Bright Ideas
Smart ideas from the world’s brightest minds
Intelligent Learning: math app helps students improve their exam score in weeks
Intelligent Learning prepares K7–11 math students for the national senior high school entrance exam, or "zhongkao," by trawling through past questions and predicting what might be tested
Nongguanjia: Housekeeper of Chinese farmers' fortunes
Combining fintech and e-commerce, Nongguanjia started by monetizing land circulation, to help hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers get financing and thrive
IOMED: Delivering structured, extractable patient big data and helping Spain's Covid-19 response
The medtech cuts the time spent on finding candidates for medical research by 90% and last month secured €2m in seed funding to take its software overseas
X1 Wind's PivotBuoy: Innovative floating platform to help scale offshore wind energy
With a downwind turbine on its patented single point mooring system, Spanish startup X1 Wind aims to disrupt the market with light, cheaper and easy to install offshore platforms
Digital Union: Fighting fake users in China's mobile app industry
The Beijing-based cybersecurity startup is helping developers spot fake app downloads, so their ad money don’t go to waste
Ambit Robotics: Automated crop spraying for Southeast Asia's smallholder farmers
Small, affordable crop-spraying robots can help farmers save on labor costs and protect humans from exposure to harmful chemicals
Dipole Tech: Using blockchain to democratize access to renewable energy in Asia
Having established key markets in the Philippines and Thailand, China’s Dipole Tech is next gaining ground at home for its energy trading app
Virtuleap's VR games provide a mental workout, boosting brain health
Used by the AARP and Veteran's Health Administration in the US, Virtuleap’s games with AI-enabled assessment work to improve cognition and to counter degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's
Yimutian: China agriculture e-commerce's comeback kid
As the world’s most populous country faces potential food supply shortages, Yimutian, China’s No. 1 agro trading marketplace, is seeing more opportunities
Beemine Lab: Nurturing the fast-growing CBD cosmetics market
The first biotech company in Spain to produce CBD-rich cosmetics, The Beemine Lab is in a market poised to reach nearly $1bn by 2024, or 10% of the total skincare market
Modoo: Reducing stillbirth risk with fetal heart monitoring wearable
Weighing just 15g, the world’s smallest wearable “patch” with passive fetal monitoring technology by Modoo seeks to offer a safer alternative to ultrasound devices
BeePlanet Factory: Recycling EV batteries as a sustainable, profitable business
With 4kWh–200kWh residential and industrial battery packs, the Pamplona-based startup wants to scale its energy storage solutions in the agri-food sector, camping sites and mountain huts
Lota Digital: Disrupting fishing in Portugal for a sustainable future
The “digital fish market” app helps fishermen compete in a market dominated by large players
Squirrel AI: Edtech's AI-based personalized tutoring eases load for students and teachers
Used by more than 3m students, unicorn Squirrel AI tracks learning outcomes in real time and adapts teaching, proving more effective than traditional methods
UpHill: Helping doctors put the latest research into practice
Born out of practitioners’ difficulty in keeping up with latest treatments and protocols, UpHill now includes guidance on Covid-19
