of people who studied Engineering are in the design sector now.”
At present, Jay said that design has become an inclusive profession with people from various backgrounds who are working in the design sector.
According to the report, a majority of the people chose design as a career option because of their interest. Other factors that influenced them were creative childhood, problem solver, serendipity, and parents or professors. A few chose this career path as they simply did not want to pursue engineering.
Speaking about the second part of the report which spoke about where we are as a design profession, Jay said it is important to focus on the different stages of design maturity and what we need to improve.
“We asked people how the design maturity of their organisation change in the last year. Not only do we see a fewer separate organisation, but we also see the biggest change in the count of integrated organisations. Based on that, we have divided the design maturity into four stages: separate, peripheral, central, and integrated.”
The report also suggested a few things that a company or individual needs to look into to improve, which includes competition, leadership, teamwork, and scaling to new markets, among others.
According to Jay, in 2020, the design has a seat on the top management table. “Today, designers are moving up the ranks to the proximity of the CEO. Increasingly, a designer is among the first five hires in a startup today.”
The report shows that, at present, about 36 percent of employees in a startup or a company report to the CEO, 31 percent report to the product head, and 19 percent to the tech head. However, this was different years before when only the product head mattered more in the organisation.
Speaking about how to measure design, Jay said, “But to show that you are creating value, you must measure what you are doing. When we asked how the design was measured, chaos ensued. We eventually broke these into a few themes — how we deliver, how our work impacts the business, measured through adoption, engagement, click-through rates, monthly active users (connecting to users) to converting this to revenue, and market share.”
While customer satisfaction emerged as a key criterion, more traditional approaches such as measuring usability, accessibility, and validation also stood out in the results.
According to the DesignUp report, going ahead, one needs to create empathy among employees in a startup. Further, there will be a lack of user research, lack of time, budget, and low design awareness.
To overcome this, design people need to up their game in skilling, Jay said, adding that, “RoI on design will be the new obsession, close coupling with data, and research. There needs to be more light thrown to the UX writing, user research, strategy, collaboration, and motion design. We need to always think long-term.”
“But how do we make sure that what we do is right? Why are we doing it? What are the long-term repercussions?’ Jay asked the audience, adding that one needs to ask these questions to go forward.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
A big shout out to our Future of Work 2020 Sponsors: Alibaba Cloud, Larksuite, Vodafone Idea Limited, Gojek, Adobe, Udaan, Pocket Aces, Junglee Games, Share Chat, Open, Vesta Space Technology, Maharashtra State Innovation Society, Kristal.AI and GetToWork; and our Knowledge Partner: Ascend Harvard Business Review.
The fifth festival edition of the Whitefield Art Collective (WAC) is wrapping up today at VR Bengaluru, with the theme of ‘Sustainability.’ See Part I of our photo essay and interview with curator Sumi Gupta here – as well as our coverage of the earlier editions from 2019,2018,2017,and2016.
Some of the displayed artworks are priced from Rs 50,000 to Rs 35 lakh. Exhibits showcased in this two-part photo essay include the VR Art Car, painted by the Bengaluru-based women and trans-women art collective, Aravani Art Project. Art facilitation at the festival was managed by ArtFlute and Dream-a-Dream.
“We have handpicked the artworks at WAC 2020 to explore the multiple facets of sustainability,” explains Padmaja Nagarur, CEO of art experience platform ArtFlute, in a chat with YourStory. For example, the installation of Ajanta Caves by Mumbai-based artist Bandana Jain has a resounding message of conservation of cultural heritage.
The Humpback Mahseer by the artist duo of Bangalore Creative Circus raises awareness about the conservation efforts by The Wildlife Association of South India (WASI). “Every work of a young artist at WAC is a personal retelling of their connection with sustainability and an invitation for the audience to engage with a larger dialogue,” Padmaja says.
The festival includes a cinema screening, panel discussions, art bazaar, and children’s art competition. Children aged six and above were invited to transform waste from their homes into works of art. This helps overcome the wasteful "use and throw" attitude that is so prevalent these days.
"As an architect I am often caught between the large scale consumption of materials and non-sustainable aspects of many processes in our work field,” explains Subhashish Mandal, Design Director, Gensler.
Design, crafts and art coming together in this festival gets people to see what is easily unseen. “The curation, location, and intent of the show is not just about creating awareness, but imperative to strike home that much of what we do is taken for granted,” he adds.
The festival also features a Basement Art Project for arts students and city art groups to paint on the walls of the mall’s basement. The panel discussion on ‘Women in Art’ is part of the ‘Salon with Shree’ series held in association with the Whitefield Literary Society, and includes Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, Seema Kohli, Sumi Gupta, and Shonali Bose.
The activity on ‘Reimagine Bengaluru’ shares visions of the future of Bengaluru. Featured speakers in the talk series are Avijit Michael (Jhatkaa.org), Susheel Nair (Artand), Tara Krishnaswamy and Srinivas Alavilli (Citizens for Bengaluru), and Akbar A (placeArts Youth Collective).
“It has been overwhelmingly satisfying to see youth and adults alike engage with art in a public space with much curiosity,” Padmaja proudly says. There was also an intimate dialogue as part of the UnGallery Talks initiative to probe how art can be a catalyst in creating a lasting culture of sustainability.
“The dialogue has sparked a possibility of collaboration with artists, organisations focusing on sustainability, and volunteering enthusiasts,” Padmaja explains. This involves use of art across the spectrum of activism, community transformation, and design for the future.
She also offers words of advice for aspiring artists. “Let your personal story and experiences influence your work and narrative. For, your work has the power to initiate a dialogue, spark a change, and challenge us with reimagined possibilities,” Padmaja signs off.
Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and do your bit for environmental sustainability?
See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.
The year 2019 was when fantasy sports went mainstream in India. From just a handful of companies until 2017, there were over 70 fantasy sports sites by the end of the year, with Dream11 – the country’s first gaming unicorn – leading the charge.
The number of players too is estimated to have grown 10x in less than two years.
Consequently, a bunch of fantasy gaming platforms, singularly focused on Bharat, have mushroomed. These are not only reducing the entry barriers for new users by holding small-ticket e-leagues, but also enabling access through regional languages. Delhi-based Apne11 (which is Hindi for ‘my own 11’) is one such platform.
Founder Ratul Sethi tells YourStory, “Before we launched, we found that many demographics had not yet been covered by existing fantasy sites. That was the real opportunity to pull in new users, who were not aware of fantasy gaming and how that could enhance their actual experience of watching sport.”
From fantasy gaming, we move on to an AI-driven startup that wants to redefine the world of automation where there is a definite business outcome.
AntWorks, the Singapore-headquartered AI startup in the space of robotic process automation (RPA), was founded by Asheesh Mehra and Govind Sandhu in 2015. With over three-fourth of its employees based out of India, the startup believes its time has come.
“We decided to build our own data ingestion engine, which is called cognitive machine reading, so that curated data is provided for the RPA where it automates a task,” Founder Asheesh says.
In 2008, Gunjan started interning with Zomato over the weekends after a chance meeting with CEO Deepinder Goyal.
The foodtech biggie has come a long way from being a “listings and food reviews platform”, and Gunjan is now involved with larger strategic decisions.
But the challenges continue.
“Even today, it is as challenging as it was on day zero. We do new things every day. We started with search and discovery, reviews, and ratings. I had no idea how to build them. I would read, talk to people, figure things out, and then build,” Gunjan says.
Unlike many similar platforms across India, Rapido managed to survive the regulatory tug of war and grow. It now has around 5,00,000 Captains, and claims to be serving over 10 million customers. It has more than 20 million app downloads and 15 million paid transactions.
Present in close to 90 cities, the startup will be profitable in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Delhi by the end of this fiscal year. Other cities will be contribution-level positive by the end of the year.
“We learnt from our mistakes and some that others made. We focused on core services: on how the order management works, which captain should go where, and once they accept the ride, how the ETA logic comes into play,” says Aravind Sanka, one of Rapido's three founders.
The mobility sector in India may be thriving, but so are card games.
Raising the stakes
Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven-Card Stud, Razz…different kinds of poker have one thing in common: the soaring number of players across India.
