It's been awhile since I visited trendwatching.com, but, as always, this website is full of new ideas from around the world. This time, I found tech-fueled, mobile app ideas from the Asia Pacific that are worth imitating.
Using the LINE app in real time Burberry brought its fall fashion runway show to Japan. But brands aren't just using apps to sell things, they also use them to offer lifestyle, social issue, and financial solutions to their customers.
Directory apps are responding to the need to help app users find the categories they want amid game, shopping, travel, and a million other options. Indonesia-based Oiffel, Shopious, and Kleora are among the providers of directories that assist consumers by compiling lists of online shops. For businesses that use its iPads, Apple is bundling apps for specific industries. GottaGo in India provides a very useful list of nearby, clean restrooms. Other apps locate parking spaces.
Governments are discovering new ways to use mobile apps to assist citizens. The Delhi Police Department receives complaints about police officers seeking bribes and harassing citizens in India on WhatsApp. Partnered with the Shanghai government, the WeChat City Service app enables smartphone users to locate hospitals, make medical appointments, find visa services, check driving records, and browse library books.
Rural areas in BOP countries at the socalled Bottom of the (Smart) Pyramid have apps to locate rickshaws and the best fishing areas. All in all, more than half of the world's smart phones are in the Asia Pacific.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Warning to Students: Don't Cheat
Children who are motivated to cheat by copying another student's work, paying someone to write their papers, or hiring another student to take a standardized test for them could learn a few lessons from those who have avoided corruption or engaged in it around the world.
Even if the current business culture in a country sanctions corruption, the honesty espoused by Bulent Celebi's AirTies firm in Turkey offers a promising example. When Celebi established his WiFi company, which does not rely on phone lines or fiber optic cables to transmit data, he had six founding values. Besides customer satisfaction and engaged employees, he stated AirTies would be ethical. Therefore, he did not rely on bribes but, according to Elmira Bayrasli's book, From the Other Side of the World, he launched his business by working through the laborious process of dealing with Turkey's bureaucracy and paperwork. Shortcuts, he felt, would start AirTies off in the wrong direction.
While on a visit to Nairobi, Kenya, in November, 2015, Pope Francis told a cheering crowd that corruption was easy and sweet but in the end it makes politics, even in the Vatican, and a country sick. He urged the crowd to keep corruption out of its lives, because corruption takes away joy and robs people of peace in their lives.
Major European auto and truck maker, VW, will pay at least $15 billion for developing a cheating way to pass emissions tests.
As a result of bribing doctors and hospitals by giving them kickbacks, the Japanese-based manufacturer, Olympus, paid a $646 million fine.
By pretending subprime mortgages were sound, Goldman Sachs, one of the US firms that helped bring on the 2008 recession, is expected to pay about $5 billion to resolve state and federal investigations.
In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff and House Speaker Eduardo Cunha have been implicated in a corruption scandal involving construction firms that paid bribes to Petrobras, the state energy firm. Marcelo Odebrecht, former head of Brazil's giant construction company, designed the scheme that paid kickbacks to win contracts from senior Petrobras officials and that funded political campaigns. In March, 2016, Odebrecht was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Although Rousseff thus far has been found blameless in the Petrobras scandal, the charge of her involvement has led to a call for her impeachment and hurt the country's economy by stopping building and energy projects. Petrobras has had to stop paying dividends, and the company has cut $32 billion from its 5-year $130 billion investment plan. Now that the Federal Accounts Court has ruled that Rousseff's administration used illegal accounting practices, the prospect of impeachment is even greater. Eventually, Rousseff was out, but in June, 2017, new President Michel Temer was charged with taking $11.5 million in bribes for helping a meatpacker who had tax and loan problems.
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, Iceland's Prime Minister, was the first victim of a leak of papers from the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. In April, 2016, he stepped down, when it was disclosed that he and his wife owned an undeclared off shore account where he concealed millions of dollars from taxes. The papers reveal Mossack Fonseca also has formed off shore shell companies to help other clients launder money, dodge sanctions, and evade taxes.
Nigerian authorities fined the South African-based MTN multinational mobile telecommunications company $5.2 billion, later reduced to $3.4 billion. Of MTN's 62 million subscribers, the company failed to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered, and therefore unidentified, Sim card accounts. Kidnappers had used an unregistered Sim card from MTN to demand a ransom for Nigeria's former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae.
