Health, safety, AI: test your business creativity with Edition 222 of our weekly quiz!

Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 222nd edition of the quiz, we present issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.

What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs and innovators themselves actually did. Would you do things differently?

Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 355 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.

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Q1: Financial inclusion

Many small farmers are left out of traditional credit scoring models. How can this issue be tackled to enable financial inclusion?

Q2: Traditional art forms

In the face of rapid social change and urbanisation, many traditional art forms run the risk of decline. What can be done to improve visibility and support for such art forms?

Q3: Women’s safety

Women in India face serious challenges with respect to personal safety, which also affects their mobility and livelihood. How can safety be improved in this regard?

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Q4: Remote healthcare

Rural healthcare faces challenges due to unavailability of medical staff, multiple languages to navigate, and unreliable internet connectivity. How can this gap be addressed?

Q5: Health and diagnostics

Diagnostics often focuses on identifying diseases only after symptoms appear. How can such assessment be used before health risks arise?

Answers!

Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come – answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning – and happy creating!

A1: Financial inclusion

Founded by Sucharita Mukherjee, Puneet Gupta, Natasha Jethanandani, and Vipul Sekhsaria, Kaleidofin builds credit assessment tools specifically designed for the informal sector. It uses AI and machine learning to help banks and NBFCs assess customers and expand access while managing risk.

For farmers, it pulls data from sources like satellite imagery, rainfall patterns, crop types, and livestock counts. Read more here about its multi-model approach which has helped serve over 57 partners and processes around $215 million in monthly volumes.

A2: Traditional art forms

A number of organisations have risen to the challenge of preserving art and culture. For example, Abhinav Agrawal and Shuchi Roy launched Anahad Foundation to record folk music through its portable BackPack Studio,

Sruthin Lal, Parvathi AR, and Nevin launched the Archival and Research Project (ARPO) to document Kozhikode’s layered history. Banjara Kasuti preserves the rich tradition of Lambani embroidery. Read more here about inspiring initiatives like Kattaikkuttu Sangam that promote folk theatre.

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A3: Women’s safety

Founded by Sindhuja Sura, BoomBird makes rechargeable personal safety alarm bands for women. It emits a 130-decibel siren, loud enough to disorient an attacker and buy a woman the critical seconds needed to escape.

The alarm is rechargeable, with a low-charge indicator and up to 120 minutes of siren time on a full charge. Read more here about how thousands of the products have already been sold through its own website and Amazon India.

A4: Remote healthcare

Founded by Arunoday Singh and Akshar KR, O-Health has developed an end-to-end clinical AI operating system designed for Indian conditions. Its voice-first platform turns patient conversations in multiple languages into structured clinical intelligence in real time.

Its medical automatic speech recognition system uses an ensemble of small language models (SLMs). Read more here about how O-Health has already completed over 50,000 clinical consultations, with deployment across multiple hospitals like Yashoda Medicity in Delhi NCR.

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A5: Health and diagnostics

Founded by Kumar Sankaran, Debojyoti Dhar and Prabhath Manjappa Kamath, Leucine Rich Bio uses gut microbiome data to personalise nutrition and offer preventive solutions. By analysing the bacterial ecosystem in the stomach and intestines, it designs diet plans and supplements tailored to an individual’s unique microbial makeup.

Its test to use bacterial diversity for assessing digestive and metabolic health is called BugSpeaks. Read more here about the startup’s Bengaluru laboratory where over 40 scientists analyse microbial DNA to come up with a three-month diet plan.

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators.