Between Vivatech and the new summit launched by the French government, the terms “Tech for good” is all we hear about. This is the most trendy subject in tech at the moment. If you want to be successful, you gotta be doing something “good”. For the people, for the planet.
Or at least, pretend you’re doing something good… Because when Deliveroo claims to be doing “tech for good” it kind of reminds me of H&M doing sustainable fashion. The only thing that comes to my mind is… incompatible. So it made us wonder, is that the new trendy expression for greenwashing? What is even tech for good?
“Here’s where we are at with our principles in determining what “tech for good” is.
At its heart, it’s all about people. People using the power of tech in myriad ways, both simple and extraordinary. This can be a combination of many things – to help redistribute power, give agency to people, help people make more informed decisions, create ways for people to connect, participate, address health or care needs and save energy. It can even make life-saving information and resources more discoverable.”
“Tech for Good”, the new greenwashing tool?
What principles does it include?
A company that is doing tech for good, needs to respect several principles.
First, in the long term, the product created needs to benefit 99% of people and not just the happy few.
Then, it has to reply to an already existing issue, trying to solve it. We don’t need more materialistic stuff in this world.
DATA. Of course, technology implies data. And this data has to be managed ethically. Users have to know how their data is being used and make a conscious choice about it.
To be really in line with the tech for good principle, the idea is really to transform the existing system, challenge the status quo, not only make the existing easier.
It has to be bold, not scalable.
It doesn’t have to be new, it can be an existing technology applied to a new context.
Transparency is key. When creating a new product or technology, the provenance of it has to be well detailed and explained. As well as the entire creation process. Where has it been created, why, by whom…
The product or service has to provide assisted digital policy.
Those principles of tech for good have to be shared throughout the entire team, including the founders AND the investors. Transparency again is key, who’s funding the technology and how?
And this list goes on. It evolves as the society evolves.
“Tech for Good”, the new greenwashing tool?
Consume, but consume consciously
Knowing all those principles, how can we believe and agree when the founder of Deliveroo says that Deliveroo is doing tech for good? Indeed, Deliveroo is actually well known for pressuring his employees. How come the guests of the Tech for Good Summit of the Elysée are mainly from the Gafa? How come the start-ups and founders or REAL tech for good companies aren’t even invited?
Many of the companies that use this term aren’t respecting half of those principles. It’s our duty, as consumers to sort out the true tech for good companies than the one that is just using this term in their marketing strategies.
Knowing what really tech for good stands for allows us to do our choice consciously every time we buy or consume.
Read my other article here, on how to take advantage of your phone and use it as a tool to become smarter!
If you’re like me, you probably spend way to much time on your phone.
Like most people, I used to use my phone as an entertainment, distraction device. I used to lose several hours a day, doing useless and meaningless things. And honestly I felt bad about it, I felt unproductive, and I felt like I was losing my time. A time I could use to do so many more things.
But then I realized that this very device that made me lose so much of my time, could actually be an incredible tool, to boost my mental health, focus AND productivity! Yep, all of that! All I needed is (a little) self-discipline, and the right apps to download. It took me time to find them and try them out but I can say that I use those 12 on a daily basis and they are really helping me reach my goals!
SO, here are my 12 MUST-HAVES that I highly encourage you to download. I’ve divided them into categories, so you can sort out according to the goal you’re trying to reach – whether is productivity, focus or mental health.
12 Apps To Become Smarter – Faster!
Apps to learn new things
TED
This one I guess doesn’t need an intro. You guys all know TED conferences. What I like about the app is that it gathers all the videos from their YouTube channel. So basically you just need to open the TED app and scroll through their last videos, without having the distraction from other YouTube videos (you know like that time when you wanted to watch something interesting and ended up watching the stupidest thing ever?)
Price: Free
Blinkist
Okay so here’s one of my favorite apps. Blinkist is allowing you to read or listen in 15 minutes the best insights from over 3000+ bestselling nonfiction books! From Psychology to Management & Leadership to Personal Growth & Self-Improvement to Mindfulness & Happiness to Communication Skills… You’ll necessarily find your area of interest! Blinkist allows you to read all the insights from the books you’ve been trying to read for so long! You don’t have access to the entire book but to the main ideas, which is awesome because you’ll save so much time!
