5 Tech startups trying to transform the world

1. Anurag Mehra & Shitij Malhotra, MyTutorNori

MyTutorNori is an edtech startup making AI powered Smart Workbooks that combine the power of worksheets along with a phone app. Smart workbooks are the next generation of learning material that gets kids to sit longer and spend more time learning. NORI uses the phone camera to record what the child is writing and then uses advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse and provide instant feedback to the child automatically. Accuracy of answer, speed of answering, etc are recorded and analyzed and a report is shared with teachers and parents.

Instant answers with multi media content keep kids excited and they spend more time learning."With shortening attention spans, parents today are struggling to keep young kids engaged and are also worried about useless screentime. Nori Smart Workbooks helps parents move kids to more productive screentime", says Shitij Malhotra, Co-Founder of MyTutorNori. MyTutorNori was started by Anurag Mehra & Shitij Malhotra, both serial entrepreneurs from the toy industry with over 10 years experience designing educational toys for children around the world. It is targeting the USD 45 Billion dollar global educational toys market.

2. Priyadarshi Rishiraj, Founder, Moviesaints

MovieSaints (moviesaints.com) is a technology company that provides hybrid film releases, secured screeners and fundraising services to Independent filmmakers, film festivals and film clubs. We enable filmmakers to securely release their film globally on watchmyfilm.com, raise funds for their projects on backthisfilm.com, securely store and share screeners via securemyfilm.com. Through festivalsaints.com and filmclubsaints.com it offers a customized, global system for festivals and filmclubs, respectively to host their events in a secured and hybrid manner.

Priyadarshi Rishiraj (Rishi) was studying computer engineering in Philadelphia when he met with a freak accident that left him blind just before he was about to graduate. During this time, stories became his refuge and listening to stories and coming up with his own stories became a way to cope. He was fortunate enough to eventually regain vision in one eye and decided that he had to be involved in storytelling in some way. He taught himself filmmaking, made a couple of short films and then started to think about distribution. Soon it became clear that reaching the right audience is a monumental challenge for independent filmmakers and a lot of amazing films simply get lost because no one finds out about them. Rishi started MovieSaints to solve this problem.

3. Meghna Agarwal, co-founder - IndiQube

IndiQube, the brainchild of its co-founders Rishi Das & Meghna Agarwal started in 2015 with the idea to revolutionize workspaces. Rishi & Meghna have been serial entrepreneurs with footprints in CareerNet, HirePro & Ultrafine Minerals before their foray into providing managed office spaces with IndiQube. The idea of IndiQube had its roots from CareerNet, where they needed to change their office space every other year considering the scale of growth.

A passionate entrepreneur and food explorer, Meghna Agarwal is the co-founder of IndiQube. She comes with over 11⁄2 decades of experience in manufacturing, HR, consulting and commercial real estate and has done her MBA in Finance from IMT Ghaziabad. At the age of 25, she co-founded HirePro Consulting in December 2003. Later, in 2009, she ventured into Ultrafine Minerals, a leading manufacturer of minerals catering to the needs of Cable, Polymer, Plastic and Paper industries. Space has always been at the heart of Meghna as she understood how space works for diverse companies. She understood that millennials and start-ups are faced with challenges like volatility, high capex and long-term leases from traditional landlords and started this journey with IndiQube as the flexible workspace provider catering not just to budding entrepreneurs but also to enterprises. She takes pride in encouraging the Indian entrepreneur community, especially women, and it's no wonder that IndiQube offers early stage startups the initial push by providing office space at discounted prices until they stabilize. After completing 5 successful years, IndiQube today, under the leadership of Meghna, looks forward to surpassing many more milestones in near future.

4. Sreelaj John and Roopam Nayak - Founders of House Of Brands Company ( HOBC )

This duo hunts for premium brands on a daily basis. In the last 6 months, their D2C aggregator company - HOBC - has acquired 8 premium brands in the fashion and lifestyle space. In a short span of time HOBC has created a cult-like following for their products. HOBC fans eagerly wait for the monthly brand launch events that happen virtually on their mobile app. Due to high demand, products tend to stock out in just a matter of minutes during these events.

As the founders articulately put it - "HOBC is a platform for the "California users" of India. They form only 1% of the Indian population but generate 70% of all eCommerce revenue in India. ".

HOBC competes with the likes of MensaBrands, GOAT Brand Labs, GlobalBees but focuses exclusively on premium brands.

5. Mrs. Deepti Sharma, Director ThinkerPlace & Lexicon Group

ThinkerPlace, an ed-tech startup established under the Lexicon Group of Companies, is based

on the ideation of bringing the right form of education to the children of India through S.T.E.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) based educational DIY toys. Founded by Mrs. Deepti Sharma, Director ThinkerPlace & Lexicon Group, and Mr. Saurabh Tiwari, the proud owner of 9 National and 2 International patents in innovation and technology, ThinkerPlace strives to bring new-age, learning beyond books and a holistic approach to education for children.

ThinkerPlace products bring innovation and technology along with practical learning from experience through their easy-to-make S.T.E.M educational DIY kits for 3-12+-year-old children. Additionally providing end-to-end learning solutions to children through the online Learning Management System(LMS) and instantly connecting to STEM experts, the company is striving to bring STEM to the forefront of Indian education.

The toys, which are complete Do-It-Yourself or DIY are meant to instil the core principles of learning concepts through the child's experience with the toy while they are interacting with it. It calls for better learning retention, increased curiosity, understanding of concepts, and most importantly keeping the child engaged in learning through play. The motto or ThinkerPlace, learning beyond books identifies itself in every product that is launched by the company. In terms of concept and learning based toys, children learn new-age skills like robotics, automation, coding, engineering mechanics, working of sensors, and more.