Startups, ASSOCHAM - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: ASSOCHAM

Explanation:
India's food processing sector has the potential to attract $33 billion investment by 2024, according to a study released here on 20^thNov 2017 by ASSOCHAM.

The country's food and retail market is expected to touch $482 billion by 2020, up from $258 billion in 2015, with recent reforms making the sector more competitive and marke-oriented, it said.

ASSOCHAM: Know More

• The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) is one of the apex trade associations of India.
• The organisation represents the interests of trade and commerce in India, and acts as an interface between industry, government and other relevant stakeholders on policy issues and initiatives.
• The goal of this organisation is to promote both domestic and international trade, and reduce trade barriers while fostering conducive environment for the growth of trade and industry of India.

ANSWER: Both a and b

Explanation:
Union Cabinet on 22^nd March 2017 approves the proposal to establish the Fund of Funds of Startups or FFS.

Union Cabinet in 2016 approved the proposal to establish a Fund of Funds for Startups with total corpus of INR 10,000 crore.

AIFs supported by FFS should invest at least twice the amount of contribution received from FFS in Startups.

If the account committed for a startup has not been released before a startup ceases, the balance funding can continue thereafter.

Operating expenses out of the FFS to the extent of 0.50 percent of the commitments made to AIFs and outstanding.

Operating expenses include carrying due diligence, legal and technical appraisal, meeting of Venture Capital Investment Committee etc.

Operating expenses will be debited to fund at the beginning of each half year on April and October 1.

Fund of Funds for Startups was approved by Union Government in 2016.

Fund of Funds for Startups is being managed by SIDBI.

FFS contributes to SEBI registered Alternative Investment Funds that may go up to a maximum of 35 percent of the corpus of the AIF concerned.

ANSWER: Lyft

Explanation:
Ride sharing app aggregator Lyft has acquired Pune based FinitePaths for an undisclosed amount.

Trail Answers, the app created by FinitePaths will be shut down and cofounders will join the Lyft team.

FinitePaths was set up in November 2015 with the move to leverage technology to enable people to take better decisions.

The app Trail Answers enabled answers to questions using social, contextual and local signals.

The company has been founded by Vinay Kakade and Balaji Raghavan, who worked with Amazon and Google respectively before setting up the firm.

The cofounders will now work with Lyft to help in expanding its infrastructure and services.

Following this acquisition, the company has stopped signing up new users and will shut down the app over the next two weeks.

Lyft: Know More

• Founded: 2012
• CEO: Logan Green (Jun 2012)
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
• Founders: Logan Green, John Zimmer

ANSWER: Sandeep Jajodia

Explanation:
Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd. CMD Sandeep Jajodia has been appointed the new President of industry chamber ASSOCHAM.

Balkrishan Goenka, Chairman, Welspun Group and Kiran Kumar Grandhi, vice-chairman of GMR Infrastructure Ltd, have taken over as senior vice-president and vice-president respectively.

Jajodia took over from Sunil Kanoria, vice-chairman, Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited.

ASSOCHAM initiated its endeavour of value creation for Indian industry in 1920.

It has more than 400 Chambers and Trade Associations, serving more than 4,50,000 members from all over India.

ASSOCHAM is set to influence dynamics of growth and development in the technology driven cyber age of ‘Knowledge Based Economy’.

ASSOCHAM derives its strength from its Promoter Chambers and other Industry/ Regional Chambers/Associations spread all over the country.

ANSWER: Hubballi

Explanation:
The Deshpande Foundation, the philanthropy arm of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande, will launch the country’s largest start-up incubation centre at Hubballi.

The foundation aims to promote entrepreneurship in India’s tier-II and tier-III cities.

It is investing INR 30 crore in the centre, to be opened this September and able to seat 1,200 people at any point.

Housing a makers lab, a 3D printing lab, hardware labs and an IOT lab, the centre will try to attract entrepreneurs from across sectors and any background, to build new-age solutions.

A ‘sandbox’ location has been created to allow entrepreneurs to test and nurture their ideas into businesses.

