Peter Fisk

Veja creates sneakers in a different way, mixing social projects, economic justice, and ecological materials. It uses Brazilian and Peruvian organic cotton for the canvas and laces, Amazonian rubber for the soles, and various innovative materials conceived in recycled plastic bottles or recycled polyester. The sneakers are produced in high-standard factories in Brazil. Part of Veja’s logistics is managed by Log’ins, a professional and social inclusion company.

Veja sneakers and accessories are made of organic cotton, wild rubber from the Amazon, vegetable-tanned leather, and recycled plastic bottles.

• Organic cotton: Veja works in the North-East of Brazil with a co-operative of organic cotton farmers. Over 320 families have adopted the agro-ecology farming model with the technical support of the local NGO, ESPLAR. Cotton and food crops are cultivated without chemicals or artificial pesticides. Veja buys organic cotton at around twice the market price.
• Vegetable-tanned leather:  Since 2006 Veja has used vegetable-tanned leather. Vegetable-tanned leather is a chrome-free leather tanned with organic compounds only. Leather is usually tanned using heavy metals, like chrome, which generate high levels of pollution in the waters close to tanneries. Veja has replaced heavy metals with acacia extracts, a natural tannin.
• Recycled plastic bottles:  Veja uses waterproof bottle mesh on the soles of sneakers. It takes three recycled plastic bottles to make a pair of shoes. Bottles are collected from the streets of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and are later crushed and transformed into fiber.

Veja shoes are made in South Brazil respects the standards of work established by the International Labour Organization. Products are transported by ship from Brazil to Le Havre in France, where they are then taken to Paris by boat. Logistics are managed by Ateliers Sans Frontières, a French social association which enables people who have been unemployed to return to the workforce through training.

In 2005, the company made its first official launch at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Growing its influence, the company collaborated with French fashion designer Agnès b. In 2006, the company developed their first collection using vegetable-tanned leather, and has since began curating the photography exhibition Novo Mundo(S) at Wanted Gallery, Paris.

In 2007, the company began its collaboration with French label Comptoir des Cotonniers, launching its first collaborated product Veja + Christine Phung collection at the Pompidou Centre Design Shop in Paris. The business began expanding into the children’s trainer scene, with the launch of Veja small.^[5]

In 2008, the company began its expansion to London, opening its studio there.Through time, the company has released a wide variety of different products and styles, ensuing talks of collaborations with third party organisations.

Seeing record moves of progress, the company began its new wave of collaborations, beginning with Regina Dabdab. In 2013, the company released a capsule collection of printed trainers, inspired by professor Greg Asner’s aerial maps recording forest cover and biodiversity in tropical forest ecosystems. With the launch of the film Once upon a Forest, by French director Luc Jacquet, Veja commemorated its launch by releasing a custom trainer.

In 2018, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle wore a pair of Veja sneakers to watch an Invictus Games sailing event during the official tour she took through Australia, New Zealand and Fiji with her spouse Prince Harry.^[16]

In 2019 the brand launched a collaborations with Rick Owens, Madewell and Lemaire.

Revolut was founded in 2015 by Russian and Ukrainian entrepreneurs Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. The company was originally based in Level39, a finatech incubator in London’s Canary Wharf, London.

Storonsky was born in Russia to a Ukrainian father who was Deputy General Director of Science for natural gas research institute Gazprom Promgaz.  Storonsky studied for a master’s degree in physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and also became a state champion swimmer. He completed a separate masters in economics at New Economic School in Moscow. Later he worked as a trader at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse.  At the age of 20, he emigrated to the UK and acquired British citizenship. In 2022, he condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and renounced Russian citizenship.

In 2018, Revolut secured a Challenger bank licence from the European Central Bank, facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania, authorising it to accept deposits and offer consumer credits, but not to provide investment services. At the same time, an Electronic Money Institution licence was also issued by the Bank of Lithuania.

In 2019, Revolut signed a global deal with Visa, following which it expanded into 24 new markets and hired around 3500 additional staff. It also launched commission-free stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, initially for customers in its Metal plan. In the same year it hired a number of banking veterans including Wolfgang Bardorf, previously with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, Philip Doyle, from ClearBank and Visa, and N26’s Stefan Wille. 

