Audio
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Meet the Bengaluru English prof whose innovation is replacing single-use plastic straws
Our guests today are Saji Varghese, an associate professor of English at Christ University, co-founder of Brown Reed Agri-Waste Innovations, and Shailesh Vickram Singh, founder of Massive Mobility and Climate Angels. In this episode, Saji and Shailesh talk about innovations that could replace single-use plastic, including Saji's idea of making straws from coconut leaves. That idea is now a reality, with the brand name sunbird straws, with some top food and beverage and hospitality businesses as customers
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Prasanta Sarkar and Rochan Sinha at NewTrace on ambition to bring 'green hydrogen' to the mass market
Our guests today are Prasanta Sarkar and Rochan Sinha, co-founders of NewTrace, where they've just raised some funding to develop a new class of 'membraneless' electrolysers, largely built with locally available materials and components in India. The aim is to make a dent in the 'green hydrogen' market. In this episode, Prasanta and Rochan talk about their efforts to get to the commercialisation of their product starting next year
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Enzen's chairman Satheesh Kumar on ambition to build templates for net-zero communities
Our guest today is Satheesh Kumar, founder and chairman of Enzen Global Solutions, which provides strategic advisory, engineering services and solutions to customers in the power, water, gas, and renewable energy sectors. In this episode, Satheesh talks about Enzen's ambition for building "templates for net-zero communities." He also talks about plans for an IPO or a capital raise from private equity companies
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Divyansh Saini at Houseware on winning the Snowflake challenge and bringing data to those who need it
Our guest today is Divyansh Saini, co-founder and CEO of Houseware, whose eponymous data management product recently won the Snowflake Startup Challenge. In this episode, Divyansh talks about making data more accessible to revenue-facing teams so they can "bring intelligence from metrics into their data apps." He also talks about how India's SaaS ecosystem has evolved from the days when he first got interested in it, several years ago as an engineering student
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How Sunil Vachani built Dixon Technologies into a electronics manufacturing behemoth
You may not have heard of Dixon Technologies but it manufactures electronics including consumer electronics, home appliances, and more, for some of the largest companies in India and around the world, including Xiaomi, Panasonic, Motorola, Philips, and so on. Cover story author Naini Thaker gives you a glimpse into Vachani's and Dixon's journey, and his travails and triumphs with entrepreneurship in pre-liberalised India and post it
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Sirisha Bandla at Virgin Galactic on the potential for collaboration with Indian space tech startups
Our guest today is Sirisha Bandla, VP of government affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic, which is looking to open commercial space tourism operations early next year, offering short rides to near space, around 60 miles above the surface of the earth. In this episode, Sirisha talks about how she always wanted to be an astronaut, and now, helping to run the business end of Virgin Galactic, how she's looking at collaborations with Indian space tech startups
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Yoav Zeif, CEO at Stratasys, on advances in 3D printing and the challenges in the way of greater adoption
Our guest today is Yoav Zeif, CEO of Stratasys, a well-known US-Israel 3D-printing technologies company. In this episode, Yoav, who's currently visiting his Indian team of 10, talks about the advances in 3D-printing tech, and how lack of awareness, and businesses being locked into traditional manufacturing processes, are the challenges to be overcome for greater adoption of this technology, the demand for which has surged after the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
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Krishna Kumar at Cropin on mapping crops and land around the planet, and building an AI cloud for agri intelligence
Our guest today is Krishna Kumar, co-founder and CEO of Cropin Technology Solutions, an agri-intelligence provider to customers around the world. In this episode, Krishna talks about mapping crops and land around the planet and building an AI-based cloud platform for the agri and food sectors. He also talks about a new AI lab and taking Cropin to $100 million in revenue over the next three years
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Ecozen Solutions' co-founders on plans to take their connected tech beyond Agri into EVs
Our guests today are Devendra Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pandey, co-founders of Pune-based Ecozen Solutions, who offer motor controls, IoT tech, cold storage and energy storage products, powered by solar energy. In this episode, the trio talk about how they started with customers in the Agri sector, establishing a significant market share. They are now looking to expand into other areas, including the EV space, and markets outside India
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The Big Picture: 'Bubbles compress time, busts expand it, so use this downturn wisely' — Sridhar Vembu
Our guest today is Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corp., India's biggest software products success story. In this episode, Sridhar talks about how the wise entrepreneur will use the current downturn to nurture talent, invest in R&D and lay a solid foundation for a sustainable, long-term business. He also talks about how SaaS companies are yet to reckon with the power of AI to replace software programmers themselves
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Shruti Kapoor at Wingman on being acquired by Clari, plans ahead, and AI's influence on sales
Our guest today is Shruti Kapoor, co-founder and CEO at Wingman, a conversational AI provider for sales teams that has just been acquired by Clari, a Silicon Valley company. In this episode, Kapoor talks about the rationale behind the decision to be acquired. Also shares some of the conversations that she and her co-founders Muralidharan Venkatasubramanian and Srikar Yekollu had about this, what comes next, and some thoughts on how AI is overhauling the enterprise sales process