After losing a close friend to wrong diagnosis, this trio starts a healthcare platform to ensure correct prognosis

Often the simplest of symptoms and ailments can be a warning bell for something larger. In many cases, if these aren’t diagnosed properly on time, it can cause serious consequences. Something similar happened with Ashish Tiwari. An unfortunate incorrect diagnosis lost him his close friend.

He realised that his friend would’ve been alive if there was a platform that helped him and his family with options to make informed choices. This led to the birth of HealthKhoj, a condition discovery and management platform.

The aim of the platform is to help both sides of the healthcare system by providing a platform that helps detect symptoms and ailments, making it easy for the caregivers and families while consulting a doctor. This helps reduce the cost of care, time taken for diagnosis and treatment, and in some cases even effectively frees up the capacity and space utilisation in hospitals.

Understanding the space

“Our focus is on health conditions, which have longer care cycles and require high involvement from the care givers, patients as well the as the healthcare provider,” says 38-year-old Ratnesh Pandey, Co-founder of HealthKhoj.

The team is focusing on cases where the patients have been suggested surgeries or procedures. HealthKhoj has partnerships with hospitals so that patients can chose the procedure and get estimates on the cost of care and facilities from different providers and make decisions based on that information.

Founded in 2015, HealthKhoj was started by Ratnesh, Ashish, and Prabhash Thakur. The three have been friends since their time at Sainik School in Rewa. Before starting HealthKhoj, Ratnesh, an IIM Lucknow alumnus,had worked for Wipro Technologies and headed marketing for CustomerXPs Software. Ashish,an IIT Kharagpur alumnus,had worked at Cisco Systems and as a Senior Analyst for AIG, and Prabhash, an IIT-B and XLRI alumnus, had work experience at TCS, Genpact, TPI, and IBM.

“As we understood the healthcare system more and more, the condition discovery and informed choices regarding surgeries and in-patient procedures, emerged as one area where people need a lot of help,” says Ratnesh.

(L-R) Prabhash, Ratneesh, Ashish

Figuring the procedure

During their research, they found that seven out of 10 patients go to the wrong type of healthcare provider in their first visit. The healthcare system in India is under severe pressure. Availability of only 0.6 doctors per 100 people, and 0.9 hospital beds per 1000 people tell the story.

“Over 70 percent of the time, they go to the wrong healthcare provider, thus elongating the care cycle, misdiagnosis, increased out of pocket expenditure, anxiety to the family, and loss of productive time,” adds Ratnesh.

These,he says,are major contributors to Years of Life lost (YLL) and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) in India. These conditions include cancer care, diabetes care, respiratory illnesses care, mental health care, and cardiac care.

When a person comes to the platform or the app, you need to input the symptoms on a symptom checker, an algorithm-driven tool. The symptom go as inputs and after three to four steps, it lists out the various possibilities. From there, you can see what kind of doctors you should meet. Another way is to go to the section of the website or app which deals in a particular condition, showing signs and symptoms, types of that disease, prevention, and management.

The third way is to directly select the kind of procedure one is looking for and fill out a simple form, from where they handhold the patient.

Building a differentiator

While the number of players in the discovery, consultation, and online pharmacy space has increased, the number of investments and deals made in the space has also increased. Last year, there were 57 deals across a funding of $277 million in the space.In the beginning of this year, online pharmacy startup 1mg raised its Series B round of funding.

Apart from the funding and deals, the space is replete with players like Practo, Lybrate,Portea, Doctor’s Circle, and 1mg. All these platforms offer comprehensive focus on the segment.

HealthKhoj claims to be different as they state that they provide a guided journey to the patients. This is achieved through three steps that understands their health through a symptom checkerand directs the patient to the right kind of doctor.

If the doctor recommends any surgical procedure, the startuphelps the patients with making the right choice of hospital, understanding of costs, duration, and complications involved.

Ratnesh adds that there is also a very strong suite of content and tools which will help patients be more aware of the disease, thus helping in prevention and management of the disease.

The team has partnered with hospitals to bring in a clear view of the surgeries and their costs. “We have been witnessing a lot of stickiness on the website with as much as 40 percent return visitors,” says Ratnesh

On the Google playstore, the app is in the top 20 when you search for ‘symptom checker’ or ‘health checker’ and has close to 1000 downloads as of now. The team did not share their revenue and number of partner connections.

The startup is bootstrapped, but is in talks with investors for funding. The team soon intends to add different Indian languages on the platform and further develop the platform.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/06/healthkhoj/

Two former students of Cambridge create ‘Tram Tales’ to remind Kolkata of its heritage

Sometimes, all it takes is a simple idea. A re-connect. A reminder. That’s what two former students of Cambridge School of Art decided to do. Hailing from the City of Joy, Kolkata, Aditya Sengupta and Kheya Chattopadhyay realised that the way to re-connect the youth to its cultural roots, is to remind it of its heritage.

Kolkata has always been revered for its trams- a rail vehicle which runs on tracks made along the urban roads of the city, powered by overhead cables. With economic growth and marginalised incomes, the shift to swanky cars, motorbikes and AC buses have become a near-necessity for its several thousand residents.

The urban youth of today do not recognize its heritage in the form of the Kolkata tram, the oldest operating tram network in India, operating since 1902. They don’t realize the joys of watching the roads clear as it passes by, the sleepy faces across the benches and the carefully folded bundles of five- rupee notes tucked between the fingers of the conductor. They miss out on the good-humoured debates on Congress vs. Modi and East Bengal vs. Mohan Bagan.

But that was about to change. Sengupta and Chattopadhyay drew together a team to set up an event that would become a major hit among Kolkata’s social circles- ‘Tram Tales’.

“It just struck us how the backdrop of Kolkata has changed completely....because trams had always been so important while I was growing up. So Aditya and I met with people from CTC, and then the drivers at Tollygunj Tram Depot. They were so excited and sad at the same time that we were doing this. There are no tram stops and hence people seldom board trams these days according to them. People who drive, abuse and hate the tram drivers because the vehicle speed is so slow. No one has time for anything slow these days according to them,” says Kheya Chattopadhyay, Co-Creator and Executor of ‘Tram Tales’.

‘Tram Tales’ is part of a project called ‘The Future of the Past’, which is a pioneering project that creates space for various art forms to collide and interact, so as to give rise to a new form of creative process. The project is presented by Team Future and Yes Foundation, in association with The Telegraph and INTACH.

Tram Tales is a two-day, site-specific mixed media art installation, which is carried out in the style of an exhibition-cum-festival. Held inside the temporarily-closed down Gariahat Tram Depot, there were about seven major unit trams, each sporting a different activity.

The first was the ‘Drama Tram’, where all performances took place inside the tram. About two to three performers from each youth theatre group put up a show, with the audience being seated inside as well.

The second was the ‘Graffiti Tram’, which was kept right next to the entrance and artists were allowed to spray paint all over it.

Next in line were ‘The Filmy Trams’, which were about five in number. Here, films were shown inside the tram, and since the subject was ‘tram’, all the short-films and documentaries were based on this theme. Footages of international trams like those in Norway, Russia, Sydney and London were also showcased.

Then there were ‘The Installation Trams’ which offered a variety of different activities. Some contained chess-boards for people to play, some were turned into a disco for them to dance.

‘The Music Trams’- The backside of the depot was turned into a kind of stage, where different bands would perform. This area was done up with CDs and cassette reels.

The central portion of the depot was kept for a photography exhibition, which again had its theme as ‘tram’. So these contained beautiful photographs featuring trams, taken by amateurs and professionals alike.

And finally, there were ‘The Adda Trams’, where popular food-joints like ‘Mrs. Magpie’ and ‘Tea-Trove’ put up their stalls, inside a tram. Benches and stools were kept outside for people to relax, mingle, eat and watch the performances.

The first day witnessed a footfall of about a thousand. The second was even more, at about twelve hundred. Tickets were priced at fifty rupees and were available at the depot, itself.

“After executing Tram Tales, we were asked why we don’t do something with the history of trams, some presentations and lectures. The thing is we wanted trams to not only be a form of nostalgia but to appeal to the younger generation. The only way we could do that was by giving life to the otherwise abandoned tram depot through various forms of art,” says Chattopadhyay.

In a City that is bustling to the beam and has dug its claws into tradition and a nostalgic reverie regarding the ‘glory of the past’, this cultural revolution- a modern day heritage Renaissance if you will- speaks volumes for the thousands of Calcuttans opening their minds and arms to a concept that is equal parts modern and equal parts old school. So in the spirit of a massive throwback, we remember what makes the heritage of our City, as it rambles past us.

Cleanse Solutions creates a bike wash machine that saves half a million litres of water per service centre

When Arnav Shah and Siddharth Jain were students at the Michigan State University in the US, they would get their cars washed frequently. However, they noticed that the techniques employed in the US differed vastly from the way cars were washed in India. There were no car wash employees roughing up your ride, subjecting it to what seems like methods of medieval torture in order to get it to squeak and shine. “There was no concept of manual car washing there, unlike in India. Upon returning, we were both keen on doing something in this space, and giving it a state-of-the-art facelift,” says Arnav.

Manoj Geesala (L) and Naresh Talla (R)

Numbers do the talking

Once back in India, Arnav was in line to take over the reins to the family business Kooverji Devshi & Co. which manufactured and supplied fire-trucks to the government. Still harbouring the dreams to startup, he headed to Austria to work with Rosenbauer- the world’s best in the field. He returned to the family firm, but didn’t enjoy his stint. Meanwhile, Siddharth was working for his family business in international markets, but he was keen to come home.

“He returned, and I was looking to branch out as well, so we both zeroed in on our original plan of car washes.” Research showed that India had a thriving two-wheeler market, with 130 million bikes playing on the road. Last year, 16 million bikes were sold. Every bike is washed on an average of six times a year, making it 96 million washes, amounting roughly, to a Rs. 15 Billion market opportunity.

“We started visiting all kinds of service centres – and learnt that they use 50-100 litres of water per bike, which was a criminal waste. There were three or four in charge of the completely manual process. To wash the mud in the area below, they would either flip the bike over and harm it, or buy a hydraulic lifting machine, which was expensive and had limited utility.

Arnav Shah, Co-Founder, Cleanse Solutions

A small centre would wash close to 30 bikes a day, and charged a customer anywhere between Rs. 50 and 200. Very often, bigger companies would outsource their work to them. During the course of their research, they met Naresh Talla and Manoj Geesala, who were who were working on a prototype of an Israeli automated bike wash machine. “But, due to the heavy cost associated, no after-sales service, rusting, and inadequate pressure for Indian bikes, it was not suitable for the Indian market,” says Arnav. Naresh and Manoj decided to come on-board as partners.

