Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneur Works With Coke’s Distribution to Deliver Medicine to Remote African Villages

"In the 1980s, entrepreneur Simon Barry was an aid worker in remote villages in Zambia, and he became aware of how easy it was to grab a Coke nearly every place he went, but he also noticed how many basic necessities were missing. Barry got the idea to somehow use Coca-Cola's distributing success to deliver lifesaving supplies to the countries most in need. Unfortunately, the idea did not become a reality until about five years ago, with the help of Facebook and the Internet. The joint efforts resulted in a test program, called ColaLife. The program gets medical aid to Zambia using the extra space in Coke crates." Continue reading →

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Legendary Havana bar ‘Sloppy Joe’s’ reopens

"Mythic Cuban bar Sloppy Joe’s, a watering hole for a who’s who of Hollywood stars during Prohibition, reopens its doors Friday in Havana. The revived bar is in the center of old Havana, just steps away from Central Park and some of the city’s grand hotels. Founded in 1920 by Spanish immigrant Jose Garcia, Sloppy Joe’s was restored exactly the way it once stood, down to its long, black mahogany bar, which was immortalized in the 1959 British film 'Our Man in Havana' with Alec Guinness and Maureen O’Hara. In its heyday, it was frequented by Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and even Clark Gable." Continue reading →

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Security audit finds developer outsourced his 9-5 job to China to goof off at work

"The analysis of his workstation found hundreds of PDF invoices from the Chinese contractors. The scheme worked very well for Bob. In his performance assessments by the firm's human resources department, he was the firm's top coder for many quarters and was considered expert in C, C++, Perl, Java, Ruby, PHP, and Python. Further investigation found that the enterprising Bob had actually taken jobs with other firms and had outsourced that work too, netting him hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit as well as lots of time to hang around on internet messaging boards and checking for a new Detective Mittens video." Continue reading →

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How Mobile Devices Are Changing Africa

"Mobile phones are kicking off a revolution in Africa, with everyone from farmers to villagers relying on apps to make electronic payments, check on expiration dates for medicine, and predict future storms or the best prices for produce. More kids in Africa have access to the Internet than consistent electricity. Nobody owns a PC or can access a fixed-line telephone, so mobile phones are a conduit for everything from email to news to making payments via SMS. Many people on the continent also own phones equipped with flashlights and radios and the percentage of the population equipped with mobile devices is primed to explode over the next few years." Continue reading →

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Yahoo buys mobile newsreader app Summly from 17-year-old London kid for a seven-figure sum

"Yahoo! announced plans Monday to buy mobile news reader app Summly from the London teenager who invented it, likely transforming him into one of the world’s youngest self-made multimillionaires. The company did not disclose the terms of the deal it struck with 17-year-old Nick D’Aloisio, but the London Evening Standard said Yahoo! would pay between £20 million and £40 million ($30 to $60 million). The Wimbledon youth, who would become one of the world’s youngest technology millionaires, claims to have created the app as a hobby. 'I didn’t realize it was possible to make money out of it,' he was quoted as saying." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYahoo buys mobile newsreader app Summly from 17-year-old London kid for a seven-figure sum

These Startups Are Betting Everything on Bitcoin

"BitInstant is just one of several Bitcoin startups attracting funding from established venture firms and investors at a valuation in the millions. Coinsetter, a New York startup working on a foreign exchange trading platform for Bitcoins, recently raised $500,000 led by Tribeca Venture Partners and SecondMarket at a valuation that we hear is in the 'low single-digit millions.' Coinbase, a startup that provides a digital wallet for Bitcoin transactions, has raised $600,000 to date from Y Combinator, IDG Ventures and others. (Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who had a disputed role in the founding of Facebook, are also big Bitcoin investors.)" Continue reading →

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Entrepreneurs crowdsource traffic tips to help drivers out of jams in newly car-dense cities

"If you own a mobile phone and spend sunup to sundown watching the traffic pass in Ghana’s capital, then Iddrisu Mohammed wants you to be his spy. With an iPad in his hands and two phones in his pants pockets, Mohammed crisscrosses Accra on foot, looking for people to become informants for Jamless, a recently launched traffic information service that hopes to restore a little sanity to the capital’s hectic commute. 'What Jamless will do is give you the traffic situation in any part of Accra that you are and give you alternate routes to use if the place is jammed,' said Mohammed, who is the company’s informant manager." Continue reading →

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Google announces experimental superfast Internet service to be installed in Austin, Texas

"Google announced Tuesday that its experimental superfast Internet service will spread to Austin, the Texas home of a South By Southwest festival beloved by technology trendsetters. Google Fiber should start connecting its so-called gigabit Internet to homes in Austin, the Texas state capital and a hotbed for Internet entrepreneurs, by the middle of next year, said vice president of access services Milo Medin. Google Fiber debuted in Kansas City and in November began providing users there with Internet service that moves data at a blazing gigabyte per second, about 100 times faster than the speed provided by typical broadband connections." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin Crash Spurs Race to Create New Exchanges

"The rush to build a more reliable exchange for the virtual currency bitcoin is under way after another price crash on Wednesday disgruntled customers who directed their anger against the alternative currency's major exchange. This follows a 20 percent crash last Thursday which Mt.Gox blamed on a type of hacking attack called a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) -- which slows down the website -- delaying orders and panicking sellers. Another DDoS was again reported by the exchange on Thursday morning, coinciding with another price drop." Continue reading →

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HBO executive: Rampant piracy of ‘Game of Thrones’ is a ‘compliment’

"Contrary to popular thinking, the rampant piracy of 'Game of Thrones' has not harmed the network that airs it, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo told Entertainment Weekly on Sunday, just hours before the show’s season three premiere. 'I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but [piracy] is a compliment of sorts,' Lombardo reportedly said. 'The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.' The show’s creator, George R. R. Martin, said as much earlier in March." Continue reading →

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