YOUR WEEKLY FIX OF ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS
We’ve selected 15 new business ideas this week that will
provide entrepreneurs with plenty of inspiration. Spotted from
countries all around the world, these ideas offer a taste of
what’s to come.
3. Top 10 business ideas & opportunities for 2014
We’ve selected 15 new business ideas that will provide
entrepreneurs with plenty of inspiration. Spotted from
countries all around the world, these ideas offer a taste of
what’s to come.
YOUR WEEKLY FIX OF ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS
03-09 April 2014
4. Owning a number of different devices can
often mean having to regularly transfer
data between them to keep them synced,
or storing private information in the cloud.
Offering a truly connected alternative,
Seed is a set of mobile and computer
products that use the processing power
and data of a single docked smartphone.
Read more about Seed »
1. Device is a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop and smart TV in
one
5. Many holidaymakers are keen to find
ways they can make their trip unique, and
getting to decide what goes into a hotel
room is one way to do just that. While UK-
based Whitbread has already used its
smart tech-enabled hub spaces to lend a
measure of personalization to its hotel
rooms, Sweden’s ICEHOTEL is going one
further, enabling customers to work with
designers to create their own bespoke ice
creations before they arrive.
Read more about ICEHOTEL »
2. For USD 231,000, design your own hotel room made of ice
6. Plastic water bottles have long been
recognized as a big problem for the
environment, so much so that San
Francisco recently banned the sale of
bottled water on city property. But a new
invention from a group of UK students
could offer a solution. Ooho! is a
spherical membrane for carrying water,
which can be eaten when it’s finished
with.
Read more about the Selfie Ooho! »
3. This edible water blob could replace plastic bottles
7. The web has made higher education-level
learning more accessible, and even free,
through programs such as MIT and
Harvard’s EdX and the nonprofit Khan
Academy, but it’s actually inspiring adults
to want to learn new skills and knowledge
that can be difficult. New York’s Raising
The Bar is an event placing 50 lectures in
50 bars across the city, replacing drunken
conversation with stimulating talks.
Read more about Raising The Bar »
4. Free lecture series replaces inane bar conversations with
stimulating talks
8. The market for a product is not neces-
sarily a fixed thing, and we’ve even seen
beer redesigned as a fitness drink in
recent months. For those who find fine
wine too snobby, two US companies are
now repackaging premium wine in
convenient juice-style pouches to make it
more accessible for busy consumers.
Read more about Nuvino and Spotwine »
5. Fine wine goes casual with single-serve pouches
9. Hygiene is a major issue for hospitals and
many already use sanitizer dispensers to
enable doctors and visitors to easily wash
their hands and prevent the spread of
bugs. However, remembering to use them
can be a problem. In the past, we’ve seen
solutions such as Hyginex — a wristband
system which alerts hospital staff when it’s
time to wash their hands and helps
managers track hygiene levels. Now
PullClean is offering an elegant solution
in the form of combined sanitizers and
door handles, prompting hospital users to
wash each time they enter and exit a
room.
Read more about PullClean »
6. This hospital door handle also cleans your hands
10. While many surfers might make use of
innovations such as Spain’s Spotfav —
which uses crowdsourced webcam feeds
to let users check the weather at the
beach before they head there — some
surfers are more than willing to catch a
wave in the middle of the winter. Now,
those surfers can avoid suffering the cold
for longer than they have to with the
customizable Surf Sauna, a heated cabin
that can be transported to any beach.
Read more about Surf Sauna »
7. Mobile sauna enables surfers to brave freezing temperatures
11. In recent years, craft beer has been
transformed from the preserve of ale
connoisseurs into a viable consumer
market, replete with its own thriving app
market. In the past we’ve written about
Untappd, which lets beer fans find the
nearest bar selling craft ales, and now a
new iOS app called Craft Check is
enabling customers to ensure the beer
they’re drinking is genuinely from a
microbrewery.
Read more about Craft Check »
8. Think that’s a craft beer you’re drinking? This app identifies
genuine microbrews
12. This is part of a series of articles that looks at
entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the
ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing,
each of these innovations is currently seeking
funding.
We’re all in this world together, so it’s
probably a good idea that we’re nice to
each other. The La Petite Syrah Café in
France has already shifted its pricing
model to benefit those who are friendly,
and now a new project called Talk To Me
London wants to explore different ways to
get the city’s 8 million multicultural
residents to share their stories with each
other.
Read more about Talk To Me London
»
9. Project aims to get strangers talking to each other
13. Buying a new home typically requires
some research of the local area in order
to understand where buyers will be living
for the good few years to come, as well as
whether the property is the right size for
them. However, Czech architects have
now created PORT X, a houseboat that
can be customized with extra modules
and anchored on both the river or land.
Read more about PORT X »
10. Ice cream offers a musical accompaniment with each lick
14. Every article that appears in a major
magazine today comes in two forms — its
printed version and its online counterpart,
but they’re both often left unlinked.
Peekster is a new app that enables
readers to scan the headline of a print
article in order to quickly bring up the
digital version on their phone, for sharing
or saving for later.
Read more about Peekster »
11. Scan a printed article’s headline, instantly get the digital version
15. Civic authorities can’t be everywhere at
once and often rely on citizens to inform
them of the improvements that need
making. The NYPD already launched its
own crowdsourcing crime reports app,
and now the Bürgerforum Vorarlberg
mobile app is enabling citizens to flag
community issues that need addressing
by sending photos and text direct to the
council.
Read more about Mumble »
12. In Austria, council uses app to crowdsource community issues
16. Getting consumers to exercise is much
easier when there’s an incentive, and
especially if it’s a financial one. Chile-
based dairy brand Colun Light has taken
this on board with its Así da gusto pagar
campaign, which saw customers at its
pop-up sportswear shop pay with
exercise, rather than money.
Read more about Así da gusto pagar »
13. In Chile, sports goods are paid for with exercise
17. They say that a week is a long time in
politics, which is what makes it so hard for
citizens and businesses to track what’s
going on in Washington. While
FiscalNote already offers information and
predictions about new legislative bills for
businesses, a new app called iCitizen is
now helping voters stay more informed by
tracking the issues that matter to them.
Read more about iCitizen »
14. App keeps citizens informed and engaged with political issues
18. Parenting is a long-haul job, and one that
changes from year to year as kids grow
up and demand different things. We’ve
already seen the BleepBleeps set of
smart sensors help parents from
pregnancy to teenage, and now a new
app called KiddyUp enables parents to
share their favorite venues for children of
all ages, including diaper-changing rooms,
playgrounds and kids’ food locations.
Read more about KiddyUp »
15. Through app, parents share the best child-friendly venues