Digital
Weekend Unwind with: Vavo Digital founder & CEO Neha Puri
Mumbai: With another weekend upon us, it is time to unwind with the latest Q&A edition of Indiantelevision.com’s Weekend Unwind—a series of informal chats that peek into the minds of business executives through a fun lens in an attempt to get to know the person behind the title a little better.
In this week’s session, we have Vavo Digital founder & CEO Neha Puri.
A multi-start-up founder and visionary, Puri has a legacy of developing solutions to problems that are a result of distress and unforeseen situations. Her journey before establishing the dynamic influencer marketing space – Vavo Digital, was that of an individual full of visionary zeal and talent. She started her entrepreneurial journey at the age of 24 with her food delivery platform, Cyber Chef, which was later sold off, after two years of operations.
In a quest to explore the world of marketing and operations, Puri then worked with Movenpick Ice Cream India as the head of franchise and business development. She played an instrumental role in opening eight Movenpick stores across India in six months. She has never stopped experimenting and infusing her ideas into reality, which was the reason that she formed another new venture—a gourmet gifting business for tier I and tier II cities. This started as a need of the market, for people with high disposable incomes but not many options available in the market.
Post this, when in 2020 the pandemic hit the globe and everything moved drastically digital, Puri took it as an opportunity and started the digital influencer-marketing hub, Vavo Digital.
Talking about her educational background, she is an international baccalaureate from Ecole Mondiale World School and has completed her bachelor’s in business administration (BBA) from Lancaster University (in affiliation with GD Goenka). She also holds a master’s degree in MSc marketing and strategy from Warwick Business School.
It is her vision to develop Vavo Digital as a 360-degree influencer marketing agency – covering major platforms, regional platforms, meme marketing, designing, developing AR filters, and all the other aspects that can be amplified with the help of influencers.
Owing to her growing interest in the digital space, Puri spends a lot of her idle time on social media, including LinkedIn and Instagram, exploring the space for better understanding and analysis. Through LinkedIn, she has built several strong connections with relevant business professionals. Puri has also organically grown her profile on LinkedIn and has over 95k followers.
She also likes to listen to music and watch documentaries on the OTT platform. Apart from these hobbies, cooking remains her favourite and she takes it as a fruitful disconnection from work. Puri is all set to explore the space of social media and envisions working forever on the possibilities of making the marketing space more dynamic and at par with the current technological developments.
So, without further ado, here it goes…
Your mantra for life
Eat the frog first thing in the morning. There is a quote by Mark Twain: “Where the frog represents items on my to-do list that I dread working on, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
A book you are currently reading/plan to read
“Atomic Habits” by James Clear: Your habits play a massive role in your success. This book will help you build good habits and break bad ones.
Your fitness mantra, especially during the pandemic
Walking/jogging are my go-to fitness routines. I remember meeting a 90-year-old man at a park once who told me he began jogging at the age of 60 because he realised he wasn’t doing much justice to himself and that walking/jogging was one activity that made him feel fresh and did not require any form of dependency. It really inspired me.
Your comfort food
Soya sticks with hummus! (a must try).
When the chips are down, a quote/philosophy that keeps you going
A lot of people might be going through things worse than what you feel at that moment, so thank God for things that could have been worse and work towards fixing them rather than being angry or frustrated for being in that situation.
Your guilty pleasure
Binge watching Turkish dramas.
A life lesson you learnt the hard way
You are in control of your own heaven or hell.
What gets you excited about life?
The endless possibilities of travel and exploring the world.
What’s on top of your bucket list?
Skydiving
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
You can never know it all. When people speak, it is best to listen to them because they talk about their experiences. Do what you want, but calmly listen to what others have to say.
One thing you would most like to change about the world
A lack of empathy.
An activity that keeps you motivated/charged during tough times
My colleagues always say, “We are in this together; you don’t have to deal with problems alone.”
What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?
Sitting with my best friend/business partner, it is just the sheer comfort of having someone you can get through things with.
Your go-to stress buster
Lying next to my pet.
Digital
Bartronics India unveils AI-powered voice app to scale agritech platform
HYDERABAD: Bartronics India Limited is stepping up its agritech ambitions with plans to launch a voice-first, multilingual AI-powered application in March, following a successful pilot across Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
The pilot phase saw strong engagement from farmers, supported by assured produce off-take through partnerships with SNN and Origo Commodities. Drawing on on-ground feedback, the company is now upgrading the platform to enable deeper interaction, data-driven intelligence and scalable adoption across rural markets.
At the heart of the revamp is AI-enabled voice interaction in major regional languages, including English, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Kannada. The voice recognition and conversational agent framework is being developed by Ampivo Smart Technologies, aimed at transforming the app into an intuitive digital assistant for farmers.
Once launched, the platform will offer voice navigation, real-time alerts, contextual advisories, educational tools and interactive knowledge support, designed to improve decision-making across the agricultural value chain.
The application will also capture consent-led farmer data to connect users with electronic mandis and wider marketplaces, while enabling participation in sustainability-linked initiatives such as carbon credit programmes.
Bartronics India managing director Vidhya Sagar Reddy, said the voice-first approach reflects how rural communities naturally engage with technology and forms the foundation of a broader rural intelligence layer under Project Avio Agritech. The company aims to onboard 20 million farmers over the next three years.
Bartronics India currently operates across nearly 5,000 villages, delivering last-mile banking and digital financial services, and is expanding into integrated agritech and agri-trade solutions through its Project Avio platform.