A November, 2015 report from the World Anti Doping Agency alleging State-sponsored doping of Russia's Olympic athletes could result in banning the country from competing in 2016's Summer Olympics. And the head of the agency that selects the countries that hold World Cup soccer matches had to resign, when winning host countries were found to have bribed their way into the honor.
In Indonesia, the government's failure to keep an up-to-date land registry results in an inability to assign blame for the devastating forest fires on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo that also have spread a thick haze of smoke to Malaysia, Singapore, and southern Thailand. All together, the smoke has caused an estimated 500,000 respiratory tract infections, and 100,000 premature deaths are a possibility. Fires are set by cheap slash and burn methods used to clear for new planting by both small scale farmers and corporate palm oil, timber (used for paper), and other agricultural corporations. Standards for the hiring and working conditions of migrant labor in the palm oil industry have failed to remedy abuses. When an investigation by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil found the Malaysian palm oil company, IOI, failed to correct deforestation violations in its concessions, Unilever and 9 other major companies cancelled their contracts with IOI.
You can read about charges of corruption Russia faces in the earlier blog post, "Hearing Voices." And Communist Party officials throughout China have been severely punished as reported in the earlier blog post, "China's Corruption Crackdown, New Bank Backing, and Release of PR Activists."
Even if the current business culture in a country sanctions corruption, the honesty espoused by Bulent Celebi's AirTies firm in Turkey offers a promising example. When Celebi established his WiFi company, which does not rely on phone lines or fiber optic cables to transmit data, he had six founding values. Besides customer satisfaction and engaged employees, he stated AirTies would be ethical. Therefore, he did not rely on bribes but, according to Elmira Bayrasli's book, From the Other Side of the World, he launched his business by working through the laborious process of dealing with Turkey's bureaucracy and paperwork. Shortcuts, he felt, would start AirTies off in the wrong direction.
While on a visit to Nairobi, Kenya, in November, 2015, Pope Francis told a cheering crowd that corruption was easy and sweet but in the end it makes politics, even in the Vatican, and a country sick. He urged the crowd to keep corruption out of its lives, because corruption takes away joy and robs people of peace in their lives.
Major European auto and truck maker, VW, will pay at least $15 billion for developing a cheating way to pass emissions tests.
As a result of bribing doctors and hospitals by giving them kickbacks, the Japanese-based manufacturer, Olympus, paid a $646 million fine.
By pretending subprime mortgages were sound, Goldman Sachs, one of the US firms that helped bring on the 2008 recession, is expected to pay about $5 billion to resolve state and federal investigations.
In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff and House Speaker Eduardo Cunha have been implicated in a corruption scandal involving construction firms that paid bribes to Petrobras, the state energy firm. Marcelo Odebrecht, former head of Brazil's giant construction company, designed the scheme that paid kickbacks to win contracts from senior Petrobras officials and that funded political campaigns. In March, 2016, Odebrecht was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Although Rousseff thus far has been found blameless in the Petrobras scandal, the charge of her involvement has led to a call for her impeachment and hurt the country's economy by stopping building and energy projects. Petrobras has had to stop paying dividends, and the company has cut $32 billion from its 5-year $130 billion investment plan. Now that the Federal Accounts Court has ruled that Rousseff's administration used illegal accounting practices, the prospect of impeachment is even greater. Eventually, Rousseff was out, but in June, 2017, new President Michel Temer was charged with taking $11.5 million in bribes for helping a meatpacker who had tax and loan problems.
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, Iceland's Prime Minister, was the first victim of a leak of papers from the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. In April, 2016, he stepped down, when it was disclosed that he and his wife owned an undeclared off shore account where he concealed millions of dollars from taxes. The papers reveal Mossack Fonseca also has formed off shore shell companies to help other clients launder money, dodge sanctions, and evade taxes.
Nigerian authorities fined the South African-based MTN multinational mobile telecommunications company $5.2 billion, later reduced to $3.4 billion. Of MTN's 62 million subscribers, the company failed to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered, and therefore unidentified, Sim card accounts. Kidnappers had used an unregistered Sim card from MTN to demand a ransom for Nigeria's former finance minister, Chief Olu Falae.
A November, 2015 report from the World Anti Doping Agency alleging State-sponsored doping of Russia's Olympic athletes could result in banning the country from competing in 2016's Summer Olympics. And the head of the agency that selects the countries that hold World Cup soccer matches had to resign, when winning host countries were found to have bribed their way into the honor.
