Late last year, Shiven Taneja was a person in search of a solution. His community of Mississauga, in Ontario, was entering its fifth COVID wave and Omicron was a fearsome, fast-spreading variant–yet rapid tests were in short supply and the availability of booster shots severely limited. He wanted a way to reduce risk.

Image: Shiven Taneja is a teenager who builds C-R boxes for the elderly and immunocompromised people. COURTESY OF KAVITA TANEJA

Imagine driving behind a diesel truck spewing clouds of smoke into the air while your new fully electric vehicle cleans up its carbon emissions. This dream may soon be a reality. A team of 35 students from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has created a Zero Emission Mobility (ZEM) vehicle – a fully electric, battery-powered EV that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) as it drives.

The students were tasked with creating a zero-emission car, but they took it a step further, developing a unique filter that can capture carbon, cleaning the air as it moves.

Image: https://electrek.co

Hiring is hard. When you're a startup - with no track record, scant funds, and less than top-of-line resources and benefits - it's usually a nightmare.

Thus, many startups never make it out of the "solopreneur" stage, a one-person show. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. But if you've got billion-dollar valuation dreams, or heck, even if you just want the slightest chance of an exit at some point, well, I probably won't be the first to tell you that you can't do it alone.

Union science and technology minister Dr Jitendra Singh today presented INSPIRE awards to 60 startups and financial support to 53,021 students.

The award is instituted by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) and these innovators will be extended complete incubation support for their entrepreneurship journey, said an official statement.

According to Singh said, during the year 2020-21, while the country, like the rest of the world, was battling with the severe impact of COVID-19, the annual INSPIRE Awards–MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and Knowledge) competition attracted an unprecedented 6.53 lakh ideas and innovations from across the country.

Image: freepik

Few people have had as lasting an impact on today’s commuting culture as Englishman William Grout. Born in London in 1839, Grout revolutionized the bicycle by adding high-performance innovations like rubber tires. In 1878, he created a tire that could be removed from the front of the bike so it could be folded for storage. This was, by most accounts, the first foldable bike. The problem was that the process of disassembling the tire took nearly 10 minutes, and that was more time than the average commuter running late to work had to spare. Fortunately, the powers that be – meaning those brilliant bike innovators running the design departments at the companies of today – took Grout’s idea and modernized it, making it not only more efficient (and actually foldable without taking the frame apart), but also smaller, easier to store, and, for some, the addition of an electric motor.

Image: https://coolmaterial.com

Desalination converts saltwater to freshwater. The concept has been around for some time, but it has not yet been polished. It is a combination of science, engineering, and technology. It is so important to create a sustainable future. And the best system for getting water from salt water is Reverse osmosis,____it has helped many countries get the water they need. Infact, nations like Iran are generating 10 million liters of water daily with this method. Not bad, right?

Hiring is never easy, but hiring for some roles is more straightforward than others. You can test for hard skills, ask references about character, and observe behavior or dig into past achievements to assess leadership. But what if your company is aiming higher? What if you want to change the world (and not just a little)?

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Richard+Branson&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Think of a wind turbine and you’ll probably picture a tall vertical pole with three long blades spinning at the top. These traditional turbines were modeled after 17th-century Dutch windmills, but for Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems, they’re not quite right for the 21st century.

Image: Image: Wind Catching Systems

You're an entrepreneur. You're looking for ways to boost your platform and attract attention to yourself and your budding brand. As a culture, we tend to elevate authors as titans of thought who have achieved what few others ever do. So, writing and publishing a book might be the perfect answer to establishing yourself as a credible thought leader. Books are unique marketing vehicles, and for some authors, they even become a source of extra income. According to data compiled by Publisher's Weekly, last year was a record year for book sales. It seems readers can't get enough. Now might be the perfect time to write and publish your book.

Industrial heat consumes a huge proportion of global energy. Rondo Energy says its brick-toasting heat storage device is so cheap and efficient that it makes decarbonization an instant no-brainer across a huge range of industries. Bill Gates agrees.

Image: Rondo's "brick toaster" heat storage system is 98% efficient, and stores cheap renewable energy for industrial use at 20% the cost of an electrochemical batteryRondo Energy

It's the question often asked of successful people.

