Pocket-able Banking Coming to Mexico’s Underserved
Banorte, Mexico’s third largest bank and Rev Worldwide, a Texas-based company specializing in payment solutions, have partnered to create a mobile-based payment solution program called MiFon. MiFon pairs a debit card with a Banorte deposit account and is compatible with a variety of cell phone carriers. This serviceprovides a much-needed and practical solution for Mexicans who have limited access to banking and financial services. In developed countries, bank accounts...
read moreInnovator Spotlight: Forget Your Passwords and Stop Typing
Jorge Gomez serves as VP of Global Strategic Alliances at Andago, where he analyzes business opportunities and develops new market initiatives, increasing Andago’s Health and Wellness ecosystem of partner companies. Jorge combines his Computer Science engineering vision with an Executive International MBA background, along with a thriving passion for state-of-the-art technologies and World cultures. As technology evolves, only a fraction of the innovations are adopted...
read moreVermont the Latest to Adopt Smart Grid Tech
Vermont has become one of the latest to adopt a smart electrical grid system in an effort to enhance efficiency and customer service. The Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) and IBM have announced a partnership that will bring its grid into the 21st century and also meet federal mandates. “The primary purpose of the fiber project is to improve transmission grid reliability, security and communications,” said VELCO representative Shana Duval. “The completed...
read moreE-textbooks Will Never Replace Good Teaching
Give me a stick and a patch of dirt and I can teach a child to read. That’s a popular refrain in the world of education and it holds true today. While a lot of noise (and hyperbole) is being made about Apple’s new, democratic e-book/e-textbook platform, we must not forget the basics. As an educator with more than six years in the classroom teaching science and language, I believe this is something that must be kept in mind. To its credit, Apple is doing a good thing...
read moreTechnology Helping to Streamline US Adoptions
For millions of people around the world who cannot, for whatever reason, have biological children, adoption services seem like an easy enough way to have a family. Indeed, many couples who can have children also choose to adopt, in order to give a child a chance at a life they otherwise might not have had. Despite these laudable aims, the adoption process is usually long and tedious, and many years may pass by the time an adoption is finalized. That may soon change,...
read moreInnovator Spotlight: Organizing Specialists Successfully
Elena de Benavides, CEO of the International Institute of Phlebology S.L., is an economist by training and a specialist in Health Economics and Management of Healthcare Organizations. She is also one of the winners of Spain’s 2011TR35 competition, which is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s prize in recognition of top innovators under 35. Healthcare and medical practices have always been determined by specialization. The need for specialization in medicine...
read moreAppCity 2012: Infinite App Possibilities Still Exist
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Guillermo Gistau, one of the organizers of AppCity 2012 in Zaragoza—the first iOS developer’s conference to be held in Europe this Feb. 1-4. When we think about organizing AppCity, we think that in Europe people do not pay the bill in a restaurant with their mobile phone, they do not walk through the city listening to audio guides or consulting Facebook to see where their friends may join them in real-time. Their refrigerator...
read moreBeyond Smart Cities: It’s Really All About the People
Imagine a colony of ants busily going about their lives. Unorganized, chaotic and without central control. However, each ant has an agenda and things end up getting done, not because of a grand plan, but because of small acts that benefit the whole. This is the vision that was presented at “Beyond Smart Cities” at BBVA’s Innovation Center a few days ago by three renowned experts in the field of city planning. Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware: The Dawn of...
read moreThe Golden Angle: How it Could Mean Green Energy for Everyone
Out of the dust of a cracker dry field near Seville in southern Spain, rises an ivory tower of hope for the end of fossil fuels and the beginning of enough clean, renewable energy to power the entire countries. It is Abengoa’s Planta Solar 10 (PS10), Europe’s first commercial concentrating solar power (CSP) tower and now MIT researchers, in collaboration with RWTH Aachen University in Germany, have discovered that Mother Nature has been holding the key to making it...
read moreMobiAdvanced’s Oscar Moreno on Mobile Payment Growth
Mobile payment usage has been growing year on end worldwide. Opinno interviewed mobile payment provider MobiAdvanced’s CEO and Founder Oscar Moreno to know more about the solutions offered by the company and Moreno’s thinking about the payment system’s future. Baudo:Tell me a little about yourself. How did you become an entrepreneur Moreno: I’m 26 years old and I’ve been working in the Internet industry since I was 15 years old. What began as a hobby...
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