In 2020, another funding round  tripled its value, to £4.2 billion, as it launched into the US market, plus a financial app in Japan. It also turned profitable.

In 2021, it applied for a UK banking licence, and for a bank charter in the USA. It raised another $800 million from investors, including SoftBank resulting in a $33 billion valuation.

In 2022, it launched as a bank (instead of an e-money platform) in 10 additional European countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. At this point it claimed more than 25 million customers around the world and more than 150 million transactions a month.

Mission and Vision of Revolut

 

BYD was founded in 1995 by Wang Chuanfu,  a Chinese chemist, who became a billionaire entrepreneur. He was born in 1966 in Anhui province to a family of poor farmers. While in high school he was cared for by his elder brother and sister because both of his parents had died. After high school he studied chemistry at the Central South University, and went on to earn a master’s degree in 1990 from the Beijing Non-Ferrous Research Institute.

The name BYD is an abbreviation of “Build Your Dreams”.

BYD started as a rechargeable-battery factory competing in the Chinese market against Japanese imports.   It grew quickly within ten years capturing more than half the world’s mobile-phone battery market and becoming the largest Chinese manufacturer (and in the top four worldwide) of all types of rechargeable batteries. BYD topped the 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek Tech 100 list, a list of large, fast-growing tech companies. Replacing work done by machines with cheap, local labour lowered costs, and the company began expanding beyond batteries adding automobiles and mobile phone components.

A year after the 2002 acquisition of Tsinchuan Automobile Co Ltd, BYD Automobile Co Ltd was born. One of many Chinese automakers, in 2010 it was the sixth largest in terms of sales volume.  In 2022, BYD announced its intention to end production of combustion engine vehicles and focus only on electric vehicles.

In 2016, BYD unveiled a working monorail prototype marketed as “Skyrail” and announced they will enter the global rail transit market. The first public Skyrail line opened as a 9.7 km (6.0 mi) long loop line in Yinchuan’s flower expo in 2018.  Since then BYD has begun construction of a number of systems around the world including the Guang’an Metro and the Guilin Metro in China, Line 17 in São Paulo and the SkyRail Bahia, both in Brazil. 

At the beginning of 2020, in the midst of Covid-19, BYD responded quickly and announced that it would produce face masks to help alleviate mask shortages around the world. BYD face masks have been delivered to more than 80 countries and regions.  BYD accomplished blueprints within 3 days, completed the manufacture of mask-making machines within 7 days, and rolled off the first batch of masks within 10 days. In just 24 days, BYD established the world’s largest mask plant with the highest capacity up to 100 million pieces per day.

Today BYD is a high-tech company devoted to leveraging technological innovations for a better life. After more than 27 years of high-speed growth, BYD has established over 30 industrial parks across 6 continents and played a significant role in industries related to electronics, auto, renewable energy and rail transit. With a focus on energy acquisition, storage, and application, BYD offers comprehensive new energy solutions with zero-emission. As a company listed on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, its turnover exceeds RMB 200 billion.

In a 2022 interview with Forbes Asia. Wang Chuanfu, the Chinese billionaire whose BYD just usurped Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric cars offered some advice for entrepreneurs. “Do more and talk less.”

His Shenzhen-based company outpaced its USA rival in the first half of 2022, selling some 641,000 electric and hybrid plug-in models, versus Tesla’s 564,000. This marked a fourfold increase in BYD’s year-earlier sales, despite industry disruption from Covid-19 related lockdowns in Shanghai.

Behind its pole position is a portfolio of innovative tech, says Wang: “[BYD] has mastered the core technologies of the whole industrial chain of new energy vehicles, such as batteries, motors and electronic controls.”That list also includes semiconductors—BYD’s chipmaking arm, BYD Semiconductor, specializes in making the chips used in EVs, which has allowed the firm to get around shortages that disrupted sales of other EV makers.

In a global EV market projected to reach $824 billion by 2030 (at a CAGR of 18%), according to Portland-based Allied Market Research, “vertical integration is giving BYD long-term staying power while smaller rivals that aren’t yet vertically integrated will be driven out,” says Bill Russo, CEO of investment advisory firm Automobility in Shanghai.

