Tuesday, April 14, 2009

'Entrepreneur' means little in France


Rural broadband vs. red tape

The stimulus bill gives $7.2 billion to building broadband connections to rural areas. Not quite so simple, though, to put that money to use. 

Brazil gets bruised by Wall Street

The Brazilians think they will weather the economic crisis well, but Wall Street does not agree.

Your cell phone as a wallet

This article on mobile payments was published at Fortune Magazine's website under a section called Tech Daily. It was the the first story I wrote for Fortune, my host.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

In search of recession victims

I got the opportunity to visit the "tent city" outside Sacramento, the capital of California. The tent city is populated by homeless people and has had full media coverage since The Oprah Winfrey show did a report from there a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't plan to write anything for Greentech Media about it, but after a discussion with the Editor in chief, Michael Kanellos, he encouraged me to write a blog post about my visit, it being a somewhat off-topic subject. Here it is. Is this innovation journalism? Maybe not. But I think it is interesting that there's room for this kind of things within the frame of a niche cleantech website.
"Homeless people living in tents isn’t a new problem. But it fits reporting on the recession like a glove. People like you and me forced to leave our houses, finding shelter in cold and tattered tent cities outside of regular society. That’s a scary thought for most of us. In reality, the situation is diverse."
Full post at Greentech Media.

/Fredrik Wass