Renting bikes in large cities is becoming increasingly popular, but riding without a helmet can be dangerous.  I personally wouldn’t want to bike around a major city on roads without a helmet.  To solve this problem, Iris Shiffer, a New York design student, has created a recycled, disposable, and foldable helmet.  The EcoHelmet will be sold for $5 next to bike rental stations.  Now there is an easy and affordable way to keep yourself safe when biking in large cities without having to carry your own helmet.  According to an article by Forbes, she recently won £30,000 from the International James Dyson Award to fund her idea.

This idea is so simple, yet unique in its own way.  Having readily available disposable helmets will help save people from serious injuries when biking in crowded cities.  Her EcoHelments are supposed to be in large cities around the world next year, and I can imagine that they will have a large impact on city bikers.  The helmets are supposed to last about 3-5 bike rides, and can soften a blow to the head.  After watching a video of impact tests being run on the helmet, they actually do a pretty good job of protecting your head for being paper!

Video: http://pix11.com/2016/11/18/brooklyn-woman-creates-foldable-paper-bike-ecohelmet/

Most people have heard of Uber at this point in time, but when it was founded in 2009, no one thought it would have grown to this size.  Just think of a way to make transportation easier and safer, while creating jobs.  Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp help build this idea into a $1.5 billion company, as of last year.  What a simple idea to have a driver pick you up where you want and drop you off exactly where you need to be.  This alone differentiated Uber from the traditional taxi service in large cities.  No you can get someone to Uber you home from work or the store.

Pushing the technological boundaries has also played a part in Uber’s growth.  They have partnered with both Volvo and Ford on using autonomous vehicles.  This testing as some of you may know is currently going on in the Pittsburgh area.  We are so close to this which is amazing.  Although I have never been in an autonomous Uber car, I have seen quite a few in Pittsburgh.  It is great that Uber is helping to push the forefront of what is possible and not just focusing on their taxi service.  Who knows, in the near future we might be getting picked up by a driverless care and be chauffeured to any destination.

Ask any millennial what they use to listen or stream music, and I bet most will say Spotify.  Spotify was founded by Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek, current CEO, in 2006.  Now I know this is a while ago, but Spotify wasn’t launched in the US until July of 2011.  This streaming service has pushed the forefront of how people listen to music.  Spotify has pulled users away from iTunes as you can stream unlimited songs by only having to listen to an ad every few songs, unless you pay for premium.  Apple came out with their own Apple Music to compete in the music streaming industry.  Where is Pandora now, currently sitting behind Spotify in monthly users by 20 million users.

Spotify uses its unique way of streaming music by offering you to have unlimited skips and music to listen to as long as you are connected to the internet.  Pandora on the other hand, uses a “radio station” to play similar music to the artist that you selected.  Being able to fully select what you want to listen to has put Spotify in front in the music streaming industry.  As we move forward, it will be interesting to see what else Spotify or other streaming services have to offer.

What if passwords were a thing of the past?  With Clef, your password for your business is a wave of lines.  Yes as weird as it sounds, it’s true.  Customers can log into your website with ease and you don’t have to worry about fraudulent accounts logging in.  It reduces the likelihood of passwords being stolen or hacked.  The fact that the password wave is randomized every 30 seconds really shows how important security is.  If that isn’t enough to convince you, “when you log in with Clef, a 300 character signature is generated from a digital key stored on your phone.” (https://getclef.com/security/)  The current CEO and co-founder B. Byrne prides his company pushing the forefront of password security.  The best thing is that you just have to download the Clef app.  Now you no longer have to remember your extremely long passwords with those irritating special ch@r@ct3r5 (characters).

For more information https://getclef.com/

Hahna Alexander, CEO & founder of SolePower, created a sole insert for shoes and boots that store electricity in battery packs.  This electricity is created by walking.  How creative that you can harness electricity just by walking with these sole inserts in your shoes.  This idea is so simple yet so effective, as everyone has had to charge their phone or other device when not having any power.  The best part is that you can charge anything by using a USB charger.  The say on the website “EXPLORE. ESCAPE. EMPOWER WITH ENSOLES” fits perfectly with the product.

The fact that 1 hour of walking can give you enough battery to talk on the phone for 30 minutes is amazing.  This recharging market has been here a while with rechargeable cases and battery packs, but never have I seen an option to recharge my phone using this kind of rechargeable devices.  It is definitely a niche market that I could see growing in the future.  Even though this is a little more expensive rechargeable device, it is a new take that I can see succeeding.