In the first nine months of the year, BYD’s net profit nearly quadrupled to a record $1.3 billion year-on-year, fueled by new EV sales that soared 250% to 1.2 million over that period. Its market cap is around $100 billion, though short of Tesla, rivals the combined market values of U. S. incumbents Ford Motor and General Motors; and it’s given Wang a net worth of $17.7 billion and the No. 11 rank on China’s 100 Richest list.

Besides Wang, BYD has generated two other billionaires. Wang’s cofounder and cousin Lu Xiangyang, a non-executive director at BYD, who ranks No. 18 with a fortune worth $12.7 billion, and director Xia Zuoquan, though he missed the minimum for the list. Already a household name in China, where BYD makes up almost 70% of sales, Wang’s pursuing a more aggressive global push.

In Asia, the 56-year-old recently launched new EV models in Japan, Thailand and India, and plans to build factories in the latter two to increase capacity. In October, BYD introduced three electric models at the Paris Auto Show, part of bigger plans for Europe.

The company, which has over 30 production bases worldwide is now the world’s third most valuable auto business. With know-how in hand, strategy becomes “the direction of enterprise success,” Wang says. “First, technology serves strategy, and secondly, it serves products.

 

 

In less than a decade, SHEIN has gone from an obscure Chinese e-commerce startup to one of the most dominant players in global fashion. Often misunderstood or underestimated by traditional fashion houses and retailers, SHEIN (pronounced “she-in”) has reshaped how clothes are designed, made, marketed, and sold. It represents a new model for the digital age—ultra-fast, data-driven, social-first, and powered by a hyper-agile supply chain. But as it expands globally, it also faces growing scrutiny around sustainability, ethics, and long-term viability.

From Search Engine Optimization to Fashion Powerhouse

SHEIN was founded in 2008 by Chris Xu (also known as Xu Yangtian), a Chinese entrepreneur with a background in search engine optimization (SEO) rather than fashion. Originally operating under the name SheInside, the company began as a modest online wedding dress and womenswear seller, sourcing clothing from Chinese wholesale markets and selling globally through a web storefront.

In 2015, it rebranded as SHEIN and began to pivot toward becoming a fully integrated fashion brand, controlling more of the design and supply chain. Crucially, Xu understood that global e-commerce was shifting: fashion would be driven not by brands and editors, but by search trends, data analytics, and social media behavior. His SEO expertise helped SHEIN optimize its product listings to appear in global Google searches, and the company expanded rapidly across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America—without a single physical store.

The TikTok-Fueled Demand Engine

SHEIN’s true breakthrough came with the rise of social media, particularly TikTok and Instagram. Unlike traditional fashion brands that release seasonal collections, SHEIN continuously monitors online trends—hashtags, viral videos, influencers, and even micro-influencer feedback—to launch new items in real-time. It produces up to 10,000 new SKUs per day, with many of them trialing in tiny batches of 100–200 units to test customer response.

This approach, known as “test and repeat,” allows SHEIN to minimize risk and only scale what sells. The brand leans heavily on user-generated content, with “SHEIN hauls” becoming a TikTok phenomenon—especially among Gen Z and younger Millennials who are drawn to novelty, affordability, and the dopamine hit of receiving a huge variety of clothes for a low price. Influencers are rewarded with affiliate links and incentives, and SHEIN runs regular style challenges, giveaways, and discount codes.

Where once fashion was dictated top-down by runway shows and editors, SHEIN has democratized it—and gamified it—creating a sense of community around low-cost, trend-responsive personal expression.

Real-Time Production Through a Hyper-Flexible Supply Chain

At the heart of SHEIN’s success is a digitally synchronized supply chain rooted in southern China. While many fast fashion companies outsource large-scale production to Southeast Asia or South Asia, SHEIN works with a tightly integrated ecosystem of hundreds of agile manufacturing partners, mostly around Guangzhou.

Rather than relying on massive factories producing long runs, SHEIN collaborates with small-to-mid-sized workshopsthat can quickly shift between different styles and product categories. These partners are connected through a proprietary digital platform that allows SHEIN to monitor production, inventory, and demand in real time. Every touchpoint—from fabric cutting to shipping—is tracked with digital precision.

This model enables what some have called “real-time fashion”—a step beyond Zara’s fast fashion model. Where Zara might bring a product to market in 2–3 weeks, SHEIN can design, prototype, and launch a product globally in just 7 days. It’s fashion at the speed of TikTok.