Nitesh Salvi, the Founder of Pocket52, realised that most poker players in India were not satisfied with the available online options.
The lack of confidence stemmed from the fact that most Indian poker companies ran on rented/leased software, and did not have control over their features like new releases and user experience. The dearth lack of flexibility, trust, and control was the main reason that poker enthusiast Nitesh decided to enter the market with Pocket52 in 2018.
Telemedicine to the rescue
Moving on to healthcare, which has grabbed the spotlight due to the coronavirus contagion across the world.
With the government focusing on Digital India, the telemedicine sector is at an all-time high. Apollo Hospital Group has been a pioneer in the sector, and now runs about 700 healthcare centres across India.
Vikram Thaploo, CEO of TeleHealth at Apollo Hospitals Group, believes telemedicine is a bright spot in the future of healthcare. In a freewheeling chat with YourStory, he discusses telemedicine and its scope, Coronavirus awareness, and staying relevant in a fast-moving technological world.
“In a country like India, where the doctor-patient ratio remains skewed, hospitals are overloaded in urban areas, and healthcare service providers remain sparse in rural areas, telemedicine has the potential to act as a major leveller,” Vikram says.
Since the announcement of the new personal income tax regime by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, there has been immense confusion amongst taxpayers who do not know how tax deducted at source (TDS) from salary will work in the new tax regime.
From the government’s point of view, the tax regime is a positive move as it encourages more people to be tax-compliant and solves the liquidity crunch crisis in the market. That said, this new system is only optional right now and a taxpayer can choose to remain in the existing tax regime while continuing tax-saving investments or move to the new tax regime and forget about tax saving.
So, should you choose the new tax regime or the existing tax regime? Will the new income tax regime save you money? Because for an ordinary taxpayer, what matters is savings.
Using our payroll management solution, we analysed the available data of about 2,000 salaried employees and computed income tax liability by comparing the new income tax slabs with the current ones.
Here’s what we found out - no decrease in income tax outgo
78 percent of these employees will get taxed more by an average of Rs 25,000
85 percent of employees with an annual income of less than Rs 10 lakh will have to pay higher taxes, averaging Rs 13,750
60 percent of the people in the income range of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, will pay an average of Rs 47,677 more tax
Among those earning more than Rs 20 lakh, 58 percent will have to shell out an average Rs 89,208 more
This means, for someone paying Rs 25,000 annually in income tax, the new structure will not help increase savings significantly despite the five or ten percentage point reduction in tax rates, since they will have to forego a lot of other exemptions.
The above calculations were carried out on taxpayers earning different levels of incomes and availing different types of tax exemptions. We believe this sample set is an accurate representation of Indian taxpayers, and data shows that the new regime will make them pay substantially more taxes.
Long-term savings will get discouraged
Young India doesn’t save as much as it should. If we look at our society, we have a spending culture as opposed to a savings culture. Data shows that household borrowing is at an all-time high, while household savings are going in the opposite direction.
So far tax saving was one reason for millennials to invest some part of their earnings because by design, tax saving investments encouraged long-term investing because of the lock-in periods they come with. With that incentive likely to get diluted as under the new regime, taxpayers won’t be incentivised to make tax-saving investments because they can’t avail exemptions. This has a possibility of hurting long-term financial health of taxpayers, especially the millennial generation.
Having said that, whichever route one may opt for, it is absolutely essential for each one of the taxpayers to keep investing for the future and insuring to protect against various life and health risks.
Overall, the new tax regime needs that pinch of salt - it has come with a mixed bag of pluses and minuses. Although it makes sense to increase disposable incomes given the current state of the economy, it shouldn’t come at the cost of a decrease in long-term savings. Let's wait and see how well this works for all of us.
(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
British-Dutch oil and gas company Shell has announced the launch of its 'Scale Track' under its flagship startup incubation E4 programme.
Scale Track is built for mature, energy-related startups that have achieved a product-market fit with their commercial products. It is customised to support startups in strengthening their strategy and scaling up operations by offering insights from global companies and industry leaders, material resources, including full access to their lab at the Shell Technology Centre in Bengaluru, and access to a focussed mentorship programme.
Partners on board for this track include ABB, AVL, Indian Angel Network, Catapult, Maharashtra State Innovation Society, The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBSCD), and Ola to name a few.
One of the current themes for the 2020 Scale Track is Future of Mobility, with advanced startups in “the mobility space” aspiring to bring forward disruptive technologies, business models, and differentiated offerings.
The other theme is Energy Management Systems, with innovative startups in “the energy management space” ranging from energy auditing to efficiency improvement and overall management.
In a statement, James Unterreiner, General Manager, Shell E4 Startup Hub, said,
"We believe a collaborative approach between corporates is essential to enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country by linking talent, technology, capital, and know-how. The Shell E4 partnerships aim to provide an enhanced value proposition to startups. This is a bespoke programme where the startups will benefit from a network of industry experts and advisors leveraging Shell and its partners’ global reach,"
Here are the 10 startups that have been shortlisted for the 2020 Scale Track after a rigorous examination and evaluation of applications:
Energos
Energos helps commercial and industrial customers realise 15-20 percent of energy savings by adding intelligence to automate and optimise energy flows through edge-deployed self-tuning algorithms.
IOTomation
IOTomation offers Building IoT platform, which improves energy efficiency through automation of buildings.
LogicLadder
LogicLadder offers sustainability management and pollution monitoring solutions approved by the Government of India. It helps customers to acquire real-time enterprise-wide energy and environment data to assess environmental risks, predict anomalies, detect non-compliance, and leverage Machine Learning (ML) for actionable insights.
Jal Technologies
Jal Technologies offers indoor and outdoor solutions to measure and monitor air pollution in smart cities and industries. It helps the government, policymakers, and citizens take concrete action by providing an open-source platform that analyses the collected data providing actionable insights.
Go GreenEOT
Go GreenEOT helps B2B/logistics companies by providing a Vehicle-as-a-Service model (vehicle, battery, charging, insurance) at a monthly cost through an electric vehicle focussed business model.
eee-Taxi
eee-Taxi provides a fleet of electric vehicles for corporate-employee transportation. This includes route optimisation services that minimise travel time by combining telematics, technology, and the EV ecosystem leading to higher productivity and revenue.
Commutec
Commutec is transforming employee transportation business into a mobility service by digitising fleet operators and providing protocol-driven, technology-enabled fleet for corporate employee transportation.
Offgrid
Offgrid is focussed on bringing disruption to the energy storage market through new materials and battery designs.
Magenta Power
Under the Charge Grid brand, Magenta offers universal AC EV charging infrastructure designed for India’s heat, humidity, and usage condition and to be powered by solar.
APChemi
APChemi is one of the leading solution providers for chemically recycling post-consumer plastic waste including landfill plastic waste.
"We are happy to welcome a new batch of startups, the Scale Track cohort, as a part of the well-established E4 Programme. Along with our partners, we believe that these young professionals will reap significant benefits from the programme, which will help them go to the market with a better business strategy and execution capability, leapfrogging their growth," said Nitin Prasad, Chairman, Shell Companies in India.
TheShell E4 Start-up Hub offers programmes to support and enable energy-related startups. These programmes are tailored to suit the unique nature of energy startups, which typically require longer gestation periods.
After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) placed YesBank under a moratorium, it also capped depositwithdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for amonth. Consequently, Yes Bank will not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investments, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payments – apart from exceptions with emergencies.
While third-party apps that rely on Yes Bank have also been affected, the UPIecosystem has been designed in a way where customers can continue using other UPIapps to transact. As a result, multiple payment gateways and payments startups in the Indian fintech space have come out to say that they are restricting payouts to merchants who hold accounts in Yes Bank.
ManishKumar, CEO and Co-founder of KredX said,
"We have stopped all inward and outward transactions with YBL with immediate effect. We would like to highlight that KredX continues to function as normal with minimal disruptions to our services and will continue to work with our current banking partner, who we have already been in association with."
While Paytm customers continue to use PaytmUPI and walletservice without any interruption as before, PhonePe – one of the country's largest digital payment platforms – is dependent on YesBank to process its transactions.