Digital
Messi magic kicks off in India as immersive football experience lands
MUMBAI: When football dreams need a passport, Lionel Messi is ready to stamp it. The Messi Experience – A Dream Come True, the internationally touring immersive exhibition dedicated to one of sport’s most influential figures, is heading to India this March as part of its 2026 world tour. After successful runs across Buenos Aires, Puerto Rico, Panama, Beijing, Chicago, Mexico City, Miami, Los Angeles and São Paulo, the exhibition will make its India debut in Mumbai on March 20, 2026, before moving to Bengaluru from June 19, 2026. The shows will be staged at Century Mills in Lower Parel, Mumbai, and Bhartiya City Mall in Bengaluru.
Produced and promoted by Bookmyshow Live, the experience promises to pull fans inside Messi’s journey, not just his match highlights. “I am thrilled to see this project come to life and bring fans even closer to me both on and off the field,” Messi said, adding that the exhibition would allow Indian fans to relive the most unforgettable moments of his career.
Designed as a 75-minute, multi-sensory walkthrough, the exhibition unfolds across nine themed zones, blending artificial intelligence, immersive environments and exclusive content. Visitors can train like Messi, step into recreated match moments and explore personal stories that shaped his rise from his early days in Rosario to lifting the World Cup trophy in Qatar.
Bookmyshow chief business officer for live events Naman Pugalia said the India debut marks a milestone for football fandom in the country. He described Messi as a global cultural icon whose story transcends sport, adding that the exhibition reflects the company’s ambition to bring world-class immersive entertainment to Indian audiences.
Beyond the storytelling, the experience also features an official merchandise store and an activation zone, extending engagement beyond the exhibition halls. Whether for lifelong fans or first-time followers, The Messi Experience aims to turn football history into a walk-in memory, one that lets India play along with a living legend.
Digital
Work stress tops India’s mental health talk, not heartbreak or headlines
MUMBAI: When India opens up about mental health, the conversation keeps clocking in at work. A new conversation analysis by Consuma, an AI-native consumer insights platform, shows that workplace pressures are the most frequently discussed trigger in online conversations around mental health awareness in India. The study analysed 136,695 public conversations across Twitter, Reddit, Youtube and Instagram between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Within a focused subset of 20,272 conversations that explicitly discussed what triggers mental health awareness, nearly half 49.72 per cent pointed to work-related stressors, making employment the single largest trigger category online.
The findings echo concerns flagged at the policy level. India’s Economic Survey 2024–25 has already warned that hostile work environments and long working hours can hurt mental wellbeing and productivity. Online conversations suggest employees are feeling the strain long before policy catches up.
Among work-related triggers, poor work–life balance dominates the discussion at 24.37 per cent, followed by general workplace stress at 21.85 per cent and toxic work culture at 15.90 per cent. Long working hours account for 9.57 per cent of mentions, while job insecurity features in 7.50 per cent.
The numbers are backed by sharp, candid commentary. One user writes, “Most Indian employers overcomplicate employee wellness. Let people work async. Let them go for a run in the afternoon. Let them sleep in when their body needs it.”
Consuma notes that these findings apply only to conversations that explicitly discuss triggers for mental health awareness, not the entire universe of mental health discussions online.
The data shows that mental health discourse in India is overwhelmingly driven by adults in their prime working years. People aged 25–34 contribute 50.51 per cent of conversations, while those aged 35–44 account for 34.35 per cent. Together, they represent 84.86 per cent of the discussion.
Work stress, however, is not acting alone. Societal and educational pressures make up 33.98 per cent of trigger conversations, including societal expectations (14.42 per cent), academic pressure (13.92 per cent) and parental pressure (6.09 per cent). One widely echoed sentiment reads, “Indian parents will raise you with a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and shame in your soul.”
Taken together, the data points to a compounding “pressure stack” faced by working-age Indians balancing career demands alongside cultural expectations, education-linked anxiety and family pressure, all while chasing conventional life milestones.
Interestingly, the conversation is not limited to venting. Of the 26,311 conversations analysed for broader mental health themes, discussion is almost evenly split between core challenges (48.05 per cent) and solutions or support systems (43.81 per cent).
Mental health crises dominate the challenge cluster at 32.58 per cent, followed by stigma and lack of awareness at 20.27 per cent. On the solutions side, people lean towards culturally familiar, self-directed approaches rather than institutional pathways. Holistic practices such as music therapy and spiritual wisdom account for 17.34 per cent, practical stress management for 13.72 per cent, celebrity-led awareness for 7.64 per cent and government initiatives for 6.51 per cent.
The shift suggests that people are not only asking “what’s wrong?” but increasingly “what can I do?”even if the answers remain personal and decentralised.
Consuma’s analysis also zooms in on women’s health conversations, where mental wellbeing outweighs physical health topics. Among 1,934 women’s health conversations analysed, mental health accounts for 51.14 per cent, surpassing reproductive and gynaecological health at 37.07 per cent.
Younger adults dominate this space, with 18–44-year-olds contributing over 81 per cent of the discussion. In women’s health awareness triggers (3,489 conversations), societal factors lead at 45.2 per cent, closely followed by mental health drivers at 41.7 per cent.
Healthcare-related challenges appear less frequently at 7.4 per cent, but the tone is striking. Misdiagnosis and medical gaslighting recur as trust-breaking themes. One user notes: “Going to doctors is useless in India as a woman. First, they tell you to lose weight… Then they tell you that you are imagining it or that you are sensitive.”
The report was generated using Consuma’s AI-powered Rapid Research Platform. The dataset was cleaned for noise and duplicates and classified using a multi-coding methodology. Source-wise, the conversations came from Youtube (77,544), Twitter (41,121), Reddit (9,283) and Instagram (8,747).
In a digital space often crowded with noise, the findings paint a consistent picture, for India’s online audience, mental health conversations begin not in therapy rooms or hospitals, but at the workplace and the clock is still ticking.
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