Challenges: Sustainability, Transparency, and Regulatory Pressure

But SHEIN’s rise is not without controversy. The company has come under fire for issues ranging from environmental impact to labor conditions to intellectual property theft.

Its ultra-fast production model, with disposable prices and millions of SKUs, raises serious questions about waste, overconsumption, and carbon emissions. While SHEIN has announced pilot programs in recycling and sustainable fashion, critics argue that its business model is inherently unsustainable.

On the labor front, investigations have raised concerns about working conditions and excessive hours in some of its partner workshops—despite SHEIN’s claims of third-party audits and supplier codes of conduct. The company has vowed to improve compliance and recently launched its SHEIN Responsible Sourcing (SRS) Program, aiming to increase supply chain transparency.

Additionally, the company has faced numerous allegations of copying independent designers, often producing lookalike items without permission or attribution. In response, SHEIN introduced its SHEIN X incubator, which now supports over 3,000 emerging designers with visibility, royalties, and production support—an effort to reframe its narrative from copycat to creative platform.

SHEIN’s opaque corporate structure and use of offshore entities have also caught the attention of US and EU regulators, particularly as the company prepares for a potential IPO. Its use of de minimis import laws to avoid taxes on small shipments has drawn scrutiny, and policymakers are now considering legislation to close that loophole.

Opportunities: Platform Expansion and the Future of Digital Fashion

Despite the criticism, SHEIN has ambitious plans for growth. It is no longer content being a budget fashion brand; it aims to become a global fashion platform. In 2023, it acquired a stake in Forever 21 and began experimenting with in-store collaborations in the US. It is building logistics hubs in Europe and the Middle East, shortening delivery times and reducing its carbon footprint.

SHEIN is also expanding its third-party marketplace, allowing other brands and vendors to sell through its app, similar to Amazon or Alibaba. This could turn SHEIN from a fashion label into a digital mall, powered by data, algorithms, and influencer marketing.

Looking further ahead, SHEIN has started exploring virtual fashion, AI design tools, and generative fashion. Its data-driven design team already uses algorithmic tools to identify and modify styles, and it is likely to play a significant role in the coming age of AI-enabled creativity. The convergence of digital identity, avatars, and fashion could see SHEIN leading in virtual clothing for the metaverse, gaming, and social media.

A Tipping Point for Fast Fashion

SHEIN represents both the culmination and disruption of fast fashion. It has mastered a model that responds instantly to trends, fulfills consumer desire for novelty, and leverages social media as a growth engine. Its radical efficiency and responsiveness have made legacy retailers look slow and outdated.

But this model comes with a cost—social, environmental, and ethical—and may not be tenable as climate regulations tighten, consumers grow more conscious, and digital transparency becomes harder to avoid.

The next few years will be critical. SHEIN must decide whether it wants to remain a volume-based fast fashion juggernaut, or evolve into a responsible, digital-first platform that helps shape the future of fashion—not just reflect its fleeting trends.

Either way, SHEIN has already changed the rules. And the rest of the fashion industry is now scrambling to catch up.

Oatly was an obscure, local Swedish brand for its first 20 years. Then in 2012, the oat milk company brought in a new CEO, Toni Petersson, with a radical new vision for the brand and with a new look and a tasty product.

Most viewers cringed at the Super Bowl ad, which featured Petersson singing a tune he wrote himself accompanied by his keyboard in a wide-open field of oats. It seems most people felt it was one of those things that’s so bad but you just can’t look away. Yet, the lyrics, which included, “it’s like milk, but made for humans,” and “wow, no cow,” were surprisingly catchy. It was weird, different, and certainly generated a lot of curiosity.

Known for its irreverent approach to advertising and brash, tongue-in-cheek packaging, Oatly takes a bold approach to marketing.

From publishing the actual text of a lawsuit against its slogan “Milk, but made for humans” in Sweden to launching a European-wide ad campaign called “Are You Stupid?” — Oatly’s irreverent approach to winning over consumers has been surprisingly successful.

Though the company has been around since the early 1990s, it only started picking up steam around 2014 when it relaunched the brand under the guidance of new CEO Toni Petersson. With an increased focus on sustainability and health, Petersson and the marketing team crafted a new brand voice: quirky, somewhat flippant, and definitely humorous — it became their calling card, of sorts.

However, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for this milk alternative brand — from backlash surrounding chosen investors to fighting Amendment 171 in the EU, Oatly has faced its fair share of setbacks and challenges.

Still, having gone public in 2021 via an IPO valued at up to $10.1 billion, the vegan brand is on the up.

Oatly was founded in the early 1990s by Swedish brothers — Rickard Öste, a food scientist, and his brother Bjorn. The inventors of oat milk, the brothers were researching alternatives to cow’s milk for people who were lactose intolerant.

Though they were successful in creating such a product, Oatly didn’t really make it big on the international scene. That is — until the brand brought in Toni Petersson in 2014 as CEO. With previous roles as CEO in a myriad of companies, Petersson brought a good deal of experience and knowledge to the role.

The first big changes Petersson made? The packaging. Previously, Oatly’s cartons had a small, red “Oatly” logo in the top left corner. Forgettable and somewhat bland, this logo, placement, and overall packaging style had to go.

In a bold move, Petersson opted for a combination of block and bubble letters that spelled out “OAT-LY!” in the center of each carton. Additionally, the packaging copy was changed from Swedish to English in an effort to be more accessible to a global audience.

Petersson also did away with the professional, informative tone of the former packaging and utilized Oatly’s new brand voice and personality. Cheeky and fresh, this new copy proved far more eye-catching and entertaining to consumers.

Petersson’s next move was to focus on Oatly’s environmental impact and sustainability. He commissioned a report in 2017 that would show how Oatly is better for the environment than traditional dairy. The findings?:

“Oatly estimated that its oat drink can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, land use by 79% and energy consumption by 60% compared to a same size portion of cow’s milk.”

With this kind of data at hand, Petersson could make bold claims about the superiority of oat milk in the areas of sustainability and environmental preservation — which are included in each carton’s product information.

Another tactic Petersson used in 2017 to promote their products in the U.S. was to get in at the ground floor with local baristas. Oatly actually sent representatives to high-end coffee shops in places like New York City to share and test their products with local baristas.

The thought was that if baristas could recommend and use Oatly’s milk with customers, it would lead to higher rates of interest. Of the strategy, the brand’s U.S. General Manager Mike Messersmith told CNBC Make It:

“We thought about specialty coffee shops and tea shops, where if you were able to take the recommendation of your local barista you see every day, and try our product through an expertly prepared latte or cappuccino that would be a really amazing way to kind of be introduced to even just the idea of oat milk”.

Petersson’s changes paid off. Between 2017 and 2019, Oatly’s revenue in Europe went from about US $15.5 million to about US $69 million. That’s a massive increase for just two years. And in 2020, Oatly reported revenue of US $421.4 million — which is a 106.5% increase from their 2019 revenue.

However, Oatly’s success hasn’t made it immune to controversy or bad decisions. In 2020, Oatly sold $200 million in stake to a myriad of investors — with one such investor being the Blackstone Group, a company that has been accused of financing businesses contributing to deforestation in the Amazon and road development in the jungle to export soy.

Shortly after this was announced, Oatly faced backlash from consumers on social media and had to deal with their first “cancel culture” experience. Though many consumers are still not happy about the brand’s association with Blackstone, it hasn’t seemed to damage its reputation or sales in the long run.

Now one of the largest oat drink companies in the world, Oatly offers a wide variety of oat-based products — from milk to ice cream to yogurt to spreads.

John Schoolcraft, Chief Creative Officer at Oatly, has executed the rebranding of the company after joining in 2012, contributing to the expansion of their oat products to over 20 countries worldwide with sales exceeding $200 million this year.

In this keynote on branding, John explains how he fosters creativity at Oatly and how just the will to change the world plays a part:

Saudi Arabia is a rapidly transforming nation, with a Vision 2030 to reduce its dependence on oil, diversify its economy, and develop public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism.

STC positions itself as the “digital enabler” of this vision,  and much more than a telecoms or even communications business as it originally began in 1997.

While the company STC offers landline and fixed infrastructure, mobile and data services – it has also offers mobile, broadband and cloud computing services – but sees itself much more as the tech infrastructure of a nation that is rapidly becoming a leader in digital services – from shopping to entertainment, banking to transport, health and education.