The four unite

The four put their heads together to come up with a solution. “After months of R & D, we developed our own prototype, which was meant for Indian conditions with a focus on being eco-friendly.” Cleanse Solutions opened for business in January 2015.

“We added bottom nozzles and modals, and fit in a water recycling mechanism to reuse all that water. We recycle 95 percent of the water used and save half a million litres of water per service centre. We now wash a bike with only seven litres of water, as opposed to the previous 50-100. Our machine cleans the bike completely in three minutes, and requires only one person to push the button and then supervise. We have also installed a water purification mechanism within it. If you go to North India, the quality of water you get has a higher a Ph level. Our in-built mechanism brings the Ph level down to 8, and makes it soft water, which doesn’t harm the bike’s body,” says Arnav. With their innovation, a company owning their machine would break even within a year and a half.

Evolving designs and business models

While their initial strategy was to approach both authorised and unauthorised service centres with their technology, in June, they began considering a B2C approach, and placed an installation at Hyderabad’s Manjira Mall, to gauge customer reactions to their services. Various Harley and Triumph owners starting bringing their bikes once a month, to use the bike wash, owing to its speed and superior quality, and quite happy to pay the slight premium involved.

With this validation of their B2C idea, they decided to explore the franchise model next, and Siddharth’s expertise in this area gave them more confidence. Their business evolved to become 60 per cent B2C with four outlets in Hyberabad – one at Manjira Mall, another at HPCL, and two more at IOCL petrol pumps; and 15 other franchises sold to a master franchise in Gujarat - who has committed to purchase 180 Machines over the course of the year. “We give him location support and we have tied up with IOCL, HPCL and BPCL. We identify all the petrol pumps that get an average of 4,000-5,000 bikes per day. Even if they send us 1 per cent of those – we will break even for the franchises cost.”

While the B2C Machine costs Rs. 8 lakh, the ones they sell to service centres cost less as they do not have to be aesthetically appealing. “We even customise the machines for different service centres depending on the space available. We have a new machine that can be completely dismantled and reassembled after being transported to the interior of the shop.” They now have machines coming up at a Yamaha showroom, a Hero Showroom in Hyderabad, and a Honda showroom in the North East, and a service network at Telangana, Andhra Pradesh Maharasthra, Gujarat and Delhi for 24-hour support in the rare case of malfunction and breakdowns.

But, a milestone in its own right is the deal they cracked with Bajaj. They are now developing a machine specifically for Bajaj models – altering the nozzles so that water doesn’t enter their electronic components, and making some pressure regulations as well. “This deal will make us the only company to be vendor-listed by an automobile giant, which is a huge deal.”

What else is cooking?

Last year, they had clocked revenues of Rs.76 lakh, and now, they’re clocking Rs. 76 lakh a month. They recently closed their first formal round of funding through Intellecap, raising an undisclosed amount led by Satveer Singh from the Singapore Angel Network, which has a lot of support in Indonesia, and is helping them build a unit there to meet the demand in that market; Calcutta’s Pansari group, HDFC CIOs; and Nimisha Madhwani, the ambassador to Uganda, who will also help them expand in the African country. “They play bike polo after which the participating bikes could certainly use a thorough wash.” This month, they will be moving into a factory that can produce 40 machines a month, in one shift.

They are also in the process of patenting their first-of-its-kind machine right now, with an L-shape conveyor that goes 270˚ around the bike, which means that with an increase in efficiency, water usage comes down. “We have installed one at a Royal Enfield service centre in Hyderabad that washes 60 motorbikes per day using only 7 litres per wash as compared to 60 litres. when done manually. We will be installing another one at a Yamaha service centre in Hyderabad by the end of May,” says Arnav. It will be priced lower as well at Rs. 5 or 6 lakh.

There are other players in the market such as Express Bike Works, a company that carries out bike washes in 2 - 7 minutes, with about 10 stores in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

Cleanse’s long-term plan is to become a one-stop shop for cleaning solutions. Expect new technology right from a remote-controlled duct cleanse with tentacles and a video camera, to a solar cleanse coming off their assembly line soon.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/05/cleanse-solutions/

Agriculture has seen little reform in 25 years but there are crorepati farmers who have come up the hard way

It is the 25th anniversary of the initiation of big bang economic reforms and if people were asked to list the vibrant sectors, agriculture would not be one of them. It is an area that has seen little liberalisation, though in the July 1991 ‘reform’ budget, Manmohan Singh as finance minister allowed the prices of potassic and phosphatic fertilizers to float and raised urea prices by 40 percent, only to roll it back by 30 percent following an outcry. Reforms however improved the terms of trade which were adverse to agriculture, by reducing import duties (and prices) of manufactured goods. Devaluation of the rupee made agricultural exports profitable. Farmers could get international prices for their produce, so long as jittery governments did not impose curbs to tame domestic inflation.

But farming is associated with gloom and doom. It is painted as a hopeless activity that drives farmers to suicide. Yet as a category, more housewives kill themselves than farmers, according to data on the website of the National Crime Records Bureau.