As a result, it announced that it is undergoing an unscheduledmaintenanceactivity.
Yes Bank's net banking facilities have also not been operational since last evening. Other fintech operators who rely on it for their transactions are also down.
PhonePeCEOSameerNigam tweeted early in the morning, "We sincerely regret the long outage. Our partner bank (Yes Bank) was placed under moratorium by RBI. Entire team's been working all night to get services back up as soon as possible."
Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL), claimed to be India’s largest and only profitable payments bank, has announced that they are restricting transaction settlements, including UPI, into Yes Bank accounts to safeguard their users’ money.
SatishGupta, MD and CEO of Paytm Payments Bank said in a statement,
“Safety and security of our users’ money are of utmost importance to us. We have stopped all transactions to Yes Bank accounts so that the money doesn’t get blocked. We are also requesting users to change their primary bank account to some other bank. However, these restrictions are temporary in nature till the time we get more clarity on the situation.”
At present, the Indian banking system is stressed due to rising non-performing loans and other issues. Yes Bank restrictions are second in such cases within a year after the Punjab and MaharashtraCo-operative (PMC) Bank crisis last September.
In such a scenario, payment banks are the safest banks in India and offer more safety and security of the deposited money.
Payment banks are not allowed to lend and therefore, do not have the problem of NPAs. Also, they have to necessarily invest 75percent of customers' depositmoney into government securities – which is the safest form of investment.
Bengaluru-based payment gateway Razorpay stated on Twitter, "Our payment gateway services are unaffected. While some other services may get affected; our team is reaching out to the affected businesses via email. Our team is working to ensure there is no disruption in services."
Sampad Swain, CEO and Co-founder of MSMEfintechstartupInstamojo said that the company will be temporarily withholding payouts to merchants havingYesBankaccounts until further clarity on the situation.
He said, "This is to ensure that no merchant’s funds get blocked. As an alternate, we have provided our merchants the option to change their registered bank from Yes Bank to another account."
According to the Era of Fintech Rising report by Razorpay, 2019 was the year of the fintech industry in India. Customer demand for digital transactions grew by a whopping 338 percent and across all the payment options, payments through Unified Payment Interface (UPI) saw the highest growth of 885 percent. The Indian financial services sector has embarked upon its digital journey and is catching up with its global peers in terms of adoption. However, sustaining in the market for long-term, requires more innovative work. And what’s a better way than hackathons to get the community together to build innovative fintech solutions?
Hackathons are gaining popularity in India as they offer fresh perspectives to business challenges and are also good tools to stimulate the creative and problem-solving juices of participants. Keeping this in mind, the leading competition platform, Dare2Compete is hosting two exciting hackathons for fintech enthusiasts this month. Here’s all you need to know about it:
India Finclusion Challenge
Organised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Government of UK, in partnership with EY, the India Finclusion Challenge is a hackathon to identify early-stage ideas for innovative financial products and/or distribution solutions for SMEs, women and financially disadvantaged (excluded) segments for deepening the Indian financial services sector, thereby contributing to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.
Who can participate?
Early-stage fintechs based in India with a team size of minimum five individuals can apply to the challenge. They can provide solutions under alternative credit SME financing like cashflow-based lending, digital onboarding of MSME financing, among others and/or innovations to support financial inclusion of women and financially underserved segments like neobanking, merchant digital payment acceptance, etc.
The pitch deck should include the problem statement, description of the desired application, core-user scenarios, team details and solutioning.
What's in it for you?
The first prize winner will take home Rs 5 lakhs, followed by Rs 3 lakhs each for the second and third prize winners.
In addition to the cash prizes, the three winners will receive growth support over three years amounting to Rs 24 lakhs per fintech to scale their solutions. This support includes dedicated mentorship, funding access, market access, technical assistance and business advisory services.
Application timeline
The last date to apply is March 20, 2020. Participants will have to submit their solutions along with relevant product URLs (if any) by March 22, 2020. The finalists will be announced on March 25, 2020, post which they will get the opportunity to do a live demo of their solutions during the Demo Day on March 30, 2020.
realme PaySa App is organising a UPI Hackathon to identify individuals who can work with UPI as the base payment service/platform and provide innovative solutions that make life simpler, save costs, help solve a problem or bring new business opportunities.
Who can participate?
Students, startups, small businesses, employees working in very large companies, payment companies, coders or just about any individual is eligible to apply. You need to be an entity registered in India or an Indian resident. A team can have up to five members and can submit only one idea in the event.
Your UPI ideas could revolve around themes like, but not restricted to, customer registration to UPI, QR code penetration, lending, investments, security and fraud prevention, digital payment literacy, public transport and government services, among others.
What's in it for you?
The first prize winner will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 10 lakhs while the second prize winner will get Rs 5 lakhs. The two winning teams will take their ideas from being just a dream to going live on the platform and a potential contract to work with realme PaySa.
Shortlisted teams in the finals will also get global visibility through an opportunity to present their prototypes to big corporates and digital payment leaders. They will also get access to technical, compliance and other know-how support from realme PaySa, NPCI and HDFC Bank for developing a solid prototype.
Application timeline
The last date to register for the challenge and submit your idea is March 10, 2020. The top 50 teams will be selected to submit their detailed solutions along with the tech stack by March 15, 2020 and the top 5 teams will have to present their prototype at the offline hackathon on May 11, 2020 in Mumbai.
Two of the biggest UPI players in the country Paytm and PhonePe took a jab at each other on social media platform Twitter following YES Bank's moratorium impact on PhonePe's UPI transactions in the country.
PhonePe’s UPI services were rendered unavailable after capital-starved YES Bank was placed under moratorium by the RBI, which also extends to YES Banks’ banking handles (YBL), affecting its digital partners significantly.
Picking on the opportunity, Paytm Payments Bank tweeted to PhonePe inviting it to leverage the Paytm Bank UPI platform, considering its huge adoption and ability to scale seamlessly.
Not one to be left behind, PhonePe in its response took a jab at Paytm Payments Bank stating that if its UPI handle was so 'seamlessly scalable', they would have incorporated it long back.
Further, PhonePe tweeted in support of its long-time partner YES Bank, stating they'd prefer supporting their long time partners in this difficult time, adding, "Form is temporary, class is permanent," for good measure.
Dear @PaytmBank Inviting you to consider that if your #UPI platform was so 'seamlessly scalable', we'd have called you ourselves.
No point getting back up faster, if we have to desert our long term partners when they're down. Form is temporary, class is permanent.
It has been more than 16 hours since PhonePe’s UPI service has been non-transactional. The service rides on UPI rails and counts YES Bank as its exclusive banking partner.
As a first step to the recovery process, PhonePe started disbursal of merchant settlements, which was stuck in nodal accounts since yesterday, possibly affecting continuity of business for its online and 10 million offline merchant base.
As a first step to recovery started disbursal of @PhonePe_ merchant settlements. Next step is to enable services for our users. Thank you for your continued patience https://t.co/3CYxq0Btb2
As per the last update, PhonePe's PG (payment gateway) service seems to be up and running, allowing customers to make payments through debit and credit cards as well as digital wallets. According to the company, it may take a few more hours to allow UPI transactions on its platform.
However, industry experts believe that PhonePe reviving its UPI service isn't as simple as it seems and the impact of it can go on for a few days.
With an estimated 40 percent market share, PhonePe is one of the biggest UPI players in the country. Additionally, with its UPI payment service witnessing a downtime, it can impact an overall UPI volumes for the month of March.
Indian startups raised $116 million in funding in the first week of March, cutting across 19 deals. However, it was a decline of 37 percent compared to the same period last week.
During the week, the Pre-Series A round saw the highest volume of funding activity at seven deals, although, the largest investment was in a Series B round at $84 million. Further, in the stage-wise funding, the early-stage startups recorded the highest number of deals at 13, followed by growth deals at six.
The week also witnessed debt financing in startups to the tune of $9.5 million from three deals with two-wheeler rental startup Bounce accounting for the lion’s share.
Gurugram-based online used car retailing platform Spinny raised $43.7 million (about Rs 315 crore) in Series B funding led by Fundamentum Partnership (FP), a growth-capital fund backed by Nandan Nilekani and Sanjeev Aggarwal. The round also saw participation from new investors such as US-based General Catalyst Partners, Korea-based KB Financial Group, and existing investors Accel, SAIF Partners, and Alteria Capital as co-investors.
