Lemon Ideas, German inst help startups develop products to beat Covid-19

Nagpur: Five startups mentored by city-based Lemon Ideas have come up with innovative products required for Covid-19 prevention and management, and received financial support from Germany to develop the ideas further.
The mentees include individuals from Bangalore, Delhi, Pune and Nagpur. Their products were designed keeping the Covid-19 threat in mind and offer users a solution to prevent infection.
An air purifier, developed by Bangalore’s Shriram Mokhasi, can prevent air-borne diseases by increasing positive ions in the surroundings. Pune-based Rises Analytics Solutions’ product helps connect primary health care centres with hospitals to ensure treating doctors have full patient data.
Trip Mungo from Nagpur is envisioned as a hub (aggregator) for super travel options, such as caravans or motorhomes when travelling in public transport can be risky. Arista Vault and Carbon Hubs too have come up with gadgets that cater to personal hygiene.
A cohort of 15 startups meeting the essential criteria had first been shortlisted. These start-ups were mentored through virtual mediums, guided on necessary product and regulatory compliances, and technical support was given to some of the identified startups to operationalise their products.
The initiatives were taken under the project ‘Covid19 Cohorts’ supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). It is an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. Under the programme, GIZ is supporting three incubators; IIM-C Knowledge Park, JSS Business Incubator, and Lemon Ideas. These incubators are in turn providing support and mentoring select identified startups to develop, test pilot and operationalise innovative products or solutions they have developed.
Lt Col (retd) Saurabh Shah, CEO, Lemon School of Entrepreneurship, said, “Lemon Ideas brought out the efforts put in by three incubators IIM-C Knowledge Park, JSS Business Incubator, and Lemon Ideas over the past 6 months.”
Funding was granted by the Federal German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for smart and local solutions, to make the products for Covid-19. The goal of the proposed intervention is ‘to identify, support and handhold innovations that promote smart and local solutions in production of equipment required for Covid-19.
Lemon Ideas along with GIZ embarked upon the project to bring meaningful innovations that could be solutions to Covid-19 disruption, said Shah.
Power factor received support from GIZ for ‘improving & upscaling innovative personal air purification product’ in June, lasting 4 months. Carbon Hubs received support from GIZ for ‘Development & marketing innovative air filtration product for fighting Covid-19’ in November 2020.
Trip Mungo received support from GIZ ‘to develop and pilot test MVP for safe & innovative travel options during Covid-19’ in November 2020. Arista Vault received support from GIZ for ‘upscaling usage of smart UV based disinfection products’ in June 2021.
Info
BLOOMING IDEAS
1)Power Factor
Founder: Shriram Mokhasi
Location: Banglore
* Mini portable negative ion generator hardware called ‘Zap-C’ designed to protect individuals from airborne infection like Covid-19, allergies, sinusitis and asthma
* This personal air purifier releases 8-10 million negative ions per CC and increases density in the air around, attaches to bacteria, viruses and invisible harmful dust, which are positive ions, to form a cluster
* This makes + ions heavy, and they fall down, restricting airborne infection to individuals
* More than 500 units have been sold as part of the pilot cycle for validation
2) Carbon Hubs
Founder: Shalom Kingston
Location: Bangalore
* Deployed no-touch device with innovative air filtration technology
* Advanced filtration technology captures microbial matter, reduces particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) from 300 to 35 within 10 minutes, and removes harmful gases from surroundings
3) Trip Mungo
Founder: Dikki Raj Borah
Location: Nagpur
* Trip Mungo is envisioned as hub (aggregator) for super travel options such as caravans or motorhomes
* These are world-class caravans or motor homes, first-of-a-kind in India, which offer the best, personalized experience with high safety standards during the pandemic
* Being a relatively new concept in India, the startup has big potential for individuals to own caravans and make them available for rental use
4) Rises Analytics Solutions
Founder: Ajit Deshpande
Location: Pune, Maharashtra
* Rises provides end-to-end solution, connecting primary healthcare centres, diagnostics, hospitals in hub and spoke model, clinical decision support system to assist HCPs (health care professionals)
* Solution includes remote care for children, lab management, vaccine management, medical prescriptions and pharmacy
* Rises Chronic and Critical Care for Cancer and Pulmonary (COVID-19 TB COPD) is used in treatment response assessment & prediction
* Using artificial intelligence, it works on diagnostic imaging data of pulmonary X-rays & CT scans, for disease detection and progression assessment, predicts risk score for patients and helps to reduce mortality rate
5) Arista Vault
Founder: Purvi Roy
Location: Delhi
* Smart solution for safety and security of precious goods for individuals and adding sanitization dimension in Covid-19 times
* Their products include Shrudhhi Basket, toothbrush cleaner and jewellery box for sanitization