In Indonesia, the government's failure to keep an up-to-date land registry results in an inability to assign blame for the devastating forest fires on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo that also have spread a thick haze of smoke to Malaysia, Singapore, and southern Thailand. All together, the smoke has caused an estimated 500,000 respiratory tract infections, and 100,000 premature deaths are a possibility. Fires are set by cheap slash and burn methods used to clear for new planting by both small scale farmers and corporate palm oil, timber (used for paper), and other agricultural corporations. Standards for the hiring and working conditions of migrant labor in the palm oil industry have failed to remedy abuses. When an investigation by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil found the Malaysian palm oil company, IOI, failed to correct deforestation violations in its concessions, Unilever and 9 other major companies cancelled their contracts with IOI.
You can read about charges of corruption Russia faces in the earlier blog post, "Hearing Voices." And Communist Party officials throughout China have been severely punished as reported in the earlier blog post, "China's Corruption Crackdown, New Bank Backing, and Release of PR Activists."
Look Beyond Africa's Current Woes
Falling commodity prices and a terrorist attack in Tunisia haven't prevented the private equity Abraaj Group's institutional investors, pension funds, and development finance institutions from making a total $1.37 billion investment, mainly in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.Arif Naqvi, Abraaj's founder, sees middle class consumption doubling in the region between 2014 and 2024. Consequently, what the fund looks for is well-managed, mid-market businesses where the fund can influence strategy and growth in fields that benefit from the growing middle class. These fields include: healthcare, education, consumer goods and services, business services, materials, and logistics.
Remember when Lucy in the "Peanuts" cartoon said what she wanted as a gift was real estate. Grandparents might look beyond the latest toys and video games advertised on TV and give their grandchildren a stake in a fund with emerging market investments. It won't be a favorite gift now, but when the high costs of college and grad school come around, kids (and their parents) will be very grateful.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Books with International Themes for Boys (and Girls)
PBS.org/parents/best-books-for-boys/ just posted a very useful resource: a reading list for young, middle school, and advanced readers. It picks up on ideas in my earlier posts: "How Do You Get Boys to Read (about the World?)" and "Word Games Lead to Reading Fun."
Books from the PBS list that have international themes are listed below:
Books from the PBS list that have international themes are listed below:
- Arroz Con Leche: Songs and Rhymes from Latin America by Lulu Delacre
- Tu Mama es una Lama? by Deborah Guarino
- Pierre: a cautionary tale about a hungry lion by Maurice Sendak
- Storms and Volcanoes, 2 books by Seymour Simon
- It's Disgusting and We Ate It: True Food Facts from Around the World by James Solheim
- Slinky, Scaly Snakes (from around the world) by Jennifer A. Dussling
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Time to Revisit China's and the World's Foreign Currency Exchange Rates
Watching how a change in the amount one country's currency, such as a US dollar, can buy of another country's currency, such as Chinese yuan, illustrates globalization at work. Currency exchange rates certainly demonstrate how countries are interconnected.
What brings this subject to mind (after it was addressed in the earlier post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market") is today's Chinese devaluation of its currency by about 2% against the US dollar. Based on information in the earlier post, kids who have an interest in finance might conclude China was attempting to reduce the price of its exports in order to compete with lower priced goods from other countries. China's imports of luxury goods and electronics from the US would cost more, and US tourists in China would get more for their money.
In the past, China selected a midpoint currency conversion rate that fluctuated between 2% above or below the US dollar. As a result of China's first devaluation, the US dollar could buy 6.22 yuan compared to 6.11 the day before. The next day the value of the yuan dropped a little over 4%, but that is nothing like the 20% to 40% devaluation that would be needed to compete with much lower priced competitors like Vietnam or Burma. Although China did not want to risk losing investment capital that would exit a country whose currency has this kind of weak buying power, subsequent devaluations have caused capital to flee.
The truth is, demand is weak within China, as shown by Alibaba's slowed quarterly growth. China's $50 billion canal project in Nicaragua has been put on hold until 2016. While no reason was given, the stock market dip has caused the fortune of Wang Jing, CEO of the HKND Group funding the canal, to fall from $10.2 billion to $1.1 billion. Yet, in December, 2015, President Xi Jinping announced China would be giving Africa emergency food and $60 billion in grants and loans.
Weak demand throughout the world is hurting all exporters, including South Korea and Taiwan. Countries that depend on their commodity exports to China are especially hard hit as reported in the later post entry, "Falling Commodity Prices Spur Diversification in Emerging Markets." A 2% currency devaluation and even a 20% devaluation will not cure sluggish worldwide industrial and consumer demand.