Fintech startup SMEcorner raised $30 million in a Series B round in a combination of debt and equity, led by Paragon Partners. Existing investors such as Quona Capital, Accion Venture Lab, Bharat Shah, and a few other HNIs also participated in the round. Further, Promoter Samir Bhatia made fresh investments in the startup in the round.
Other key deals
Tricog, a Bengaluru-based healthcare analytics startup, raised $10.5 million in Series B funding from UTEC - the University of Tokyo Edge Capital, Japan; Aflac Ventures, LLC, Japan; TeamFund, US; and Dream Incubator, Japan. Existing investors Inventus Capital and Blume Ventures also participated in this round.
Bengaluru-based startup Salesken.airaised $8 million in Series A funding from Sequoia India. The round also saw investors such as Unitus Ventures and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation making a partial exit from the startup.
Post-harvest agritech startup Aryaraised $6 million in Pre-Series B funding led by Omnivore and existing investor LGT Lightstone Aspada.
San Francisco and Bengaluru-based fintech startup Leap Finance raised $5.5 million in a round led by Sequoia India. The round also saw participation from leading angels including - Bhupinder Singh, Founder and CEO, Incred, as well as Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO, Cred, among others.
Gurugram-based fintech startup Chqbook.comraised $5 million in Series A funding from Aavishkaar Capital. The fresh capital will be deployed to expand its product portfolio, scale-up distribution across multiple cities, and strengthen its proprietary AI-powered technology platform.
Bengaluru-based lifestyle-community-commerce platform Trell raised $4 million in Pre-Series A round led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Fosun RZ Capital, and KTB Network. Existing investors Beenext, WEH Ventures, and Sprout Ventures also participated in the round.
Singapore-based deep tech startup FlixStock raised $2.5 million in a round led by Wavemaker Partners and Seeds Capital. Leo Capital also participated in the round.
London-based data science startup Gyana raised $3.9 million (about Rs 28.5 crore) in Pre-Series A round of funding led by Fuel Adventures, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone, Green Shores Capital, and U+I.
Debt deal
Bengaluru-based scooter-sharing startup Bounce raised $6.5 million in debt funding from existing investor InnoVen Capital. This marks InnoVen Capital’s third investment in Bounce in 18 months, taking the total debt investment to $12 million exclusively from the firm.
Small and undisclosed deals
Strata,a Bengaluru-based real-estate investment tech startup, raised $1.5 million funding in a seed round led by SAIF Partners and Mayfield India.
Anicut Angel Fund has made its maiden investment and led a Pre-Series A round of close to $1 million in Hyderabad-based Neeman’s, an eco-conscious footwear brand making comfortable shoes using Merino Wool.
Noida-based consultancy startup Spaciya Advisors raised $500,000 in Pre-Series A round from angel investor and serial entrepreneur Alok Garg. Following this investment, Alok will also take up the role of Director – Operations in the startup.
Delhi-based youth hostel chain goStops raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Atraxn Partners, an angel investor firm headed by Nirmal Singh and Pawan Kumar.
New Delhi-based smart bus startup gogoBusraised an undisclosed amount of funding in a round led by AI-based travel app ixigo.
F5, a New Delhi-based 'retail aggregator' raised an undisclosed seed round of funding led by investors from LetsVenture.
As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise across the world and in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked people to stay away from rumours and emphasised on the need to follow the advice of doctors in this regard.
He also asked people to avoid handshakes and start greeting others with “namaste” once again.
“I appeal to my fellow countrymen to stay away from rumours regarding coronavirus,” Modi said. “We need to follow the advice of doctors in this regard,” he said.
Modi was interacting with owners of Jan Aushadhi Kendras and beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojna (PMBJP) through video conference.
A health ministry said the Centre had implemented pre-call awareness messages on BSNL and Reliance Jio connections to educate people regarding preventive measures.
Meanwhile, as a shortage of masks and sanitisers hits the market, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan called for strict action against those black marketing the masks.
“Strict action should be taken against those black marketing the masks,” Vardhan tweeted in Hindi.
As part of the preventive measures, as many as 6.5 lakh passengers have been screened at 30 Indian airports till now.
Since the first case cropped up in Wuhan, China, a couple of months ago, COVID-19 has infected thousands of people across the world.
The coronavirus has now spread to at least 85 countries and territories, infected more than 100,000 people, and claimed 3,300 lives, most of these in mainland China. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared a “global emergency”.
As the human cost of the outbreak rises, so are the economic consequences.
With China central to a series of global supply chains, experts say the outbreak may cause the world’s GDP growth to stall for the first time in a decade and impact startup ecosystems.
People are staying indoors and stores are empty, with many shut down. The contagion has put the brakes on travel, leisure, and business, bringing movement of people and goods to a halt. Business travel has stopped, which means fund-raising activity for Indian startups may slump.
(Additional information has been added to this report for context.)
Rapidtechnological advancements at the workplace have led to the loss of one of our most important skill sets: soft skills.
As a result, employees end up unable to navigate the resultant office politics, restrictive work culture, unclear or changing work roles, and excessive workloads. This hinders workplace productivity and personal growth, and ultimately affects business development.
At the third edition of YourStory’sFuture of Work event, Parvathi Menon, the Founder and Managing Director of Innovation Alchemy Consulting, spoke on how to create a more fluid and flexible work culture and win at the workplace.
Parvathi, who has experience as one of the top learning facilitators on the Harvard Business Reviewplatform
HBR Ascend, shared strategies on dealing with barriers in the workplace, and applying cognitive and behavioural skills to assess and deal withsituations better.
Parvathi started her discussion by highlighting the key capabilities for the future of the workplace, and categorised skills into three buckets:
* Leading a Business
* Leading Yourself
* Leading Others
To be able to successfully lead others or even lead a business, you need to know how to manage yourself.
“Developing personal adaptability is extremely important when it comes to navigating yourself through an ambiguous career path,” Parvathi said.
She stressed that this in turn will not only help you to work better in teams, but also understand the art of collaboration, and help your business in the long run.
She questioned the audience, “How many of you’ll face ambiguity in the workplace? What does it look like for you?”
Many audience members opened up about how they struggled when it came to role expectations, lack of understanding and communication between manager and employer, and a frequent shift around requirements.
Parvathy then asked the audience what their reaction was towards this ambiguity, and how it affected them.
The audience responded that they felt a lot of insecurity, confusion, and stagnation, and constantly questioned themselves about their "life path". They went back to their education, rethought their career progression, and contemplated further networking.
Parvathy said while these were powerful responses to the way one views ambiguity in the workplace, we needed to “start seeing the bigger picture”.
She gave the example of a company expanding its operations, stating that it had a young employee named John who had been performing exceptionally well in his current role. The company planned to relocate him to a different part of Asia as they felt he was the perfect candidate with his Ivy League background, and ability to perform tasks efficiently.
However, things did not go according to plan. John struggled when he relocated as there was a lot of ambiguity and his role was not clearly defined.
“I am providing you with this scenario because this often happens, you are in an environment where you are doing really well and thriving, and then you are moved to a completely new environment, and you struggle,” she said.
She said we needed to understand that these are not inherent aspects of work, but trainable aspects of work and professional life.
“Why are we talking about this? Because ambiguity is an inherent aspect of modern work, and there are no two ways about it,” Parvathi said.
Roles are changing, requirements are changing, and it is all very ambiguous. “However, we can change this. Do we go into it saying it is going to cause me a lot of stress? Or go into it asking what skills we need to learn with every new opportunity?”
She then posed a question to the audience: “What do you think John could have done better when it came to managing his new deployment in Asia?”
While people said that one should be more intuitive, and have the ability to reach out and ask for help, Parvathy stressed on an important point: self-awareness.
“It’s always the way you look at a challenge, your mindset’ she said.
Parvathy highlighted how we needed to develop personal agility like any other skill.
Whether it is in our home environment or workplace, personal agility helps in times of uncertainty and ambiguity. It aids us to remain focused and manage multiple priorities at a time.