Price: Freemium model. The paid version is $80/year with unlimited access to every book.
Duolinguo
This one is, to me, the best app to learn a language. Some will prefer Babble, but I’m definitely a Duolinguo fan. You can learn German, Chinese, Russian, French, Italian… Actually, any existing language can be learned on Duolinguo. The app is very user-friendly and the progress is crazy if you use it only 15 minutes a day. You can start as a complete beginner or you can use the app to perfect your skills.
Price: Freemium model. The paid version is $4,99/month with unlimited access to the app.
Coursera
Coursera is the app for online learning. You can choose from 2600+ courses in 11+ topics and learn on the go. This app helps you advance your career, get your dream job, master new skills or just explore new hobbies. Categories go from Data Science to Computer Science to Personal Development to Arts and Humanities and so on.
Price: Free access to the courses. The paid version unlocks quizzes and projects that test your skills and award you with a Certificate and the price varies according to the course chosen.
12 Apps To Become Smarter – Faster!
Apps to improve focus & mental health
Calm
Learning new things is really important but your brain needs rest as well. Most of the leaders in this world are using the benefits of meditation. Among others, it improves focus, fights diseases, helps losing weight, improves sleep quality and brain capacity, but also helps become happier, more conscious and appreciate life more. If you’re doing a stressful job or if you have a lot of responsibility or anxiety in your daily life, breathing and meditating, even only 5 minutes a day, can totally change your life quality. Calm is a good meditation app because you have access for free to a lot of sessions. Every time you use it you also see quotes on mindfulness and happiness from meditation masters that can inspire you!
Price: Freemium model. The paid version is $50/year and unlocks all the blocked content!
When trying to improve your life quality, sleep is literally one of the main concern you need to have. Sleep cycle is an app that monitors your sleep and helps you improve its quality. You can understand the different phases you go through during your sleep and understand what can improve or lower your sleep quality score. The app can be used as an alarm as well and wakes you up at the best time according to your sleep phases.
Price: The free version is already a very complete tool.
Brain.fm
Brain.fm provides music designed for the brain to improve focus, relaxation, naps & sleep within 15 minutes of use. If you’re trying to work for instance but cannot manage to be truly focused or productive, this app can really help. Or if you work in a noisy environment. Use it with your headphones and you’ll see the difference that it makes, it’s almost magic!!
Price: Again, the free version is enough to unlock much of the content.
Be Focused
Be Focused is an app that helps you track your focus time. It’s really helpful when you know you have to be focused to get things done. Be focused let you get those things done by breaking up individual tasks among discrete intervals, separated by short breaks. You can also use the app to manage your tasks, track your progress throughout the day and so on. You can customize the settings according to your work preferences (work interval duration, short break duration…). This app is highly efficient in maximizing your productivity!
Price: The app is free and the pro version only removes the ads so I don’t recommend it necessarily.
12 Apps To Become Smarter – Faster!
Other Apps – & Super Helpful
Evernote
Stop taking notes on your iPhone app and download Evernote. Indeed, with Evernote, you can input typed notes or scan handwritten notes. You can also add your to-do’s, photos, images, webpages, audio. And the real value-added compared to the iPhone notes is that you can organize notes any way you want, everything is instantly searchable and synchronized across all your devices. Don’t ever doubt – put il all in Evernote.
Price: Freemium model. The paid version is $69.99 per year to unlock all the
Genius scan
This one is an app you need to have on your phone because it makes your life easier! Basically, every time you got an invoice or an important paper, just scan it with Genius scan and you’ll have the scanned version directly on your phone. That way every time you need this particular important paper, you know that you don’t need to go through all your papers probably lost somewhere but just need to go to this app! “Genius” right?
