Good morning, Bengaluru!
⛈️ Today’s weather: Mostly cloudy with thundershowers in the afternoon.
🧐 Did you know? Before serving ice cream, Corner House was a bakery and fast food joint when it was established in 1982.
🧑🍳 Chef Brendan Pang’s visit
Chef Brendan Pang explores his connection to Indian food while cooking a Chinese-Mauritian menu in Bengaluru.
What’s it about? MasterChef Australia’s popular Brendan Pang was recently in Bengaluru to host a six-course dinner at The Leela Palace’s pan-Asian restaurant Zen. Pang showcased his unique interpretation of Chinese cuisine. His approach to cooking in Bengaluru involved respect for time-honoured recipes while infusing them with trendy twists.
- The attendees savoured his renowned silky prawn wontons, accompanied by a delightful savoury-sweet-sour vinegar dressing and homemade chilli oil.
- The culinary experience continued with delectable pan-fried mushroom and truffle potstickers, truffle and egg fried rice, and a sweet and sour fish dish.
Parallels: Pang highlighted the rich historical and cultural backgrounds shared by Indian and Chinese-Mauritian cuisines. He has a strong connection to Indian cuisine due to his Mauritian upbringing, which was heavily influenced by Indian flavours and dishes like dholl puri, fritters, and Indian sweets.
- Pang mentioned his love for dosa and Chinese-Indian fusion dishes that combine his favourite elements of garlic, spice, chilli, and fried foods. He also enjoyed barfi.
💳 Arzooo Pro Finance launched
Arzooo Pro Finance has a little something for everybody – it seeks to benefit retailers and new-to-credit consumers.
What’s it about? Bengaluru-based B2B retail technology platform Arzooo recently unveiled its new fintech service called Arzooo Pro Finance. It’s a subscription-based service, so retailers can choose from various annual plans. It is designed to help offline retailers boost their in-store sales and sell more high-value products to shoppers.
- Khushnud Khan, the CEO, expressed his excitement at the prospect of transforming stores into powerful financial hubs, making it super easy for them to offer consumer finance and accept payments using diverse methods.
- Arzooo Pro Finance aims to promote financial inclusion by reaching out to new-to-credit shoppers, offering them better financial access to level up their lifestyles.
Empowering retailers: Arzooo, which offers over 20,000 products to Indian retailers and has partnered with 50,000 stores, is now aiming to empower the high-value retail sector. Their new service focuses on improving consumer durable financing and payments.
- The checkout solution will provide multiple payment options like credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and UPI, and even offer instant consumer finance to shoppers new to credit.
👩🏻💻 Breakthrough flexible semiconductor material
IISc researchers’ new findings can add flexibility to printed displays.
Breakthrough: Scientists from the Department of Materials Engineering (DME) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a flexible composite semiconductor material with uses in curved displays, foldable phones, and wearable electronics. They have secured a patent for the material.
- In their study published in Advanced Materials Technologies, the researchers found a way to create a composite with up to 40% polymer content using inkjet printing.
- Led by Subho Dasgupta, the team successfully deposited the material on flexible substrates like plastics and paper.
Better alternative: According to Dasgupta, these affordable and easily manufacturable printed semiconductors have immense potential. They can be utilised in creating fully printed and flexible television screens and large electronic billboards.
- In fact, it could be a superior alternative to conventional, non-flexible transistors currently used in the display industry.
👩🏻💼 Expanding coworking spaces
Enzyme Office Spaces will offer over 2,000 seats in its new office space in Whitefield.
Story so far: Leading coworking spaces chain Enzyme Office Spaces, a Bengaluru-based startup, has leased 1 lakh square feet of office space in Whitefield. The workspace will have more than 2,000 seats with state-of-the-art infrastructure to cater to the demand for managed, plug-and-play workspaces in Bengaluru.
- Co-founder and CEO Ashish Agarwal said the spaces are designed to provide crucial support to emerging startups in fields like fintech, artificial intelligence, cyber security, data science, and SAAS.
- By offering economical infrastructural solutions, the company wants to enable these startups to focus on their core business and thrive in their respective industries.
New additions: Enzyme Office Spaces has plans to expand its reach in Bengaluru. By November 2023, they will introduce two new managed workspaces in SJR I Park and Rathi Legacy, covering an area of 60,000 square feet and 40,000 square feet, respectively. It will bring the total number of seats in Bengaluru to over 27,000.
📊 Today’s Poll
(Only subscribers can participate in the polls)
Do you like poetry or prose?
- I prefer poetry.
- I prefer prose.
❓ Today’s Question
(Only subscribers can submit their answers)
What’s your usual place for a coffee run?
Reply to this email with your answers.
🗞️ In other news…
- The revamped VV Puram food street is set for an August 15 opening.
- Wipro will invest $1 billion in 3 years to advance its AI capabilities.
- Aircraft makes emergency landing at HAL airport after a technical glitch.
- CM Siddaramaiah and other Congress leaders staged a silent protest at Freedom Park.
- Here’s a piece about the ‘Bengaluru State of Mind’.
🛋️ Local Lounge
Yesterday’s Poll:
- Splitting the BBMP is a good idea: 80.0% 🏆
- Splitting the BBMP is not a good idea: 20.0%
That’s it for today. Have a great day!