“People can develop growth mindsets; people can also develop fixed mindsets. As professionals, we have the ability to adopt both,” Parvathy said.
She stressed on how the more you do difficult things early on in your career, the more it helps when it comes to developing and building a growth mindset.
“In other words, how comfortable are you with being uncomfortable?” she asked.
Embracing change and collaborating for success
Parvathi said the secret to embracing change was personal agility.
She ended her discussion by encouraging people to follow the 7Cs Framework when it comes to embracing change. This comprises:
1. Complexity
2. Clarity
3. Confidence
4. Creativity
5. Commitment
6. Consolidation
7. Change
Agility and leading oneself is imperative to collaborate with a team and get successful results.
“When it comes to collaborating for success, people come together and contribute their expertise for the benefit of shared/group expertise,” Parvathi said.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)
A big shout out to our Future of Work 2020 Sponsors: Alibaba Cloud, Larksuite, Vodafone Idea Limited, Gojek, Adobe, Udaan, Pocket Aces, Junglee Games, Sharechat, Open, VestaSpace Technology, Maharashtra State Innovation Society, Kristal.AI and GetToWork; and our Knowledge Partner: Ascend Harvard Business Review.
Indians spend more than two hours a day on the road daily, as per a report released by office commute startup MoveInSync last year. In the thick of traffic woes, scooting on a two-wheeler is more convenient than using cars and public transport systems.
Bengaluru-based startup Bounce is tapping this opportunity through its keyless and dockless two-wheeler rental platform, operating on the anywhere-to-anywhere model.
While the startup now records a hundred thousand rides daily and has grown five times in the last one year, Sruthi Sivakumar, Head of Design at Bounce, said one of the biggest challenges for them was getting their users to park properly.
“There are users who try to take advantage of this ‘anywhere’,” she said, referring to its yellow scooters being abandoned in the middle of road and on flyovers, instead of a parking area.
The problem
“We definitely do not want Bounce creating a nuisance in the city. We want people to utilise it well and everyone to have access to this kind of service,” she said, speaking at the third edition of India’s largest product-tech-design conference, YourStory’s Future of Work 2020.
Sruthi said the startup began identifying the ‘offenders’, users who were not parking the bikes properly, and saw a clear pattern. People would abandon the rented scooty and end their ride in traffic.
Teams of designers, researchers, engineers, product managers, and those working on the business then went to places where such instances took place more frequently. The team noted a lack of any sense of ownership among the offenders.
They noticed that people were abandoning these bikes because of traffic and also because of the presence of traffic policemen. “One can usually see the length of traffic in a lane. And when there was too much traffic, they would just leave the scooters on the side, wherever that was, and move away. It didn’t matter to them that it was in the middle of the road,” Sruthi explained.
“At the same time, there are certain places like the end of a flyover where cops stand. So, Bounce users, riding without helmets, would abandon the bikes on the flyover and leave,” she added.
Some users would also conveniently leave the vehicle on open roads near the bus stations as well.
Contacting these users, who always demanded ‘proof’ of abandoning, led to further measures to curb the practice of bad parking.
Sruthi shared that Bounce decided to use fear and guilt as motivating factors to ensure proper parking by testing the feature of mandating users to click a live picture to end a ride.
At the same time, Sruthi claims that Bounce as a community is strong.
“Users with no record of abandoning a bike midway were extremely happy because they get offended when people do not use it in the right way. It is a service that they want and are unable to use it because of a few people,” she said, adding that they initially thought it would be a friction point and that they would be unhappy about the additional step.
Sruthi said apart from storing data on parking behaviour, clicking the picture also helped the next user to find the bike more easily. Users quickly adopted this as many had earlier cancelled rides due to inability to locate a bike.
After the picture is taken, the team employs Machine Learning (ML) technology to check if there’s a Bounce bike in the picture and then sends it to the next user.
“Today, around 90 percent of our users click a parking picture and out of that, about 80 odd percent of users actually have a bike in the picture. The idea is to make all users click a proper picture of the bike,” she added.
Notably, the startup recorded 70 percent reduction in bad cases of parking in the last couple of months. “While this is a huge percentage for us, it doesn’t end here because our end goal is to make bad parking less than one percent. And we are constantly experimenting and evolving,” she said.
(Edited by Javed Gaihlot)
A big shout out to our Future of Work 2020 Sponsors: Alibaba Cloud, Larksuite, Vodafone Idea Limited, Gojek, Adobe, Udaan, Pocket Aces, Junglee Games, Sharechat, Open, VestaSpace Technology, Maharashtra State Innovation Society, Kristal.AI and GetToWork; and our Knowledge Partner: Ascend Harvard Business Review.
The Taj West End Art Corridor in Bengaluru recently featured an exhibition by 24 artists, titled Oorja (‘energy’ in Sanskrit). See our interview with curator MG Doddamani and Part I of our coverage, as well as our three-part series of the 2018 edition of the exhibition.
Spanning paintings and installations, the artist lineup includes Rama Suresh, Ritu Chawla Mathur, Rosh Ravindran, Sachin Jaltare, Shanker Sundaram, Shivakumar Kesaramadu, KT Shivaprasad, Sujata Sah Sejekan, Sunita Pavan, Vanaja Bal, Venkataraman R, and Vinod Kumar.
Rosh Ravindran
“I have been doing portraits for the last couple of years. My Facets series captures the young, talented, and brilliant women in a backdrop of various fields of technology,” explains engineer-artist Rosh Ravindran, in a chat with YourStory.
Though the women techies excel in their fields, they are not always acknowledged for their contributions, he adds. “This year, I connected them more with heavy machines and industries. I portrayed women with machine parts in the backdrop,” Rosh says.
Many people do not know that women now manage a lot of assembly lines in the automotive industries. “I used mixed media to get the relief effect on canvas, to depict the toughness of the environment,” he says. He made gears, pipes, and pistons using mountboard, pasted them on canvas, and then painted on it.
His artworks are priced from Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000. “Feedback from the audience at Oorja was great. We take extreme care in every detail, from getting quality works from the artists to arranging the paintings in order to match the colour and theme,” Rosh proudly says.
He calls for more appreciation of art in India, and more visitors to art galleries. “Artworks can now be shared on social media and websites, and can reach more people very easily. Although the viewers may not get the actual look and feel, they can get the gist from the digital format,” Rosh says.
He also urges audiences to not just give positive comments, but provide critical views and explanations of what is effective and understandable for them. “Artists would like to know how successfully they were able to portray their thoughts through their art, and how viewers perceive them,” Rosh explains.
Ritu Chawla Mathur
Ritu Chawla Mathur, a former hospitality professional, is now an artist working with neutral and mono-toned pallets, as well as bold, chromatic colours. “I am enjoying exploring and experimenting with different types of media and tools, venturing into bigger and larger scale, and working in a series,” she adds.
“I think I am at that stage where I want to compose my own individuality and identity. I want to plunge into the unknown territory and continue the journey of experimentation,” she enthuses.
This is the second time Ritu has exhibited in the Oorja show. Her paintings are priced from Rs 22,000 to Rs 75,000. She earlier exhibited at Chitra Santhe as well (see our coverage of six years of the festival here).
She cites her favourite rock band Doors’ vocalist Jim Morrison in this regard: “In the universe there are things that are known and things that are unknown, and in between there are DOORs.”
“Unusual doors often take you to unusual worlds, a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered,” Ritu evocatively explains. For the Oorja exhibition, she showcased semi-abstract representation of doors as ‘Gateways to Cultures’.
“My semi-abstract mixed-media paintings creates stories on canvas with doors from all over the world as the centre of the compositions. It is a playground of vibrant colours, bold strokes, textures, techniques and some contemplation of the ordinary,” she describes.
“In the ordinary objects, like doors, art allows me to go beyond the shallow and literal interpretations that scratch no deeper than the surface. Instead, my imagination helps me delve into stories that are not always apparent,” Ritu explains.
For Oorja 2020, she prepared works titled Kemal, Aastha, and Tally me Banana, exploring themes from Turkish, Indian, and Jamaican cultures. For example, the Indian temple door evokes stories about hidden vaults and chambers leading to a temple treasure, or to a tunnel.
