The healthtech startup uses AI, WhatsApp, and gentle nudges to help people stay accountable about fitness.

"Hooly understands who you are as a person: your goals, how busy your schedule is, and your current physical condition. Based on this, it formulates what kind of exercise you need to do to reach your health goal," says Varun Francis, Co-founder, Hooly.

Hooly Cow!

Speaking of innovative startups, Accel and Google are backing five early-stage startups for the 2026 Atoms AI Cohort. Each startup will receive up to $2 million in funding along with cloud compute credits. The cohort spans scientific discovery, enterprise software, voice automation, and manufacturing.

Global tech companies and venture investors are certainly interested in India's AI ecosystem, which is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.

Meanwhile, a chatbot is helping families in Odisha keep in touch during emergencies, especially when people migrate out of the state to find work. Bandhu, the WhatsApp chatbot rolled out by nonprofit organisation Gram Vikas, has so far covered 620 villages in Odisha, The Guardian reports.

Lastly, English remains the de facto language of the internet, commanding a 45% share of the global URLs.

In today's newsletter, we will talk about

• What Soha Ali Khan tells women
• How Hexaware is making GCCs AI ready

Here's your trivia for today: Which comic book company was founded as Timely Publications?

Inspiration

"To be original requires some kind of inner strength and fortitude, because I grew up in an era where there was no social media. I feel today's world is even more challenging because there is a lot of pressure to conform. In the desire to do that, sometimes we dull our own inner shine. And it takes a lot of courage and fortitude to be able to say that's not me, and this is who I am," said actor and author Soha Ali Khan.

Khan was speaking with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, at SheSparks 2026, the platform's flagship event for women, held recently at IIT-Delhi.

Key takeaways:

• Soha Ali Khan spoke about authenticity, ageism, the invisible labour of womanhood, and why every woman needs to be her own fortress. "Ideally, you should be your own fortress. You need to be your own rescue," she said.
• "There's a huge invisible load a lot of women still carry. It's not to say that men are not present as parents, but I feel it is impartial to women and the work that we do," she says. She is careful not to paint this as a case of victimhood.
• Her visual memory of her childhood is of her mother going to work. Her father stayed home. She had to ask him for permission on evenings when Sharmila Tagore was at a shoot. She grew up understanding that a working mother was a mother with dreams-not an absent one.

Enterprise

How Hexaware is making GCCs AI ready

Indian technology services company Hexaware Technologies sees an opportunity for itself in the global capability centre (GCC) segment by enabling enterprises to become AI (artificial intelligence) ready.

Aditya Jayaraman, Country Head - India, Hexaware Technologies said by 2030, most of the workflows in enterprises will be run by autonomous AI agents.

Patricia Connolly, CEO, SMC Squared, a GCC specialist and part of Hexaware said, "We are building innovation centres doing transformation work across many areas of technology and business services, but it is all wrapped around the essence of having a strong culture that is very focused on the mothership and infusing that into the GCC in India."

Key takeaways:

• Connolly emphasised that Hexaware tries to understand clients' cultural traits and ensure that this is imbibed when they are setting up the GCC. "This is our basic playbook that we apply to every single company that we work with," she said.
• According to Jayaraman, the strong point of Hexaware in its engagement with GCCs is the ability to help enterprises engage with AI technologies and more importantly define a definite outcome.
• Hexaware engages with GCCs that are at different levels of maturity. It might be an enterprise which is looking at setting up their first GCC in India or a company which has already scaled its operations and is looking to bring about a technology shift.

News & updates

• Oscar winners: Here's the full list of winners at the coveted Academy Awards this year. One Battle After Another walked away with six wins, while Hamnet's Jessie Buckley and Sinners' Michael B Jordan bagged the top acting honours.
• Oil prices: Oil prices eased on ​Monday amid attacks on Gulf oil production and US President Donald Trump's call for global efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for a fifth of global oil ​and LNG supplies, Reuters reports.
• Dubai flights: Dubai's International Airport resumed a 'limited' flight schedule on Monday morning after a drone attack hit a fuel depot at the airport, which caused a fire. The strike is the fourth drone-related incident to occur at the airport since the crisis in West Asia unfolded late last month.