Of course there is distress in the countryside, caused by weather and price risks, poor access to markets, and the non-availability of working capital at affordable rates. Cultivating small parcels, which a majority of farmers do, is not profitable, unless it is high- value agriculture done in climate controlled poly-houses. National surveys show more farmers want to leave agriculture than remain engaged and they certainly do not wish the vocation on their sons.

But travelling extensively through the countryside over the past eighteen months to report on ‘smart agriculture,’ I have come across pockets of vibrancy. Ismailbhai Rahimbhai Sheru, 63, advices graduate sons of farmers not to hanker after government jobs. Based on experience, he says, a guy with five acres of farmland can earn Rs 5 lakh a year, or Rs 40,000 a month. A resident of Rampur Vadla village in Banaskantha’s Amirgarh taluka, Sheru made headlines when Narendra Modi as prime ministerial aspirant, felicitated him at a public event in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He had grown potatoes each weighing more than two kg. Sheru was growing them on contract to McCain, a supplier of French fries and potato patties to McDonalds.

Ismailbhai Rahimbhai Sheru

Sheru started off 36 years ago, despite the wishes of this father, who wanted his son with a first class B.Com degree to take up a salaried job. But through dint of hard work and scientific farming, Sheru made enough cash flows to turn an inheritance of debt and six acres of indifferent land into thriving agriculture spread over 400 acres.

Sheru likes contract farming because it takes care of the price risk. In January 2015, when there was a potato glut in the country and prices slumped to less than Rs 2 a kg, he got the contracted Rs 8 a kg. There are years when he gets less than spot rates but over time this evens out.

Parthibhai Jethabhai Chaudhary, 58, a police officer who doubles up as a farmer credits McCain with teaching growers the art of potato cultivation. Before the company came, flood irrigation used to be the norm, says the resident of Dangiya village in Banaskantha’s Dantiwada taluk. The amount of water used in a potato field would stack up to 750 mm by end of the season, a field-level McCain executive said. Farmers have now switched to drip or sprinkler irrigation, which not only saves water but also fertilizer and pesticides (as insects do not thrive in low humidity). Chaudhary, who has a reputation for extracting large yields from his 87-acre farm, says the trick is to be in sync with nature and the rhythm of the crop. He plants between 1 and 10 October so that the crop can make the most of the ‘bulking’ period starting 20 December, when weather ensures that potatoes add around 1,200 kg per hectare per day.

Parthibhai Jethabhai Chaudhary

Chaudhary learnt scientific cultivation through McCain, but currently supplies to Balaji Wafers which gives him a better price. He takes leave from work during sowing and harvesting. The rest of the time, he leaves the farm to his manager and 16 worker-families. Every operation, from fertilizer application to the quantity and duration of irrigation, is mapped. Workers have been trained to stick to the process. They get a bonus for targets achieved.

Chaudhary keeps potatoes in cold storage and sells them when prices are high. When met last year, Chaudhary said he had sold potatoes worth more than Rs 3 cr the previous year and had made a handsome profit.

Laxman Chaudhari

In Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district I met Tenu Dongar Borole, 62, and Laxman Onkar Chaudhari, 64, both of them crorepati banana growers. One was a tea seller at the village square and used to be condescendingly called ‘Tenya.’ He is now Tenu Seth. The other was a thwarted primary school teacher. They lease in more land than they own. They owe their prosperity to the Grand Naine variety, which Jain Irrigation imported from Israel in the 1990s. The company sells tissue cultured saplings which are disease-free and grow uniformly. Unlike local varieties, Grand Naine yields fruit every year and requires re-planting after three years. Two stump (or ratoon) crops yield fruit in between. Jain Irrigation also supplies drip irrigation equipment which not only saves water but also fertilizer, which is applied in a soluble form (called fertigation). The company’s agronomists teach farmers how to maintain the required humidity within the gardens in dry Jalgaon and get the plants to cope with heat stress. As a result, Jalgaon has become a big producer of bananas. If it were a state it would rank fifth in the country in banana production.

Tenu Dongar Borole

The point I wish to make is that agriculture can be profitable if scientific principles are applied and technology is deployed. Contract farming takes care of the price risk. If farmers band together they can engage agronomists, obtain discounts on inputs and have buyback arrangements with food processors or large retailers, who in turn can tell them what to grow and how to grow it. Sadly our governments treat farmers as supplicants to be placated with subsidies. Our policies must strive to make agriculture profitable to enterprising farmers while creating off-farm jobs for those who do not have a stomach for it.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/07/india-agriculture-reform-crorepati-farmers/

Capture the Galaxy with this pocket sized camera

A fantastic education system combined with tremendous support for startups makes Singapore one of the best startup destinations globally. The result of this enviable combination is TinyMOS, which is a hardware and IoT startup. TinyMOS is set to launch their first product Tiny1 later this week, which is a pocket sized camera made for astrophotography and the stargazers. It’s like GoPro for capturing the galaxy.