“Urban legends go, that if a human attempt is made to open these doors it could unleash unspeakable calamity to the world. That is the power and faith in doors,” Ritu explains.
The large canvas piece titled Kemal (‘perfection’) is inspired by the whirling dervishes of Sufi Islam, which deals with the purification of the inner self. “The door initiates the inner journey into the depth of the soul, into the domain of the pure and un-imprisonable spirit. The bright gold moon depicts the pure,” Ritu says.
“My artistic mind has always been captivated by the Sufi dervishes, which I actually find very enjoyable and relaxing to paint across a canvas. With bold strokes, palette knife, and thick paint, one is able to depict the depth of the folds of the broad skirts, and how they flare during their ceremonial whirling,” she adds.
Her other projects include participation in ‘Dhara,’ a group exhibition of paintings by women artists celebrating International Women’s Day. Partial proceeds from the Oorja show will also be shared with Bembala Foundation, an initiative of Whitefield Rising.
Ritu says she is pleased with the reception of the second Oorja show. “On the preview night itself we have been successful in connecting with lovers of the art and the cause, resulting in sales. It was indeed a very warm welcome on our return,” she says proudly.
The diversity of styles, directness of themes, and price ranges all helped make a connect with the audience. “This year, it has been the platform for a quite a few visitors to buy their first piece as well,” she adds.
Ritu points out three prominent trends in India’s art scene today. “The space of art is opening up, and is inclusive of commoners. The Indian middle class is now stepping up to support Indian art in a big way,” she observes.
The internet is a major source for finding artists, promoting art, and buying artworks. “Now people buying artworks are not just experienced collectors but first-time buyers, who are spending their income to enjoy its sheer beauty and not just as an investment,” Ritu ads.
Thirdly, there are many art shows and platforms for artists of multiple genres to interact, explore and participate. For example, multimedia, sculptures, and conceptual art are becoming prominent.
Jyoti Gupta
Bengaluru-based artist Jyoti Gupta’s works have traveled across Indian and overseas, to the US, Europe, Middle East and Singapore. “For me art is a reflection of changing times. I enjoy the flow state by immersing myself in art. I love bringing out the creativity of art as a fusion of the tradition and contemporary,” she explains.
For Oorja 2020, she created four pieces of art, priced from Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000. Their theme is Kamdhenu (‘The Bestower’), symbolising the spiritual and material wealth in Hindu mythology. “Through this series, we invoke the grace of the Mother Goddess to bless us with resources and make our dreams and wishes of abundance come true,” Jyoti says.
The pieces are titled Growth with Me, Blue Blossom, Silver Abundance, and Golden Earth. Some of them are traditional oil paints with a clay background, embellished with vegetation made with pen and ink.
“One artwork of mine from the Oorja 2018 edition has been nominated for an award by the Karnataka Lalit Kala Akademi and will be on display at Chitra Kala Parishad from 20th March 2020 onwards,” Jyoti proudly says.
“I have realised that an artist truly grows with diverse exposure and perspectives,” she explains, drawing on her studies in zoology, botany, and law. “I love to experiment with different mediums and techniques and am ever curious to learn from anywhere and everywhere – a lifelong student in the school of art offered by the world,” Jyoti enthuses.
Her journey began at art hub Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi, and has now taken her abroad as well. “I like to create natural textures like wood grain, stone and glass on canvas. I am currently working on creating the moon on a piece of stone,” Jyoti explains.
Sujata Sah Sejekan
Born in Nepal, Sujata Sah Sejekan is now based in Bengaluru. “Art is a celebration of self, nature and the abstract. I get inspiration from all around: flora, fauna, and the magical phenomenon of human lives,” she explains. She sees art as a medium to showcase unique thought processes, creativity and intellect.
Her artworks at the Oorja show were priced from Rs 25,000 to Rs 75,000. They were titled Beauty of Joy (Degas Ballet Dancer) and Core of Evolution (natural processes of harmony and balance). They involved prints as well as mixed media on canvas board.
Sujata works in different styles like realistic portraits, landscapes, intricate drawings, prints, and figurative composition. She tries to convey positive energy despite much negativity in the world around us. “Every time I work on a new painting, I make sure that the viewer will find something new in my new way of expression,” she says.
Over the last 13 years, she has completed more than 2,000 artworks. Her works have found their way to collectors in India, Nepal, Singapore, Germany, UK, Ireland, France and US. She has exhibited atSublime Galleria in Bengaluru and the Mayinart show in Singapore.
Sujata sees success for herself in always being able to learn and create. “Success is when you are capable of utilising your everyday in nurturing something or someone around you, and using your creativity and thought process to develop yourself into a better human being each day,” she enthuses.
“Success is when you learn something new every new day, with the same theme of positivity. Awards and commercial gains are just witness to your hard and smart work, but real success is being consistent in what you do despite ups and downs,” Sujata explains.
She calls for more art appreciation in India, which includes visiting shows and bringing children to galleries. This helps nurture creativity and aesthetics in children and make them art lovers, Sujata explains, who herself is a mother of a five-year-old.
Like other exhibitors, Sujata found the Oorja show to be satisfying and amazing. “People and artists whom I never knew before came up and appreciated my works, I felt so great and was much inspired and energised,” she enthuses.
The road ahead
Many of the artists offer tips for aspiring artists as well. “India has a very rich cultural heritage, and local art needs to be practiced and promoted,” Sujata advises. “The Art which touches your heArt, please make it your pArt,” she poetically adds.
“Learn more about art and artists. Approach artists and ask about their thought process. Read books and search online for images of art by old and new masters. Develop the habit of visiting exhibitions,” she recommends.
“Learn to respect all your materials. Be disciplined in maintaining all your tools and completed works. Learn something new every day,” Sujata urges.
“To value art and artists, India still has a long way to go, though the art scene is getting better with every passing year. My message to artists is: let your talent and creativity unfold by allowing it an expression, it will be sad to think of a world otherwise,” Jyoti says.
“As artists, we must not be satisfied by remaining static. We must be fearless to explore new genres and experiment with new tools and techniques – and maybe the very traditional principles of art – and continue to evolve,” Ritu urges.
“In the beginning, it’s okay mirroring others’ work. We soak up the works of the masters and of artists we admire and reflect it in our art. But one day that isn’t enough. One day, it’s no longer gratifying,” she explains.
“And then one day, we find our calling. The evolution of human development is similar to the evolution of an artist. Never can enough be said about the importance of evolving,” Ritu signs off.
Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and fully explore your inner creative self?
See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.
According to him, the word "struggle" is romanticised in Bollywood, as all you need to have is 'one good idea' for a movie to do well.He is bestknown for his short film, Amdavad Ma Famous, for which he won the National Filmfare Award (in the non-feature film category).
His new movie Kaamyaab is an ode to Bollywood as it depicts the lesser-known world of supporting actors who are often forgotten by the audience.
Don’t miss Hardik’s views on the film industry and how he got ahead despite several challenges along the way.
Movies like The Help, which have a strong woman protagonist, are always inspiring
Whether it is actress Natalie Portman’s portrayal of an ambitious ballerina Nina Sayers in Black Swan or young Ugandan actress Madina Nalwanga’s interpretation of a real-life chess champion or Phiona Mutesi’s role in Queen of Katwe, women-centric films are sure to inspire you on International Women’s Day.
So, get hold of your best friend, your mother, or your sister after a day of doing something special on Women’s Day, and consider watching a movie that will help you think, analyse, discuss, and celebrate womanhood.
Don't miss our recommendations of 5 films you should watch this weekend which have a strong and inspirational female lead.
Kaapi Machine's employees and baristas
Did you know that espresso has just one-third of the caffeine content of a cup of regular coffee? Or that the density of filter paper can bring about a vast difference in the taste and flavour of your coffee? Or that 40 percent of the world’s coffee is produced by Columbia and Brazil?
Don’t miss our exclusive chat with Abhinav who believes that coffee is the new romance story that Indians are indulging in, and how it is a beverage that is definitely here to stay.
With over 30 years of experience in the food and hospitality industry and as a food and beverage service professional, Julia has hands-on experience in Coastal, Indian, European, Mid-Eastern, and Southeast Asian cuisine.
