🌽Transforming Crops with Ingenuity (Issue 017)

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In today’s Issue 📥 :

• Transforming Crops with Ingenuity.

• The patience-impatience game.

• NASA finds rare asteroid!

• A medical marvel!

From Spoiled to Profitable: Transforming Crops with Ingenuity

Today’s story is about Nidhi Pant, a chemical engineer, who is addressing the issue of food wastage and poverty amongst farmers with her startup, S4S (Science For Society) Technologies.

India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, but more than 40 percent of the produce goes to waste due to a fragmented and unorganized supply chain, costing the country about $14 billion every year. To tackle this problem, Nidhi and her six college friends launched S4S Technologies in 2013.

With a mission to integrate a chain where farmers can extract the maximum output of their produce, Nidhi and her team have created a platform that converts farm losses into food ingredients using its patented solar-powered food processing system. By employing small-holder women farmers at every step, Nidhi is also empowering women in rural areas.

The solar-powered machines including dehydrators and cutting machines remove moisture from produce within 6-8 hours without adding any chemicals. With the help of these machines, women convert farm produce into non-perishable items while retaining colour, aroma, and up to 95 percent of its nutrition, claims Nidhi. The produce is taken to a central facility where it is graded, sorted, and made fit for customers through quality control operations. It is packaged and supplied to the food and beverage industries, including The Indian Railways and Sodexo.

Nidhi’s work has transformed the lives of rural women who were initially not confident and did not have a say in the household. They are now taking leadership roles, creating assets for themselves, becoming decision-makers in the family, lowering their household burden, and being more respected by their children. Shobha Ramesh Rathod, who has been working as a micro-entrepreneur with the company for the past three years, has earned herself a life of dignity. She earns up to Rs 24,000 in a month, tells The Better India.

Nidhi was awarded the Cisco Youth Leadership Award 2022 by Global Citizen & CISCO and Women Transforming India Awards by NITI Aayog & United Nations (UN) for her work to transform lives and livelihood. She has also been listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia and India.

Nidhi was also one of the 16 climate champions to be part of the recently launched Women Climate Collective (WCC), a pan-India initiative that seeks to galvanize women-inclusive actions and outcomes.

As Nidhi says, “We rise by lifting others.” And that is precisely what she is doing with her work. Let us all take inspiration from her and do our part in making this world a better place.

Here are some inspiring quotes from Nidhi:

• “I wanted to use my scientific knowledge and new-age technologies to help the most underprivileged get out of poverty and help them realize their potential. We wanted to develop solutions keeping them in the center.”

• “With this, farmers now have a direct market for lower-grade produce. They have seen an income growth of 10–15 percent while women micro-entrepreneurs have observed an increase of up to 200 percent in their income.”

• “These women who were not initially confident and did not have a say in the household are now taking leadership roles, creating assets for themselves, becoming decision-makers in the family, lowering their household burden, and are more respected by their children. They are not the last to eat; they are now breadwinners.”

IMPROVEMENT SIP

The patience-impatience game

Mastery is a goal that requires both impatience and patience. It is a balancing act between action and reflection, urgency and deliberation. To master any skill or pursue any dream, one must cultivate a sense of urgency and bias toward action, while also having the patience to trust the process.

As author Robert Greene notes, “Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.” This intense focus requires a bias toward action, and an impatience to get things done and to make progress every day.

However, impatience alone is not enough. As an entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn notes, “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.” This consistent application requires patience, the ability to delay gratification, and trust in the process.

Ultimately, mastery requires a delicate balance of impatience and patience. As legendary basketball coach Pat Riley notes, “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to improve.” This striving requires impatience and a bias toward action, but it also requires patience, trust in the process, and the willingness to delay gratification.

HOT SIP

Meet the Srikakulam village with over 150 doctors – A medical marvel!

Kanugulavalasa, a village in the Srikakulam district of India with a population of 4,000, has produced nearly 150 qualified doctors since 1970. The trend started with Bendi Chandra Rao and Nuka Bhaskara Rao, who became the first doctors from the village and inspired many other youths to pursue medicine. The village has been producing at least two to five doctors every year since 1985, with doctors from the village serving in various government, private, and corporate sectors across the world.

Medicine becomes a popular career choice for youth in Kanugulavalasa village

Speaking to The New Indian Express, Nuka Bhaskara Rao said, “I hail from an agricultural family and my parents are illiterates. I completed my MBBS and become a doctor in 1971 with the inspiration of Bendi Chandra Rao, who was the first doctor from our village. I have done private practice at Amadalavalasa and later entered into government service. I retired from government service in 2006 as an additional director of health in the combined state of AP. My son Ajaykumar and his wife were working as professors, in Hematological Oncology at Emroy University, Atalanta. My brother Chandrasekhara Rao is also a retired doctor from the health department in AP.’’

The guidance of senior doctors has helped the youth achieve their goals, with many scoring high ranks in exams such as EAMCET and NEET. The doctors from the village have been providing medical assistance, free treatment, and concessions in medical tests to the villagers and neighboring villages. The village takes pride in having doctors working across the globe who are just a phone call away to provide medical assistance to the poor.

SMALL SIPS

Recovers $109,500: ChatGPT has the potential to make life easier for people, as seen in the example of Greg Isenberg who used the site to retrieve his money from a client who refused to pay him. Instead of seeking legal counsel, Isenberg chose to use ChatGPT, demonstrating its usefulness.

30th: Billionaire owner of the embattled ports-to-power conglomerate Adani Group, Gautam Adani, has now slipped to the 30th spot on the global rich list. His net worth has dropped below the $40 billion mark as of Monday.

Nokia: According to Nokia, its new visual identity portrays the company as it is now, with renewed enthusiasm and devotion as a digital transformation pioneer. The company, which was once known for cell phones, is now a commercial technology company and wishes to align itself accordingly.

In trouble: Indian tycoon Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources Ltd., which has a pile of debt including a $1 billion bond due in January, has upset New Delhi with his most recent attempt to trim the load. While Gautam Adani’s infrastructure empire has shrunk by more than three-fifths in a month, Agarwal’s situation could cause a smaller storm, as he can’t afford to annoy the one partner he needs: the Indian government.

SpaceX: NASA and SpaceX held a prelaunch teleconference late on Saturday (Feb. 25) to discuss the upcoming mission that will see the Crew Dragon Endeavour launch to the International Space Station (ISS) atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

With CHAI ☕

Ceo: PhysicsWallah CEO Alakh Pandey to contribute towards 300 weddings in Uttar Pradesh.

How to: secure your transactions?

Aww: Wrong father.

It’s Interesting: English speakers follow an unconscious rule for the order of adjectives.

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