Last year in 2020, the whole world witnessed the worst nightmare in each passing day trapped in the Covid-19 pandemic. The government imposed lockdown across the country due to which the lives of people were at stake and many had to pay their life. The doctors and the health administration gave their extreme level to get rid of this pandemic and rescue the lives of the people. Eventually, the vaccine was made successful and distributed among the countries.
This brought a huge relief to the people expecting that a new beginning will start in a healthy process. Indeed, a ray of hope came to our lives as the cases were declining at a certain number and things were back to normal. Unfortunately, there came the second wave of coronavirus, and again we all are tackling this misfortune resulting huge crisis in the country. In this tough time, the government and healthcare industry are putting their utmost effort to fight the battle, similarly, many Indian startups became the helping hand in this crisis whose services are really commendable.
The following are the list of those startups under the different categories-
Edtech Startups
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the transition in the educational system from traditional to virtual methods has enabled the students to continue their learning process majorly for their future endeavors. In this severe crisis, many parents are suffering from monetary loss due to which they are unable to invest money in online coaching institutions. But the following list of Edtech startups emerged with a motive to provide free education services to every student.
Byju’s: Byju’s is an Indian ed-tech startup (now a unicorn) that was founded in 2011, headquartered in Bengaluru. It is an online teaching platform that has enabled students from classes 1-12 to take the free online classes of their preferable subjects at their convenience. Along with, primary and secondary level, Byjus has also included the courses for the competitive examination like ITI-JEE, NEET, CAT, etc. Moreover, the company has launched its app in regional Indian languages for better understanding and reasoning. Recently, it has included new programs for kindergarten students as well. Therefore, the company opened varied opportunities for the students and the new aspirants to fulfill their dreams despite the unfortunate circumstances.
Toppr: It is a Mumbai-based ed-tech startup founded in 2013 providing the service of effective learning from class 5 onwards basically for CBSE. Due to the rising cases of Covid-19 and educational institutions getting shut down, Toppr provided free access to learning including the programs for competitive entrance examinations with the application of artificial-intelligence algorithms. It also provides doubt clearing session in live mode. Last year, in July 2020, the company launched a new product known as Toppr Codr for the kids to learn the basics of coding. The main objective of this company is to customize the learning process to every student across the country.
Vedantu: Another Bengaluru-based ed-tech startup founded in 2011 to provide quality education to every student without any disruption. In this ongoing pandemic, the company is putting utmost effort and assistance for the students to continue their learning process at a good pace so that the present situation wouldn’t affect their academic aspects. Vedantu offers free teaching programs for classes 1-12 mainly for ICSE and CBSE board and the programs for entrance examinations using a Hitech named Whiteboard Audio Video Environment (WAVE).
It also provides free access to co-curricular courses for all the standards like coding, photography, turbo maths, rocket pro, etc. Therefore, students don’t have to wait for things to get normal instead they can have access to their respective courses effectively by exploring the implications of technology.
Fitness Startups
The outbreak of coronavirus has impacted the lives of people in both physical and mental conditions. In this absurd situation, we need to keep ourselves protected and healthy in whichever way possible. Exercise and workouts are the most important elements to keep ourselves fit and relaxed so that we can endure the situation together in unity. In order to maintain social distancing norms, many people are unable to go to the gym and so they stopped looking after their fitness routine. To solve this problem, many fitness startups initiated with a motive to make the world a healthy one with their innovative technologies. Some of those startups are-
Cure.fit: It is a Bengaluru-based fitness startup that was founded in 2016. It bestowed a range of services like cult.fit, mind.fit, eat.fit and care.fit. Cult.fit gives quality training for fitness programs with access to live videos enabling people to have an effective interaction with the respective trainer. Through mind.fit, one can have the access to meditation programs and therapy sessions that helps the mind to heal completely. Eat.fit is concerned with proper diet and meal for a gym freak that is nutritious and tasty as well.
The care.fit section is an online consultancy held by psychiatrists to take care of one’s mental illness which is very much common mostly at this moment. Therefore, this startup is working as a perpetual solution in this covid situation to fight against the challenges.
Fittr: It is one of the largest Pune-based online fitness platforms founded in 2016. Initially, it started its journey with a limited number of people on the WhatsApp group but with time, today it has become the most convenient fitness community with more than 8 lakhs associates. It offers free access to fitness programs and live sessions with experts and gym freaks. This platform welcomes every people irrespective of their differences and helped in transforming the lives and health conditions of more than 1lakh people across the world.
With the freemium model, the company also teaches the users about the importance of being healthy and fit with proper guidance and motivation. Last year, the company has raised Rs 35 lakh funds to the medical affiliation providing solace and support in the crisis to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Tech Startups
As the Covid cases are rising innumerably since last year, the healthcare infrastructure had to go certain challenges and shortcomings due to which the lives of people were at stake for a moment. But the health tech startups came together in this tough time to reinforce the medical configuration with innovative technologies to provide the needful services at this moment of crisis. Such tech startups are-
Ethereal Machines: Due to the rising cases of covid 19, many hospitals had to undergo a shortage of ventilators across the country. Ethereal Machines, a Bengaluru-based startup acted as a solution to this problem by launching 3D ventilator splitters that supply oxygen to two patients at a time. Hence, it reduces the necessity of one ventilator to one patient. The company had also propelled a device to prevent the contamination of the virus between the two patients while using the ventilator. Therefore, the startup has done a comprehensive job at the time of the catastrophe.
PerSapien: PerSapien is a Delhi-based healthcare startup founded in 2020 with the only objective to confront the airborne pandemic and saving the lives of the people. Many places including hospitals became the covid19 contaminated zones or hotspots due to the inappropriate facilities of sanitization and very limited number of PPE’s and sterilizer machines. In this pathetic situation, this startup came up with an innovative proposition by launching a microrobot known as ‘minus corona UV bot’ to sanitize the entire hospitals from the corridors to the ICU wards. The robot works in UV light with a wavelength of 254nm.
However, there are many more startups that have contributed greatly to make the country corona-free and are continuing their assistance till now. Let’s just acknowledge and appreciate such efforts of these crusaders who are trying to hold the optimistic vision in our lives so that we can cooperate with them and deal with this situation unitedly.