Julia started her career with Taj Holiday Village, Goa, and is now the Co-founder of a bespoke dining space called Tres in Delhi.
Check out Chef Julia’s advice on how to succeed in your career, even if you may be working in a male-dominated workplace.
Unhealthy food can cause inflammation in the body
Did you know that certain foods can cause inflammation in the body? Were you aware of the fact that some foods like soy, peanuts, dairy, and alcohol could be harmful in the long-run for you?
The word “inflammation” can be heard a lot these days, especially due to the buzz of viruses in the air, but what exactly is inflammation? The ancient Romans described inflammation as having four components: heat, redness, swelling, and pain. You can see some of this inflammation when you fall down and get hurt, but you cannot see inflammation if it is happening deep within your body.
Some of these entrepreneurs have tips for those who might be planning to launch a startup. For instance, some of them believe that is important to make 'passion' the driving force behind your entrepreneurial journey. Other entrepreneurs emphasise the need for a 'roadmap' to make sure that you are working consistently towards a larger goal.
Check out all the advice that these women entrepreneurs have to offer on how to launch a successful company.
The thought of serving a slice of the platter of historical food put Bhaskar on a quest to set up an eating space specialising in Pre-Columbian exchange food, which specialised in the use of spices.
Don't miss this interview with Bhaskar as he talks about his entrepreneurship journey and how it became successful over time.
MM Kariappa
Are your favourite writers Napoleon Hill, Robin Sharma, and Dale Carnegie? Are your heroes Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi? Do you believe in simple living and simple thinking?
The institute also imparts training for underprivileged youths of the rural sector and trains them so that they acquire employable skills in the areas of design, tailoring, jewellery designing, and many other fields.
His motto, ‘Believe in yourself and dream big’ is the best way to grow in confidence and succeed in the race of life.
Don’t miss his responses to our Proust questionnaire where he talks about his greatest loves, regrets, heroes, and more.
Everybody who has grown up watching Bollywood must be only too familiar with stories of young, small-town girls moving to big cities to chase their dreams. More often than not, their transition is difficult, especially when they find themselves surrounded by different people. This makes it imperative for every girl to find her own tribe.
Meet Misha, Naina and Riya, BFFs from school, who had the same experience when they decided to take on the high rises and busy roads of their dream city and chart their own paths.
Despite having different personalities, careers and preferences, the one thing that always brought them together was their ‘time’ together as wide-eyed high school girls.
The trio reminisced about their childhood every time they met, and this Women’s Day, they decided to capture that special time in a way that captured their personalities too.
The girls decided to treat themselves to watches from Timex’s latest Waterbury Neon collection that matched their personalities, were stylish and would ensure they were punctual. .
This collection by Timex is fun with a modern twist. During the day, the watches ooze class as Timex’s well-crafted Waterbury stainless steel bracelet, steeped in generations of watchmaking tradition. But when the lights go down, the watches become more than just stylish - they’re super fun too.
All one has to do is press the crown to illuminate the neon-colored INDIGLO® backlight on the watch,which reveals a secret icon on the dial.
The INDIGLO backlight is a sure-shot head turner in a crowd. The technology is activated, featuring both never-before-seen electric tones and familiar icon motifs. The invention is a sequence of thoughtful and innovative features designed to cater to the needs of consumers.
A bolt of lightning for Misha
For the daring and bold Misha, the gold-tone stainless steel bracelet watch featuring a secret lightning bolt icon. When she presses the crown to illuminate the yellow neon-colored INDIGLO® backlight, she reveals her sassier side.
“I don’t kiss and tell”for Naina
For Naina, who takes time to open up, the rose gold-tone stainless steel bracelet watch is ideal. It looks cute at first glance, but when the lights go down, the dial lights up with a pink neon-coloured INDIGLO backlight and reveals Naina’s lesser- known sassy side with a lip icon on the dial.
Riya, the hopeless romantic
The silver-tone stainless steel bracelet watch from the collection is perfect for the hopeless romantic in Riya. It is illuminated with a blue neon-coloured INDIGLO backlight, revealing a cute heart matching Riya’s personality perfectly.
So, what are you waiting for? Get your ‘trio’ together and buy yourselves these watches from the Waterbury Neon collection at your nearest Shopper’s Stop and Lifestyle stores. You can also buy them online at shop.timexindia.com.
Women make up almost half the population of India. Despite this, less than 14 percent of all Indian enterprises are women-led. India’s ranking on the gender inequality index declined to 112 last year. Economic independence is one of the surest ways of ensuring real, meaningful equality and empowerment. Every Indian woman entrepreneur can tell a story of success in the face of adversity, and gender should not be a determinant of business success.
Yet, in a country struggling to outgrow millennia of entrenched gender hierarchies, being a woman entrepreneur is one of the most challenging career paths a person can take. It doesn’t have to be this way. Between greater government focus on women entrepreneurship and greater public awareness, there is a path forward for the Indian woman entrepreneur of tomorrow.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways that solution providers can help women entrepreneurs kick start their businesses:
Ensuring ready access to finance
A key roadblock for many women entrepreneurs is access to affordable finance. Because assets in many households are in the name of a male family member, women entrepreneurs may find it difficult to come up with collateral or guarantors for loans. Both private banking institutions and the public sector provide favourable, collateral-free loans to women entrepreneurs. However, information asymmetry and access challenges make it difficult for them to actually obtain these loans. This creates an opportunity for technology solution providers.
Digital solutions, delivered through mobile apps, could create awareness about loan schemes, consolidate KYC and loan application information, and facilitate loan application submission. This would enable women entrepreneurs, even in remote areas, to fully leverage the credit opportunities that are available to them.
Ensuring continuous education and skill development
While over 80 percent of Indian men are literate, less than 66 percent of Indian women are. The disparity in women’s literacy is just one indicator of the great disparity in educational outcomes between Indian men and Indian women. This has a tangible impact on labour participation. India’s female labour participation rate is just 23 percent.
The answer is simple: Indian women entrepreneurs need access to continuous education and skill development platforms. Only this will ensure that they have the requisite knowledge and skills to successfully run an MSME. Digital solution providers can look to the success of MOOCs and online courses when introducing skill development and education-centric solutions for women entrepreneurs.
Mobile-friendly skill development platforms, localised in vernacular languages, can ensure that women entrepreneurs obtain the skills they need at their own pace and at their own convenience.
In a situation where formal education continues to be a challenge, technology solution providers have a window of opportunity to offer digitally enabled remote learning experiences. These solutions can draw from the large existing open knowledge pool of solutions like SWAYAM.
Bringing Indian women entrepreneurs online
India has nearly 600 million internet users. However, less than 30 percent of them are female. Less than a third of Indian MSMEs are online. Together, these two facts indicate that Indian women entrepreneurs have a very limited online presence. This offers technology solution providers an immense opportunity: to be digital enablers for millions of Indian woman entrepreneurs.
Solution providers can leverage mobile apps and on-the-ground POS terminals, supported by last-mile network connectivity, to help bring Indian women entrepreneurs online. Consolidated solutions could allow women entrepreneurs to access e-learning resources, register social media profiles, and access government e-services from a single point of service. These solutions could be vernacularised and offered at a nominal cost to promote widespread uptake.
Addressing the specific needs of Indian women entrepreneurs
In a society where gender roles remain entrenched, women entrepreneurs face a number of unique challenges that are as yet unaddressed. Solution providers have a unique opportunity here to address these needs and drive social transformation.
Safety and ease of access are two critical challenges faced by many Indian women entrepreneurs. Existing technology solutions for women’s safety can be adapted to address the specific needs of women entrepreneurs in situations such as interacting with credit providers.
Ease of access is also critical: many Indian woman entrepreneurs are limited in terms of how far they can physically travel. This could make existing, relatively distant point-of-service terminals inconvenient. By leveraging mobile technology and last-mile connectivity, solution providers could offer women entrepreneurs service access right from their houses and places of work.