STC redefined itself in 2017 through its “DARE” strategy. The company doesn’t see itself as a telecom operator but as a digital enabler providing digital services in various verticals.

CEO Olayan Alwetaid says “It’s been great to see how our customers have received our ventures into other areas, such as fintech, IoT, cybersecurity, AI, data centers, connectivity, 5G, cloud computing, e-gaming, and many more.”

As an example, STCpay is a digital wallet, which not only is of great convenience to our customers but is also in line with the Vision 2030 goal of reducing cash transactions. In addition, stcplay is our dedicated e-sports and gaming platform. Gaming and e-sport is one sector that continues to grow, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it, and in fact, we’re playing a huge role in transforming the Middle East’s gaming industry by connecting gaming service providers with gamers to ensure they have the best possible gaming experience.

STC Group made large investments in technology and talent within its data privacy and cybersecurity businesses. The key focus is to clearly understand the threats and risks faced by all our stakeholders and customer demographics, from confidentiality, integrity, availability, privacy, security, and resilience perspectives. Every customer and stakeholder group faces a specific set of unique cybersecurity threats and risks. Our cybersecurity teams work diligently to identify these threats, risks, and vulnerabilities. They use cutting-edge 24/7 cyber defense monitoring, vulnerability, and penetration testing, as well as threat hunting, in addition to governance, risk, and compliance practices involving the support of specialist teams.

While the focus is on technology development, we have also invested in the Internet of Things (IoT), as we tend to establish the country as a regional IoT hub in the Middle East and North Africa region in collaboration with PIF. Hence we founded a new company to expand and become a “one-stop-shop” for IoT solutions by using the experience and technology of existing IoT partners. According to local market research, the IoT market in Saudi Arabia might expand to $2.88 billion (SAR10.8 billion) by 2025, with an annual growth rate of 12.8 percent. The Internet of things has been identified in stc’s “DARE 2.0” strategy among the five strategic areas of investment. It is at our core and aligns with Saudi Arabia’s digital transformation initiatives, supported by PIF.

Moreover, we apt to endow technology in KSA through artificial intelligence, hence the group, with Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to implement many national initiatives to enhance artificial intelligence and digital solutions in Saudi Arabia, as we intend to localize digital solutions and exchange experiences and knowledge in the field of data management and governance. We also seek to support data quality globally within the best practices, along with assisting startups in adhering to data governance and implementing a personal data protection system.

STC further looks toward enhancing digitization by developing cloud computing, therefore we established a new company in Riyadh with “Alibaba cloud,” eWTP Arabia for Technical Innovation Ltd, the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI), and the Saudi Information Technology Company (SITE). The new company in Riyadh came in response to the significant increase in demand for cloud computing services and solutions in the region to provide advanced cloud computing services to companies operating in the KSA, ensuring that they employ the highest standards of security and protection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m-Ee_FJctk

Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to Twitter, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as “instances”, also called a server, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy options, and moderation policies.

Users join a specific instance, rather than the overall platform. They can then connect across other instances, which link together as a federated social network, allowing users on different instance to interact with each other. This seeks to give users the flexibility to select a node whose policies they prefer, but keep access to a larger social network.

Mastodon is also part of the “Fediverse” ensemble of server platforms, which use shared protocols allowing users to also interact with users on other compatible platforms, such as PeerTube and Friendica.

Mastodon has been distinguished from Twitter for its decentralised, independent approach which uses community-based moderation, in which each server can limit, or filter out undesirable types of content. It believes this enables it to better address issues such as combating harassment.

Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder, believes that small, closely related communities deal with unwanted behaviour more effectively than a large company’s small safety team.

Mastodon is crowdfunded and does not contain ads. The Mastodon mascot is an animal with a trunk, resembling a mastodon or mammoth. Mastodon is crowdfunded and does not contain ads.

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, there was a huge migration of users to Mastodon, over 1 million in the first week.

 

The Moleskine notebook is the heir and successor to the legendary notebook used by artists and thinkers over the past two centuries: among them Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin.

“Every Moleskine notebook is a book yet to be written and a story waiting to be told” says Maria Sebregondi, Moleskine co-founder and president of Moleskine Foundation

Today Moleskine offers an eco-system of objects which inspires imaginations and fuels creative practice, versatile tools for both everyday and extraordinary journeys: notebooks, journals, bags, luggage, apps, writing instruments and reading accessories which complement each other in form and function, becoming an integral part of our personalities.