In particular, this question is often the one that comes up the most when it comes to entrepreneurs.

And for those who have built success-stories, it's hard to escape it no matter what linguistic subterfuge they take. No doubt Jeff Bezos, the former richest man in the world, has had to deal with it.

The question is: What advice can you give to someone who wants to start or is starting a business?

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=jeff+bezos&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Australian researchers have developed and tested a way to electrolyze hydrogen straight out of the air, anywhere on Earth, without requiring any other fresh water source. The Direct Air Electrolyzer (DAE) absorbs and converts atmospheric moisture – even down to a "bone-dry" 4% humidity.

Image: Melbourne University researchers have tested a "direct air electrolyzer" that can pull hydrogen straight out of the air using ambient humidity, meaning it's possible to create green hydrogen nearly anywhere on the planet, regardless of fresh water suppliesUniversity of Melbourne

Artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, one of the trailblazers of the deep learning “revolution” that began a decade ago, says that the rapid progress in AI will continue to accelerate.

In an interview before the 10-year anniversary of key neural network research that led to a major AI breakthrough in 2012, Hinton and other leading AI luminaries fired back at some critics who say deep learning has “hit a wall.”

A Harvard-backed startup, Adden Energy, has developed a battery for electric cars that is capable of fully charging in three minutes and lasting more than twice that of current EV batteries or 20 years. The startup has received $5.15 million in funding to commercialise the game-changing battery. The technology has received an exclusive license from Harvard’s Office of Technology Development, and the funding was led by Primavera Capital Group, with participation by Rhapsody Venture Partners and MassVentures.

There has never been a better, easier time to start a business.

Artificial intelligence technology is chipping away at the barriers to entry for aspiring entrepreneurs, which represent a meaningful segment of the U.S. population. A 2021 survey conducted by Harris Poll found that 61 percent of Americans have an idea for a business, but are stymied by a lack of access to business tools and knowledge on how to get started. The founders behind a new crop of A.I.-powered platforms envision a world where, instead of needing an MBA, you can leverage technology to help launch your business.

Ever since the Sci-fi TV series Star Trek telecast, the show has left people baffled with thousands of questions.

The science fiction series has always been intertwined between real-life science since the past decades. It has inspired technologies that people use daily.

Of many remarkable events shown in the series, warp drive was one of the many futuristic ideas that caught the attention of many people across the globe. In fact, it was the very first theory proposed in Star Trek, allowing it to travel faster than light across the galaxy. Thus, opposing Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – prevents anything from moving faster than light.

Great companies, and great teams, are built by great leaders. That's why Google spent considerable time identifying the key behaviors of its best team managers.

But what if you don't have any leadership training? Or -- more crucially, since everything I learned about leadership I learned the hard way -- any leadership experience?

Geothermal power currently provides only a tiny fraction of the nation’s electricity. But as states ramp up their transitions to renewable electricity, some leaders see a big role for geothermal as a stable, renewable power source.

Used in the United States since 1960, geothermal plants pipe steam or hot water from deep wells to power turbines that produce electricity. Harnessing underground heat is more expensive than developing wind or solar energy, but experts say the dependable output from sources like geothermal is critical to shore up the grid at times where the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

The energy transition is just getting warmed up. For proof, see Our Next Energy. The Michigan-based startup is developing a trick dual-chemistry battery pack that’s the sort of innovation that’ll likely come to define the climate tech economy.

The heart of ONE’s technology is a battery management system that allows an EV to use two different cell chemistries, one for daily driving and the other for longer road trips. It’s an innovation that has allowed the company to look at materials that had previously been cast aside, those once thought unfit for EV duty.

Image: Image Credits: Our Next Energy

Innovate or die. Cliché as it might sound, there's a lot of truth to this adage. Amazon, Apple, Netflix and LEGO are all companies that reinvented themselves in some way to not only survive but also thrive. One of the more recent companies to reinvent itself is Chipotle. Though known for its counter-service approach, the fast-food chain had to drastically pivot during the pandemic. As such, it created Chipotlanes: drive-thru lanes for mobile pickup orders. On the surface, it's not a significant reinvention, but it is one that got the company through Covid-19.