Entrepreneurship

Kenya: Are Bitcoins the Future of Mobile Money?

"Ever since Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile-network operator, launched the mobile-payment system M-Pesa in 2007, some two-thirds of Kenya's adult population have subscribed, and an astonishing 31% of the country's GDP is now spent through mobile phones. Kenya has been at the forefront of popular technological innovation for the past 5 years, and now there are indications that the country could usher in a new era of mobile banking. On 1 July, a company called Kipochi launched a new 'digital wallet' service that allows Kenyans to not only send and receive money domestically but, using the online peer-to-peer currency Bitcoins, transfer it internationally." Continue reading →

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Tech-savvy Vietnamese coffee farmers brew global takeover

"From high-tech Israeli irrigation systems to text message updates of global prices for the commodity, coffee farming in Vietnam’s Central Highlands has come a long way since the French first introduced the bean over a century ago. By texting 'CA' to the number 8288 from any Vietnamese mobile phone, farmers almost instantly receive a message with the London prices of Robusta coffee beans and the New York price of Arabica beans. In 20 years, Vietnam went from contributing less than 0.1 per cent of world production in 1980 to some 13 per cent in 2000 – staggering growth that has been partially blamed for the collapse of global coffee prices in the 1990s. There is no tax on coffee exports." Continue reading →

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Petting & Walking With Cheetahs in Africa at Mukuni Big 5 Safaris

"When I first arrived in Zambia and a visit to the Devil’s Pool was unavailable, I immediately wanted to find out about interacting with cheetahs. The well mannered management at JollyBoys Backpackers Lodge in Zambia prompted a visit to the Mukuni Big 5 Safari Park. It wasn’t just walking with a cheetah they offer. It was also walking with lions and elephants as well. The company is on a mission to actively support the dying cheetah population. They have announced a captive breeding program to ensure that the population of cheetahs in the wild continues to grow. After raising the cubs they are released into the wild." Continue reading →

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Watch out, startup communities: The Congressmen are coming

"The tech industry and startup world are only just waking up to the need to maintain an ongoing dialogue with Congress, while the political class is starting to realize that innovation and entrepreneurship are vital pieces in the nation’s economic puzzle. In the weeks ahead, however, the gap between the two worlds will shrink just a little as Congressmen fan out across the country to visit startup communities in their home districts. Starting today and proceeding throughout September, 44 members of Congress will be meeting with startups in their home districts from Tennessee to Ohio as part of Startup Day Across America." Continue reading →

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Start-Ups Fill Void Left by Spain’s 26% Unemployment Rate

"Figures from the INE statistics office show that 53 percent of Spanish companies have no employees, as many can’t afford to hire full-time workers. That portion reached 55 percent last year. The total number of businesses declined for a fifth year in 2012, falling to the lowest level since 2005, the INE said in a statement this month. The proportion of those people losing their jobs who decide to start a business has risen to 15 percent, more than three times the historical rate, said Carmen Sebrango, Randstad’s outplacement director in Spain." Continue reading →

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Coinsetter CEO’s Message to Banks: You Will Soon Love Bitcoin

"Put yourself into a world in which banks charge $20 to $50 to manage an international wire transfer, but hardly make a profit on it. Conceptualize a world in which banks delay domestic ACH transfers up to three days, in a large part to reduce fraud risk. Imagine a world in which taking on just one new customer necessitates the hiring of another employee. If you’re a commercial bank, these problems are likely all too familiar. Your costs are continuously rising, but your clearing and compliance infrastructure hasn’t changed. Well I have some good news for you: Bitcoin is going to lower your network and compliance costs by 90%, and I guarantee you will be using it within ten years or less." Continue reading →

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So you want to invent your own currency

"Our ability to exchange without knowing where things come from blinds us to the real core of the economy: not money, but the physical things we must wrench from the ground by human effort, which is underpinned by agricultural systems, and energised by sunlight, water and soil. The more we abstract and fetishise money as a thing in itself, the more we lose sight of its sources and its goals. We get confused, and feel disempowered relative to those who wield larger flows of it. Sealed off from inquiry in its hermetic shell, money distorts our perceptions of one another. We can’t seem to remember that it is merely one means of exchange among many." Continue reading →

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Rentalutions enables US residents to pay rent in bitcoins

"A company in the US is now enabling tenants to pay their rent in bitcoins, which has the potential to significantly increase the currency’s use. Rentalutions was co-founded in Chicago by Ryan Coon as an online property management platform to help landlords vet potential tenants and look after their properties, plus enable tenants to pay their rent and request maintenance work. Landlords signed up with the company have to pay between $5 and $150 per month depending on the level of services they want to receive. Currently, there is no option for landlords to pay these monthly fees in bitcoins, but Coon said he hopes to set this feature up in the near future." Continue reading →

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Why bitcoin has a firm foothold in the online gambling world

"What’s interesting in bitcoin-based gambling sites is how many of them are possibly more transparent than traditional casinos or other online sites. That’s because with the block chain being a public ledger, all that an inquisitive gambler would need to do is follow the transactions from a site’s bitcoin address. It’s no wonder, then, that sites like SatoshiDice show the latest plays being transacted on the site and claim to be 'provably trustworthy'. In addition, some sites even publish how they implement their random number generator. BitSaloon, for example, defines itself as a 'provably fair casino' meaning that the site operators cannot modify the outcome of any particular game." Continue reading →

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Freedom and Servitude: Could You Have Answered This Question?

"For this man, following rules that others set made sense – it’s a safe position. But once there, he’ll never really grow again, and he will be cut off from a lifetime of discovery and satisfaction. What’s bad about servitude is that it prevents us from living. To one extent or another, we’ve all let our love of life dim and have taken ‘safe’ positions. We live in a tough world after all. The good news, however, is that we can regain what we’ve lost merely by changing our minds. To repair ourselves requires that we think about these things – to notice when we begin playing a role, to act on curiosity when we feel it, to stop defending our previous choices, to expect surprises and opportunities." Continue reading →

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