The team behind it

For every startup, it’s their team that can make or break it. TinyMOS’s website describes their team the best “A passionate photographer, a frustrated engineer and an electronics geek”. Grey Tan, Ashprit Singh Arora, and Lih Wei, Co-founders of TinyMOS, met at the National University of Singapore. Three of them got together in 2014 to create a smarter and more economical way for astrophotography. Grey came up with this idea when he realised even his Nikon DSLR was not serving him well when he tried to capture the Milky Way on a trip to Malaysia, as astrophotography knowledge was obscure even for a seasoned photographer. He realised that there might be thousands of astronomy enthusiasts around the world who would be facing the same issue. He combined forces with Ashprit and Lih. Ashprit is a NUS graduate who spent time building and prototyping things at Sustainable Living Lab in Singapore. Lih was a star with both hardware and software, building satellite systems in NUS and proving his skills in Silicon Valley.

It wasn't a smooth road

Apart from the multiple iterations and rejections from investors, the team faced their biggest challenge last year. Hours before their flight to TechCrunch Disrupt, their manufacturing and development team informed them that one of the key features of the camera could not be delivered in time. The team regrouped and started work from almost scratch and decided to delay their product launch by six months. Hard work finally paid off as they were able to figure out a more economical technology, which meant a lower price point for their customers.

What makes their camera special

But what really makes their camera special is the Augmented Reality Star Map, which helps you search for and locate stars and planets, and Capture Presets, which automatically selects the right settings for capturing night images. This has been combined with social features to check out and share what images other users are capturing. Founded in 2014, Singapore-based TinyMOS has got great responses from their early testers and are gearing up for a crowdfunding campaign. They are looking to launch successfully on Indiegogo and become a successful hardware startup. In the long run, the team believes they could be like GoPro, which also started with a niche group of surfers and has become a multi-billion dollar company today.

It’s interesting to see that despite having some investor money, the team has chosen crowdfunding as they believe this brings them closer to their consumers and creates a community which is essential for their success. TinyMOS has been backed by a grant of $1,80,000 by Singapore Government and also raised seed investment $150,000 from a group of angel investors.

Team TinyMOS at Indiegogo

It is encouraging to see a team of fresh graduates doing the groundwork for two years to launch their dream astronomy camera. Currently available bulky and expensive equipment ensures that astrophotography is a niche, but TinyMOS is out to change that perspective.

Since we last spoke with the TinyMOS team, they have launched an Indiegogo campaign for their first product Tiny1, and smashed through their 100k USD target in 4 hours. You can check out their campaign at - get.tinymos.com.

Reference: http://yourstory.com/2016/06/tinymos/

Ninjacart enables farmers sell their produce directly to shops, and is reaping Rs 4 cr revenue every month

The bustle of a vegetable market with its farm-fresh veggies and fruits have been romanticised in books, cookery shows, and travel guides. So much so that the image created makes you want to experience the energy of the ‘sabzi mandi’ (vegetable market). However, for Sharath Loganathan, IIM-Kozhikode alumnus and co-founder of Ninjacart, a visit to the market was an eye-opener to the darker side of the much romanticised experience. He was appalled at the amount of vegetables and fruits that were being dumped as waste. Recalling that experience Sharath said-

“When we went to the market, we discovered that the market was in total chaos. A lot of vegetables were lying as waste, and people trampled over them.”

Team Ninjacart

It is hard to put a figure to how much food is lost and wasted in India today due to lack of adequate infrastructure; however, a 2011 report by a UN body, FAO, puts wastage of fruits and vegetables as high as 45 percent of produce (post-harvest to distribution) for developing Asian countries like India. In India, where over 58 percent of the rural households depend on agriculture as their principal means of livelihood, such wastage proves to be expensive.

Thirukumaran Nagaranjan, also an IIM-Kozhikode alumnus and co-founder of Ninjacart, who was accompanying Sharath, realised another glaring flaw in the system. He told us-

“Inefficiencies could be seen in almost every aspect. There were a lot of middlemen involved, there was no price transparency whatsoever. The produce of the farmers exchanged a lot of hands before reaching the eventual consumer, which resulted in farmers hardly making any money in this whole scenario. We felt this is a market which has huge potential, has tremendous scope of development and is literally untapped. We almost instantly realised there is a lot of value addition that can be done in this space by bringing technological and operational efficiencies.”

And thus was born Ninjacart, an online platform through which retailers and merchants can source fruits and vegetables directly from the farmers. Ninjacart has successfully done away with middlemen, commission agents and auction agents present in “mandis”. This startup also provides an efficient price discovery platform to the farmers. Since Ninjacart ensures that the produce reaches their clients effectively via an efficient and technologically driven supply chain, they have struck a win-win situation. Kartheeswaran KK, an IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus and one of the six co-founders of Ninjacart, explains-

“Technology is involved at every single step in Ninjacart. All the operations at Ninjacart are carried out and monitored using technology. All the information of planning, sales, and warehouse operations is stored in the system. We have an in-house Enterprise Resource Planning and Management System. Every item and and activity is tracked almost in real time. For managing all these platforms we have a web-interface and various mobile applications.”

Pickup Process at Ninjacart

Though Ninjacart started its operation in May 2015 as a hyper-local grocery delivery company, after six months of operation, the co-founders including Ashutosh Vikram, IIM-Kozhikode alumnus, Sachin P Jose, with over three years of experience in UI/UX and Vasudevan Chinnathambi, SOIL alumnus, Sharath, Thirukumaran and Kartheeswaran, felt that the backend supply chain of fruits and vegetables was broken and inefficient. So, by December 2015, the company pivoted the model to become a full-fledged Business To Business (B2B) marketplace, changing the way kirana stores and supermarkets source their supply. Ashutosh says,

“As of June 2016, we had a customer base of over 400 retail stores and restaurants in Bangalore. Our average monthly tonnage is about 1.4k tons and monthly revenue of around Rs 4 crore.”