What brings this subject to mind (after it was addressed in the earlier post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market") is today's Chinese devaluation of its currency by about 2% against the US dollar. Based on information in the earlier post, kids who have an interest in finance might conclude China was attempting to reduce the price of its exports in order to compete with lower priced goods from other countries. China's imports of luxury goods and electronics from the US would cost more, and US tourists in China would get more for their money.
In the past, China selected a midpoint currency conversion rate that fluctuated between 2% above or below the US dollar. As a result of China's first devaluation, the US dollar could buy 6.22 yuan compared to 6.11 the day before. The next day the value of the yuan dropped a little over 4%, but that is nothing like the 20% to 40% devaluation that would be needed to compete with much lower priced competitors like Vietnam or Burma. Although China did not want to risk losing investment capital that would exit a country whose currency has this kind of weak buying power, subsequent devaluations have caused capital to flee.
The truth is, demand is weak within China, as shown by Alibaba's slowed quarterly growth. China's $50 billion canal project in Nicaragua has been put on hold until 2016. While no reason was given, the stock market dip has caused the fortune of Wang Jing, CEO of the HKND Group funding the canal, to fall from $10.2 billion to $1.1 billion. Yet, in December, 2015, President Xi Jinping announced China would be giving Africa emergency food and $60 billion in grants and loans.
Weak demand throughout the world is hurting all exporters, including South Korea and Taiwan. Countries that depend on their commodity exports to China are especially hard hit as reported in the later post entry, "Falling Commodity Prices Spur Diversification in Emerging Markets." A 2% currency devaluation and even a 20% devaluation will not cure sluggish worldwide industrial and consumer demand.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Girls of All Sizes and Cultural Backgrounds Can Be Smart
Kids always have loved playing with dolls, but the dolls have changed from country to country and throughout the years. Today, four dolls from MGA Entertainment have different cultural backgrounds, but they all are smart. Each doll comes with an experiment kit that can create a working volcano, lava light, glow stick necklace, or blueprint for a skateboard using ingredients kids have in their homes.These new dolls are sold at Walmart, Toys "R" Us, Amazon, Kmart, and Joann Fabrics and Crafts. A Netflix Original series, titled Project MC2, features four girls, inspired by the dolls, who join a top secret spy organization.
For other examples of girls doing great things, see the earlier posts, "Break into a Happy Dance" and "Girl Power?"
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Games Techies Play
LEGOs, videogames, robots, and drones blur the line between play and war. Consider the 45 foot by 44 foot Star Wars X-wing fighters built from LEGOs (See the documentary film "A LEGO Brickumentary."), the "Battlezone" videogame that the U.S. Army has used as a simulator to train tank operators, wars between "BattleBots" on TV, and drone races in soccer fields on Saturday afternoons.
With theatrical lighting, announcer commentary, and brackets worthy of college basketball's "March Madness" in the U.S., home made "BattleBots" fight robot wars on television. Some "BattleBots" are works of art, but other determined teams only create spinning, crushing, jabbing, remote-controlled machines in order to destroy their opponents.
To navigate the cones and pylons that mark a drone race course, pilots wear first-person-view (FPV) video goggles, rely on a live camera feed, and use joy sticks that control the pitch, roll, yaw, and throttle of their tricky-to-fly, remote controlled quadcopters (four-propeller drones). A segment on the TODAY show June 1, 2016 claimed drone competitions are going to be the next big thing. Find out more at droneworlds.com and dronenationals.com.
Where can techies learn to be "playful?" Try the maker spaces mentioned in the earlier blog posts, "I Made This Myself" and "Robots for Good."
With theatrical lighting, announcer commentary, and brackets worthy of college basketball's "March Madness" in the U.S., home made "BattleBots" fight robot wars on television. Some "BattleBots" are works of art, but other determined teams only create spinning, crushing, jabbing, remote-controlled machines in order to destroy their opponents.
To navigate the cones and pylons that mark a drone race course, pilots wear first-person-view (FPV) video goggles, rely on a live camera feed, and use joy sticks that control the pitch, roll, yaw, and throttle of their tricky-to-fly, remote controlled quadcopters (four-propeller drones). A segment on the TODAY show June 1, 2016 claimed drone competitions are going to be the next big thing. Find out more at droneworlds.com and dronenationals.com.
Where can techies learn to be "playful?" Try the maker spaces mentioned in the earlier blog posts, "I Made This Myself" and "Robots for Good."
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