His foundation has set up two more sandboxes. One is in Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and another in neighbouring Telangana.

The Hubballi centre will continue to be funded by the Deshpande Foundation.

About Deshpande Foundation

• Deshpande Foundation is a non-governmental organization founded in 1996 by Gururaj and Jaishree Deshpande.
• Founded: 1996
• Headquarters: Massachusetts
• Type: Non-governmental organization

ANSWER: Indore

Explanation:
In a first, a special incubation centre for start-ups working on environment conservation is being set up in Indore.

Three entrepreneurs each from Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Indore have been finalised to start operations at the centre from December 22.

Located at the Govindram Sekseriya Institute of Management and Research premises, it aims to provide a platform to budding entrepreneurs working in the field of solar energy, biogas, biomass and other environment related subjects.

This incubation centre is part of the MP Incubation and Start-up scheme 2016. We have not taken any fund from the government.

The incubation centre will not only help the entrepreneurs but also inspire the existing college students to come up with their ventures.

Out of the 62 applications from across the country a special panel of 50 mentors specialised in the fields of energy conversation, three projects were selected after analysis and evaluation.

The mentors will have 6 - 8 per cent equity share in the startups.

The incubation centre has tied up with 10 investors across the country. The team of experts include solar energy specialist Deepak Gadhia, Ganjana Joshi and Dipal Chandra Barua among others.

ANSWER: IBM

Explanation:
General Electric on 15th Nov 2016 acquired two tech startups to build the AI capability to compete with IBM’s Watson product

• Acquisitions of Bit Stew Systems and Wise.io will expand its Predix platform for industrial internet applications, which connects big machines such as power plants and aircraft engines to databases and analytical software.
• Terms of the deals weren't publicly disclosed.
• Wise.io is based in Berkeley California and has advanced machine learning technology
• AI has a branch called machine learning which allows computers to adapt to new data without fresh programming
• Bit Stew is a Vancouver based Canadian firm backed by GE’s venture capital arm
• It applies machine learning to large data sets associated with utilities, aviation, oil and gas production and manufacturing, according to the company's web site.
• IBM’s Watson is among the better known AI systems which enables computers to perform intelligent actions such as recognising voices and making decisions

ANSWER: National Data Bank

Explanation:
Industry body ASSOCHAM has offered to set up a National Data Bank containing information about electronic transactions, used by the government for official purposes like issuance of passports as well as protecting country’s strategic interests.

• Proposal involves creation of a Central Coordination Committee under the guidance of National Security Council Secretariat
• A clear legal framework is required to legitimise the need for creating a National Data Bank of e-information of classified and heritage documents for national archives which can be integrated with national information policy demarcating information into three board categories.
• Data which is non sensitive in nature could be used for scientific economic and development purposes
• It can be used for taking accurate and immediate decisions in large demographies for trend forecasting and recourse in case of civic decisions or exigency by numerous Ministries or Departments of Government of India.
• Industry has noted the current regime of the Big Data Management does not facilitate efficient open sharing and interoperability of government owned data with different inter and intra government agencies
• Need for creating cyber National Data Bank of e-information of classified heritage documents for National Archive with the aim to promote open data sharing and access to GoI owned data for national planning and R&D.

ANSWER: Avagmah

Explanation:
Kris S Gopalkrishnan has invested a non disclosed amount in Avagmah, an educational technology start up associated with higher education along with Aptech co-founder Atul Nishar. The two-year-old startup works with Pondicherry University, Bharathidasan University and Loss-Angles-based UCLA Extension. Its investors include Singapore-based Lionrock Capital, serial entrepreneur Ganesh Krishnan and Mumbai-based investment firm Zodius Capital founder Neeraj Bhargava. NIT Kurukshetra alumni KS Karthik has founded the startup.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
Teabox, the international speciality tea company, is the latest to received funding from Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons. This is the 4th start-up in 2016 to receive the attention of Tata, after Tracxn, Dogspot and Cashkaro.