Bangalore-based Farmily, co-founded by Karthik Natarajan; Farm Taaza, founded by Silicon Valley veterans; and Gurgaon- based fresh2all, founded by Purnima Rao, are some other players in the B2B fresh produce supply chain. According to Vasudevan, Ninjacart is the only player in this space that delivers quality goods in a span as short as eight hours.

Ninjacart, which is funded by Accel Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, M&S Partners (Singapore) and Zop Smart, has two distribution centres – one near Hoskote and another in Jigani. The startup has many collection centres across villages surrounding Bangalore. Ninjacart currently serves Whitefield, Marathalli, Bellandur, Indiranagar, HAL, HSR, Koramangala, BTM, Madiwala, and Bannerghatta road, all in Bangalore.

Ninjacart with farmers

Every stakeholder who is a part of the Ninjacart ecosystem benefits.

The farmers (suppliers) are able to sell their produce at a better price than the market without being exploited by the middleman through a one point sale. The farmers receive their payment immediately via a bank transfer. The farmers are also spared from dealing with the uncertainties of price, associated with selling in markets. Ninjacart procures all the produce through a fair grading procedure. Ninjacart sends their vehicles along with crates to farmer locations to bring goods to their collection centers, free of cost.

Shopkeepers and restaurants (customers) get fresh and good quality vegetables and fruits at their doorstep at competitive prices without having to visit the market very early in the morning.

Ninjacart also holds seminars to educate farmers on the working of the market and fair pricing. Sachin explained to us how “Rythu abhivrudhi karyakrama” (Farmer Development Programme) works-

“We educate the farmers about the exact market prices and how we bring transparency in the whole process. We also discuss good varieties of seeds and suggest best practices that a few farmers follow to get good yield.”

Ninjacart Farmer Training Programme

When one is determined to disrupt a market and bring efficiencies, others firmly established in the system become uncomfortable. In the case of Ninjacart, it is the age-old marketmandi commission agents and local transport middlemen who regularly attempt at disturbing operations. The team frequently receives threatening phone calls to stop operations. But, thanks to Ninjacart’s dedicated field team and farmers, this startup is rapidly spreading its roots. In the coming months, Ninjacart plans to expand their distribution throughout Bangalore and expand to Chennai and Hyderabad.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/06/ninjacart/

Final-year DU students develop machine that allows residents to drop waste and pick up rewards

One day, on their way to the metro station, Ashutosh Srivastava and Pranav Manocha, students of Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences (Delhi University), stumbled upon an important facet of human nature. They had been wanting to put their engineering skills to good use, when they realised people are usually goaded to do something when they are aptly rewarded.

They then noticed a bunch of vending machines, and Ashutosh (22) wondered how a machine can be made to collect waste automatically. Pranav (22) quipped that creating a machine would not be difficult, but only by rewarding people would it get used at all.

We-Convert Team

So, last August, the duo launched their venture We-Convert and introduced a machine called E-Collector. The idea was to accept the user’s waste material and in return generate some rewards by giving offers on waste materials. The price of each E-collector is Rs 1,90,000.

New Delhi-based We-Convert allows users to discharge PET/plastic, glass scrap or aluminum cans by following instructions on the machines. Then the machine will generate a five-digit code that can be redeemed by dialing a simple USSD number. And users can share their mobile number details with We-Convert and get their rewards.

The duo tied up with ‘favcy’, a third-party organisation and a standard of social connectivity coin creation for individuals, and for brands to simplify the reward system of E-Collector.

We conducted a case study at 30 locations in Delhi where we plan to place the first set of 30 machines. Our next machine placement is within the DMRC premises for which we’ve been granted the permission at eight different metro stations,” says Ashutosh.

Novices at waste management

With no knowledge of the waste management domain, the duo was unfamiliar about the capital required and the operation involved to build this product. Workplace was also another issue and therefore they developed the model at Delhi Technical University campus.

The challenge was to arrange a minimum fund of Rs 20,000 to develop a proof of concept. So they started attending multiple business plans and events in colleges of Delhi Universityand won 12 B-Plan events with a total prize money of Rs 36,000. In total, they invested nearly Rs 1.2 lakh. After four months of operation, the roped in four more technical people to develop a proof of concept.

Even after getting the right team, the technical aspects were a challenge for us. Interactions with many government agencies were not generating positive results,” adds Pranav.

The testing of the detecting unit and the electronic parts was completed within a month and the machine got ready in March this year.

E-Collector

Monetisation phase

We-Convert sells the PET scrap at Rs 35/kg and the aluminium scrap at Rs 95/kg to the recycling industries, including The Guardian, Parth Das Sharma’s recycling portal, The Kabaddiwala.com, Synergy Sourcing, Rajasthan and HK industries. In total, it collects 20kg of PET scrap and 5kg of aluminium scrap per day.

The E-Collector machine acts as a platform of advertising for different brands and its 15-inch digital display aids digital advertising as well. Going forward, the other source of revenue would be through brand promotion, which is likely to generate 7-10 percent. By fiscal year 2017-18, the startup is eyeing a revenue of Rs 67 lakh and is also looking to raise funds soon.