Moleskine describes itself as “a platform which celebrates talent, champions originality and cherishes long-term thinking”.

With headquarters in Milan and offices in Cologne, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo, Moleskine company counts around 400 employees and a vast network of partners and consultants. A dedicated Global Custom Edition team works to help the world’s leading cultural institutions, companies and agencies tell their stories through customized Moleskine objects.

The company began life as Modo & Modo, a small Milanese publisher that, in 1997, brought the original notebook back to life and established the Moleskine® trademark. Moleskine Srl was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange in 2013. The brand was acquired and delisted by D’Ieteren at the end of 2016. Today, the Moleskine company has around 400 employees and a vast network of partners.

History

In his book The Songlines, Chatwin tells the story of the little black notebook: in 1986, the manufacturer, a small family-owned company in the French city of Tours, went out of business. “Le vrai moleskine n’est plus” are the lapidary words he puts into the mouth of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie where he usually purchased his notebooks. Chatwin set about buying up all the notebooks that he could find before his departure for Australia, but they were still not enough.

In 1997, the company known today as Moleskine brought the legendary notebook back to life.

Manifesto

“At Moleskine we believe in the timeless power of handwriting as an essential expression of human civilization, a powerful act to unleash human genius and foster the development and sharing of literacy and knowledge. In a fast-paced technological era, we proudly celebrate the artistry of the human touch; the enduring pleasure of putting pen to paper to unleash your unique voice. We celebrate the solemn, thoughtful and meditative gesture of the pen gliding across a blank page; the romance of crafting a personal story to record a lifelong memory and leave a distinguishing mark in all its unique beauty. Handwriting is both universal and deeply personal. It’s a thoughtful way to express your true self and connect to others in a very intimate yet universally accessible way.”

“Put pen to paper, and unleash your unique voice.”

Reinvented

Moleskine says “we believe in the infinite potential for continuity and connection between analog and digital tools. This bridging of page and screen is essential to fulfil our users’ needs.”

Moleskine Smart is an ecosystem of smart tools and services designed to simplify the creative and productive process, allowing an idea to evolve naturally on paper before being edited and shared digitally. The Moleskine Flow App won the 2019 Apple Design Award for Excellence in Design and Innovation.

Here’s how The Independent reviewed the system:

“Nowadays, we all carry around a number of devices that allow us to store, access and edit documents remotely. Working on the go has never been easier. But what if we told you that a new revolution was on its way?

Digital note-taking allows any handwritten notes to be stored electronically. This then gives users the ability to recall, edit and organise notes directly on their device without the need to carry around a number of heavy pads, books or handfuls of paper.

The technology typically comes in two forms. Firstly, there are the direct-to-device notes, whereby apps such as Good Notes allow you to write directly onto the screen using an Apple Pencil or similar. Alternatively, there are products that come with a traditional notepad and pen that have Bluetooth connectivity to track your pen movements onto an app. This is where the Moleskine smart writing set comes in.

It has been designed for people who want to keep an element of the traditional, using real paper, but who also need the flexibility of accessing their notes on the go, or exporting them and emailing them as PDF documents. There’s also a sense that electronic notes can be better organised to fit your own individual needs and workflows.

But could digital note-taking really make our day simpler? Could transferring notes directly from page to screen really be a game changer? We found out.”

Straight out of the box, the Moleskine smart writing set feels well-designed. It’s well-packaged, and comes in a smart black box adorned with lovely minimalist cues, like the embossed Moleskine logo on the front.

Once inside, it’s all standard Moleskine premium feel, with the main attraction being the classic elastic-close, rounded black book upon which the brand has built its rather enviable reputation. But it’s the black ballpoint pen which we need to pay close attention to here.

Contained within a separate box, at first it feels somewhat chunky upon inspection, but a close look tell us it’s actually rather well-designed and is ergonomically well thought out. Holding it in a usual way feels a little alien at first, but it didn’t put us off and we got used to it very quickly.

For a system advertising itself as a fuss-free way to increase productivity and streamline your work processes, you’d expect an easy set-up, and luckily the Moleskine smart writing set didn’t disappoint on this front.