(Edited by Evelyn Ratnakumar)
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)
Airmeet, the Bengaluru-based all-in-one platform to host, discover, and attend fully remote events like conferences and professional meet-ups, has raised $3 million funding in a round led by Accel India. The startup was founded by Lalit Mangal, Co-founder of CommonFloor along with other former CommonFloor executives Vinay Jaasti and Manoj Singh.
“We are excited about the future where distance won’t matter for great minds to come together and collectively construct knowledge. We plan to improve the product and add support for multiple many formats of events," said Lalit Mangal, Co-founder Airmeet.com.
The round also saw participation from VentureHighway,Global Founders Capital and angel syndicate of CloudCapital, BetterCapital, 100x Entrepreneur Fund, and Sequoia Scout.
Cntrepreneurs and CXOs like Gaurav Munjal, Co-founder, Unacademy; Phanindra Sama, Founder, redBus; Ramakant, Founder, Livespace; Sumit Jain and Vikas Malpani, founders of CommonFloor; Kris Nair, Founder, Kawa Space; Sajid Rahman (of TelenorHealth), and other ecosystem enablers have joined this round through syndicates on AngelList (CloudCapital and BetterCapital) and LetsVenture (100x Entrepreneur Fund).
With the help of the platform the event organiser wouldn't need a separate zoom or Skype subscription. A meeting on Airmeet would suffice.
"Airmeet events feel quite like in-person events with serendipitous and free-flow video encounters with other participants on virtual tables and networking lounges, backstage, stage, claps, and audience reactions," said Lalit.
The Airmeet team is fully remote, with team members working out of different locations.
In December, Accel India had announced that it had closed its sixth India fund to the tune of $550 million. With this new capital, the VC firm will continue placing bets in seed and early-stage startups across India despite the reigning sentiments of a slowdown.
It’s no secret that India sorely lacks a skilled IT workforce.
NASSCOM has been vocal about the “urgent need to re-skill about 50 percent of India’s IT workforce, as demand for it in new technologies remains unmet”. With most Indian engineers graduating from premier institutes often unable to write a single line of code, the urgency – and skills gap – is growing.
The Founders of Masai School: Prateek Shukla (L), Nrupul Dev, and Yogesh Bhat.
The problem statement applies at both ends of the spectrum: supply and demand. On one side, India Inc. has a massive workforce that is not skilled enough; on the other, the workforce needs skilled employees, but there’s a dearth.
Prateek Shukla, the Co-founder and CEO of Masai School, was in his third year of engineering at IIT-Kanpur and “passionate about education”. He even interned with Teach for India at that time.
Later, when he started up with online rental startup Grabhouse, he decided to sponsor the education of a few children, kids of his housekeeping staff. Grabhouse was acquired by Quikr towards the end of 2016. After the exit, Prateek worked with a real estate company called SPR Highliving in Chennai.
He quit that job and traveled to Tanzania. The need to solve the problems in education kept coming back to him, especially when he saw the state of education in that underdeveloped country.
Prateek tells YourStory, “What convinced me to solve this was the fact that me, Nrupul, or anyone who has worked long enough in the industry understands the capability required in an entry-level software developer. We also understand that this is a solvable problem, though it takes time, the right curriculum, and discipline.”
In June 2019, Prateek joined hands with NrupulDev and Yogesh Bhat to launch Bengaluru-based Masai School, a coding bootcamp that offers learning programmes to create skilled professionals.
Learners are enrolled for free at Masai School for the six-month, full-stack web development programme along with personality development and soft skills coaching. They can pay the course fee at a later date, after getting a suitable job, as the school operates on the basis of an Income Share Agreement (ISA).
Masai School, which presently has centres in Bengaluru and Patna, offers courses in Android development, full-stack development, and web development. The training model is divided into 100 hours each of coding, soft skills, math learning and data structures.
Prateek said, “The most important element around holistic development is that the student should learn certain soft skills. We wanted the right kind of person for that. Yogesh, who has been in the industry for the last eight to nine years, teaching sales performance training, and more, was the perfect fit."
The six-member startup received undisclosed seed funding from India Quotient and a few angel investors, including Sampad Swain, CEO and Cofounder of Instamojo.
The first batch started at the 91Springboard facility on Hosur Road, Bengaluru; the 23rd week of the 24-week programme is on at present. The second batch started in August last year.
Prateek regularly takes to Twitter to reveal the success stories of Masai School. The latest numbers show that the candidates have had a 7.7x hike in average salary, with the highest package at Rs 9 lakh per annum.
When Ronak Sarda bought his first batch of cell phone covers from China, little did he know that the whirlwind purchase would lead to the start of something new, something much bigger than what he could have imagined at the time.
“On my 21st birthday, my dad had given me Rs 21,000,” he recalls. “I decided to invest the entire amount and buy some phone covers from China. I created a Facebook page and started selling the phone covers. To my surprise, I was able to sell all the cases in just a few days.”
Ronak Sarda, Founder, Cover It Up
This was around 2013-2014. The smartphone market was steadily picking up steam in India and ecommerce platforms, tracing pop-culture trends across the globe, were looking at merchandise sales as the next big thing.
At the time, innovative designs in terms of merchandise were at a nascent stage. This held true especially in the phone accessories market, where creativity and innovations were just building up, Ronak says.
“I realised that there was considerable potential in the Indian market, as people like to carry what they love. Back then, there were only plain and regular things available in the market,” he says. “This propelled me into the business.”
Ronak soon turned the success of the Facebook page into a full-fledged ecommerce platform, dedicated to phone accessories along with a range of other products.
Cover It Up, at the moment, personalises pop culture-inspired products such as unisex t-shirts, caps, hoodies and sweatshirts, AirPods cases, mugs, posters, notebooks, and other gadgets.
“When I started this venture, I got queries from 20-30 people who were intrigued by the idea of printed phone covers. Soon this number reached to 100 and then 150. Today, we cater to thousands of requests every day,” says the 27-year-old entrepreneur.
The reason Ronak has managed to establish Cover It Up as a go-to brand in the phone accessories market can be attributed to his singular approach to phone cases and covers.
“We took our niche as an advantage,” he says, explaining how he complemented this approach by garnering over half a million followers on Cover It Up’s social media platforms.
“The primary reason for such a tremendous following was our initiative, which wasn’t a T-shirt company. We started as a phone cover company that specialised in pop culture. We received attention from the crowd, which was particularly interested in the idea of having something creative on their phones,” he adds.
Once Cover It Up garnered a steady following, though, the focus moved to the design aesthetics. The ecommerce startup now has a dedicated team handling the design, a team that makes sure the product is durable and easy to carry, and a team to actually create a prototype of the idea and research on its aesthetics and practicality.
Ronak is a design-oriented entrepreneur – prior to starting up, he worked with a digital agency – and invests a great deal of time in the design aesthetics and product development.
Today, his startup has over half a dozen products that are made in-house.
“A lot of brands don’t take up manufacturing in-house, but we have realised that by doing that, we’ve been able to control the quality and turnaround time for a product to be made ready for dispatch,” he says.
Cover It Up might have taken flight as a hobby, but in the six years since its inception the ecommerce startup has grown into a full-fledged business.
From manufacturing and selling 250-300 cases in 2014, the team expanded its capacity to dispatch close to 30,000 products between 2017-2108. For the 2019-2020 period, says Ronak, they are on track to reach the 100,000-product mark.
“Since 2019, after inking a number of partnerships and putting in place a great team, we have grown 4x since our last year’s numbers,” he adds.
Cover It Up has also partnered with big names to offer licensed merchandise. From prominent Hollywood studios and franchises like Marvel, DC, Warner Bros, FRIENDS, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Disney, and Looney Tunes to Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Kaala, Darbar, and Robot 2.0, the startup has signed prestigious deals that put it on the global merchandise roadmap.
“For our merchandise partnerships, there is always a set parameter we have to follow; the guidelines come from the brand,” the founder says.
“After ideation and planning, we get sample products created and passed to the brand. When the product is finally approved, it goes live on our social media as well as on our website.” This process is not meant to limit creativity, and the creative team continues to brainstorm ideas to stand out from the hordes of merchandise available in the market.
After all, the brand’s unique and innovative design aesthetics cemented Cover It Up’s position among popular brands dealing in pop culture merchandise today.