Future ahead

We-Convert has a team of seven members and has a base of 1,400 users from four different locations in Delhi. It is currently working on a project to develop 100 machines for Indian Super league, which will be placed at eight different States in eight different stadiums. In the next three years, they are planning to expand to Mumbai, Pune, Kochi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu.

Waste management market

According to business research organisation NOVONOUS, the waste management market is expected to be worth $13.62 billion by 2025. Indian municipal solid waste (MSW) management market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.14 percent by 2025, while e-waste management market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.03 percent during the same period.

A handful of startups seemed to have sensed the market opportunity. The players include The Kabadiwala, Scrapos, ekabadi, Kachrapatti, Kachre Ka Dabba and POM POM. With the proliferation of waste management startups in India, the domestic industry is estimated to grow over $1 billion by 2020.

Investors are also betting high on the growth of this industry. Bengaluru-based Saahas Waste Management raised an undisclosed amount from Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Upaya Social Ventures. Delhi-based Karma Recycling has received fund from Infuse Ventures and Low Carbon Enterprise Fund.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/07/we-convert/

This Doctor Invented a Rs. 50 Device To Give Throat Cancer Patients Their Voice Again

Dr. Vishal Rao, a Bangalore based oncologist, has developed a voice prosthesis that can help throat cancer patients speak after surgery. And unlike the extremely expensive ones available in the market today, this device will cost just Rs. 50.

It had been over two months since a throat cancer patient from Kolkata had eaten properly. He was depressed, unable to speak or swallow, and was being fed with the help of a pipe through his nose. His financial condition made it very difficult for him to afford proper medical treatment. It was then that a doctor informed him about a surgeon in Bangalore who could be of help. So he travelled, met the surgeon and sought his treatment. After a procedure that lasted only five minutes, he was able to speak properly, swallow his food, and was even ready to travel back home – all thanks to Dr. Vishal Rao U.S.

“That day, when I came out from another surgery after about three hours, the Kolkata patient was still standing there, waiting for me. He was so emotionally overwhelmed that he just ran towards me and hugged me saying that he had never imagined getting his voice back would be so easy,” says the 37-year-old doctor.

Dr. Rao is an oncologist and head and neck surgeon at the Bangalore-based HealthCare Global (HCG) Cancer Center. He has developed the Aum Voice Prosthesis – a voice prosthesis device that can help patients whose voice box has been removed, to speak and eat properly.

Unlike the currently available prostheses that cost anywhere between Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 30,000, and have to be replaced every six months, Dr. Rao’s prosthesis will cost just Rs. 50.

Dr. Vishal Rao

Voice prosthesis is a device made of silicone. It is used to help patients speak when the entire voice box, or larynx, has been removed. In such cases, the windpipe and food pipe are separated from each other, either at the time of the surgery or later, creating an opening between the two. The device is then placed in this opening. Dr. Rao explains that the voice box basically vibrates with the help of air provided from the lungs. The mechanism behind the prosthesis is that instead of the vocal cord vibrating, the food pipe is made to vibrate with the back end of the prosthesis sitting at the food pipe.

“If you send air into the food pipe through the lungs, it will vibrate, create noise, and that can be converted into intelligent speech with coordination from the brain. As food or water should not fall into the lungs, it is a one-way valve device,” he elaborates. The device weighs 25 grams and is 2.5 cm long.

The foundation for Aum Voice Prosthesis was laid about two years ago, when a throat cancer patient from a remote Karnataka village came in to meet Dr. Rao.

The prosthesis – Front View

“That man had not eaten since about a month and he could not speak. After the cancer surgery, his voice box had been removed, but he could not afford the prosthesis. When he came to me, he did not find life worth living anymore,” remembers Dr. Rao, who promised the patient that he would try and help.

Till then, every time he had encountered a case like this, Dr. Vishal had to contact some pharmaceutical companies, ask for discounts, raise funds, and arrange donations – but he had been able to help patients in spite of all this trouble. So raising funds was his first thought this time as well. But then, something amazing happened. “I would call it serendipity that right after the patient a friend walked in to meet me,” he says. This friend, Shashank Mahes, promised that he would try and arrange the required funds but he also asked the doctor a simple question:

“Why are you dependent on all these people. Why don’t you make something on your own?”

Dr. Rao felt that something like this was beyond his capacity. He was familiar with the technical side but didn’t have the industrial expertise to turn his idea into a viable product. Fortunately, Shashank was willing to help him with that. They decided to collaborate for this cause – Dr. Rao got the entire technical plan ready and Shashank helped him convert it into reality using his expertise as an industrialist. They put in the required funds from their own pockets and developed the device.

“I never want to donate torn old clothes to the poor because they deserve more dignified donations. That’s why I didn’t want to create a medical product of cheaper quality only because my patients are poor. Don’t they deserve the best? So we brought in the best materials,” says Dr. Rao.

The duo has filed for a patent for the device; it will be available in the market by next month. They have also received approvals from scientific and ethical committees at HCG to start using the product on patients. Testing will begin on 30 patients initially.

Most voice prostheses are very costly because they are imported. Dr. Rao and his friend took two years to come up with the final product. But in order to keep it affordable, they decided not to charge for their time and effort.