A word of caution – charge the pen before you use it, as we found a few connectivity issues at first when the battery was low. With the pen charged, though, and the Moleskine notes app downloaded from the app store or the Google play store, you’re pretty much ready to go and start writing.

In the apps main menu you’ll find your notebooks, a notebox (which contains your locked and important documents), and a trash bin where you can retrieve old pages if needed.

You don’t need to sign up to an account as the settings allow you to connect your Google OneDrive accounts, and with the auto-upload feature enabled, it’s even easier to access your written pages on the go. That being said, if you set up a Moleskine smart account, you have access to your notes in the cloud, easy backups and a new subscription service that isn’t released yet but promises to open up more possibilities and features.

The process of actually using the system doesn’t need a whole lot of explaining – you can just use it as a normal pen and notepad, and the pen will automatically track your movements and make a digital copy that will be stored on the app. There are, however, a few steps you have to go through before you start writing that can make the whole process a little confusing and counter-intuitive…

We found that the app had to be open and the pen manually connected before it tracked any writing. And we also came across a few connectivity issues when trying to write and had to turn everything on again after the app was closed down and the pen turned off.

These were minor niggles that we overcame very easily after a little investigation. But on the basis that you can still use the pen and notepad “traditionally”, without the Bluetooth on and the app connected, we wonder whether some people might end up not bothering connecting it at all.

This would, however, be a shame, because with everything working well the Moleskine writing set does a very good job of making on-screen copies. For example, if you’ve often found it hard to use the likes of the Apple Pencil on an iPad, then this might be the solution for you. Your own handwriting is rendered in a very crisp way and the words are even transcribed into digital text for copying and pasting should you wish. We also found that the app does a pretty good job of interpreting even the scruffiest of notes, so there’s no need to worry if your handwriting isn’t the neatest.

Pages are organised by last used, or by page number, and the app instinctively knows which page you’re writing on. So, everything inside the app is minimal, neat and easy to follow.

If there comes a time when you forget to turn the pen or Bluetooth on, you shouldn’t need to worry too much as it contains a small amount of memory to transfer your notes when you’ve switched it back on. It’s a really neat little feature which we found came in very handy while we were getting used to it.

And its verdict?

“We really enjoyed using the Moleskine smart writing set, and, in fact, think it’s probably the best traditional/digital combination system on the market at the moment. It’s a nice package and stays true to the brand’s values of premium quality, with a few digital-specific niceties like the email and cloud auto-upload features that make it stand out from the crowd.

It isn’t totally without its flaws, and because the app is relatively new we expect there to be patches, updates and bug fixes in the pipeline making the device easier to use, quicker to connect and less prone to glitches. The only other criticism we had was the price – it is a lot of money, with additional smart writing notepads being around £20 each once you’ve filled up the original.”

 

Twelve makes “CO2Made” chemicals, materials and fuels with their carbon transformation technology that replicates photosynthesis at industrial scale.

Just like a plant in nature, it transforms CO2 into useful products with just water and renewable energy as inputs, and producing only water and oxygen as outputs. No fossil fuels, no new emissions, no trade-offs.

They can make thousands of chemicals and fuel products from air that today are made from oil.

Carbon-based compounds are the foundation of our modern world. They fuel our lifestyles, from cars to aircraft, heating and lighting. Carbon-based materials give us our shoes and fashions, machines and devices.

And our carbon footprint.

The problem is, we get this carbon today from fossil fuels in the form of petrochemicals. Twelve has created an alternative to fossil fuels to make all these products, from CO2.

Twelve  is now working with many of the world’s largest brands to replace the petrochemicals in their products and supply chains with “CO2Made” chemicals, materials and fuels, eliminating emissions from thousands of everyday products and accelerating the path to carbon zero.

Partners include Alaska Airlines, Microsoft, Pangaia, Tide, NASA and Daimler among others.

Twelve was originally launched under the name Obtainium in 2014, and later known as Opus 12. Twelve was officially founded in 2015 by Dr. Kendra Kuhl, Dr. Etosha Cave, and Nicholas Flanders.

Flanders describes the company’s technology as “industrial photosynthesis” to create jet fuel and diesel from carbon dioxide. Their technology has been shown to convert CO₂ from raw biogas into carbon neutral methane.