“We believe that speech and communication are not a privilege but a right. We cannot hold them back from a patient only because he/she is poor,” he says.

Dr. Rao has used the device on three patients so far. His aim is to study and fine tune it further, in the hope that its use will soon become widespread in every cancer centre in the country.

Side view

“My first patient was a watchman from Peenya. Two years ago, we arranged for his prosthesis with the help of donations. While the shelf life of the device is only six months, he used it for two years because he could not afford a replacement. Eventually, the device led to many complications. When he came in, I felt that he deserved the Aum Voice Prosthesis. And after the procedure, he happily called me in the middle of the night from his duty to tell me that the device is working well. That call gave me immense satisfaction,” says the doctor, with pride.

Why is the device called ‘Aum’?

“In older scriptures, ‘Om’ was written as ‘Aum.’ ‘A’ stands for creation, ‘U’ for sustenance and ‘M’ for annihilation. These are the three basic principles of our universe. When a person speaks again after losing his voice box, for me it is more like rebirth, like Aum being recreated, because it is the origin of all sound,” concludes Dr. Rao.

Reference: http://www.thebetterindia.com/41251/dr-vishal-rao-affordable-voice-prosthesis/

Meet the 14-year-old coder who has coded 22 apps, right from healthtech to women empowerment

Contrary to what you may think, a genius isn’t always the product of the availability of world-class education, state-of-the-art equipment and rigorous training – more often than not, he or she may be born out of circumstances that exhibit a dearth and banality, and pose an opportunity to build and overcome. That is the story of Naman Tiwari, the 14-year-old self-learned app developer from the small UP city of Shahjahanpur, who has coded 22 apps of a mind-boggling range.

“I started learning about development technology about three years ago. No one knows about Android development here, so I work alone and find it a bit difficult.”Naman doesn’t have access to any fancy devices, in fact, here’s some trivia on the young whiz kid‑ he does not even own a mobile phone!“I just have a laptop and internet.I haven’t joined any tuitions or classes. I have coined a saying, ‘Don’t ask for more until you make the best use of the things you have.’”

Backward is ‘code’ for unrealised

A student of Takshashila Public School, Naman started coding when he was in the 7thstandard, aged 11. “I picked it as a hobby because I thought it is the only way through which I can solve real world problems without a multi-billion dollar startup. I made many entertainment apps, but after seeing the problems in the medical industry in our country, I shifted from entertainment to social awareness apps.”

Besides the internet, his uncle mentors him through his journey of self-exploration. Patiently and relentlessly, he kept at it ‑ creating apps that were entertaining and useful all the same – and that range is mind-boggling. Straight from his brewery are apps like the AiO Converter that converts units in seconds with a few clicks, or the app that helps one swiftly calculate tips at a hotel. One is a trivia app loaded with fun facts, and another’s a tool that helps measure the frequency of your voice in decibels. There’s one to help children with their cognition of colours or even learn state capitals in the United States. Or, how about the one that provides sample interview questions to aspiring developers to make them job ready?

He even whipped up some educational apps, like “HTML Cool Learn” that helps developers learn HTML language with examples of webpages, or the one that helps kids learn all about the solar system. Another one of his concoctions helps Spanish connoisseurs learn the language, or Audiophiles learn any song by looping or selecting any part of it, and one that helps toddlers learn alphabets. Another app facilitates education, by helping school children organise the notes they make on their subjects.

The little genius also combined his imagination with his skill to code some games, like Man Pong Fight, Maths Quiz, Tic Tac Toe (Classic), Vector War – or Shahrukh Man Pro, a guilty pleasure for SRK fans.

This number amounts to a whopping 22. The ones that were more than seven-day wonders. But he has favourites, the ones that gave him a much more triumphant sense of eureka, are the two apps that are achieving the purpose that he got into app development for in the first place – Malaria Defender and Secure Girls.

His most complex and popular application Malaria Defender is an app that helps detect malaria in seconds, and Secure Girls is an app for women’s safety. On average, he takes about three to four days to code an app, but “Malaria Defender” warranted a month’s research and development.

“My most successful app is malaria defender, as it is solving a real world problem.It takes just few seconds to check the symptoms of malaria in a person and gives them a prescribed health report. It is ane-solution for those who cannot afford the doctor’s fees – and I designed it in a way that it can even work offline.” A user can also get a doctor’s advice through the app. Malaria Defender got selected in the Facebook Start Bootstrap Programmme, and Naman was awarded Rs33,000 in Facebook ad credit.

Secure Girls provides important helpline information, a panic button which can be used to send an emergency message, and is otherwise loaded with the latest news and motivational quotes and sayings.

(Na)Man with a Plan

He has never worked for a client professionally, though. “Currently, I make apps for people to entertain. I work as a public developer. I don’t want to get bounded by a personal client, I will have a lot of time to do that later. I am too young, so I work for my passion.”

All his apps are live on Google PlayStore, under his publisher name “Naman Tiwari Spn”. Overall, he has about 2,500users on all his apps collectively, “without even spending a dollar on marketing.”

Naman has found his ultimate calling even for the future, and surely enough, it is tech. “In the future, I want to create something bigger and more impactful so that people could remember me even after my death. I want to become a successful entrepreneur and want to run my own software company,” concludes Naman.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/07/naman-tiwari/