Price: Free
LastPass
Again, that’s an app that can really save your life. The idea is easy it’s just putting all your password in one place, so that when you forget one of your passwords you can just look into this app. You only have one password to remember once you have LastPass –> The password to enter the app! Trust me it’s so helpful!
Price: Free
coach.me
The last app I’m going to talk about is really really IMPORTANT. You guys all need to download and use this one. All the apps I’ve talked about in this article is going to change some of your habits, maybe you’ll add new habits like “15 minutes of Duolingo a day” or “1 blinkist per week”. And when you have new habits, if you want to be consistent, track your progress is really really a must do. Otherwise, you just forget and quit all those great habits you’ve created. Coach.me is the app that is going to help you track all of that.
Price: Freemium – I believe the free version is already enough to enjoy the benefits of the app.
Talking about habits and how good it can do to your life, I recommend you to read this article, talking about the power of those habits.
Thanks for reading 12 Apps To Become Smarter – Faster! Don’t hesitate reading my other article on sustainability here.
If you’re living in Shanghai or even if you’ve just visited the city, you’ve probably noticed the pollution. There is a lot of smog that you can both see and smell, throughout the day. Sometimes reaching a level 7 times higher than the maximum average level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for a 24-hour period, this is a major concern for most of us. Some people are even considering leaving the city because of this issue, afraid it impacts their health for real.
The thing is, a huge part of this pollution is created by consumer goods. It means that, if we change our vision, the way we consume, a real difference can occur. With a healthier/sustainable lifestyle and more natural and organic products, we can limit the impact we have on the environment and reduce our own exposure to toxic chemicals.
Source: Pinterest
Sometimes though, we are having a hard time finding the right information, what account on WeChat should we follow to have access to the right products, what stores should we visit and so on. In this article, I’ll give you a selection of green vendors in Shanghai, from organic food to zero-waste products.
Top 10 most green vendors in Shanghai:
ORGANIC FOOD
First things first, let’s talk about food! If you don’t have a clue about where to find organic groceries or healthy food in Shanghai, I recommend you to take a look at those vendors first, you’ll find a big variety of qualitative products.
Kate & Kimi
Kate & Kimi is heaven for groceries! You can find a huge variety of different products, and they even have a vegan range. Again, you can directly order from their WeChat account.
Le Jardin de Ziko
Le Jardin de Ziko is a Wechat group that offers weekly packages of organic vegetables directly delivered to your door at affordable prices. They are offering only vegetables produced in the area, organically.
Goma Greens
Goma Greens delivers weekly veggie boxes from trusted farms to your doorstep. Their added value is that the boxes also come with healthy and easy recipes! They are also using as less packaging as they can, and reuse all the boxes, which is a good thing if you care about the amount of waste generated.
Lizzy’s all natural
Lizzy’s all natural is a superfood smoothie company, offering more than 50 blends and detoxifying cleanse sets. All the blends are 100% raw, vegetarian, free of preservatives and added sugar. You can directly order from their e-shop on their WeChat official account!
ZERO WASTE PRODUCTS
Organic food is very important, but limiting your amount of waste is crucial in the fight for a cleaner planet. Here are a few brands based in Shanghai that is helping you transitioning to zero-waste lifestyle smoothly.
Boomi
Boomi is a Shanghai-based startup that focuses on providing starter kits filled with eco-friendly products. For instance in a box you can find bamboo toothbrush, reusable face wipes, and shampoo blocks! They are also making some events around the zero waste topic. You can find more information on their website: https://www.myboomi.io/
Zero waste Shanghai
Zero waste Shanghai is an organization that organizes events and workshops but they also have an e-shop with zero waste products at a very affordable price. They also write interesting articles about for instance how to recognize greenwashing and false promises from brands. You can add them on WeChat and follow their official account to see more!
Baluchon
Baluchon is THE sustainable alternative to plastic & paper wrapping. Whether you are offering a gift to a loved one in the Japan-inspired gift cloth or using the washable beeswax wraps to keep your food fresh, or even using makeup removal pads, you’ll find the perfect product at Baluchon. Available directly on WeChat!
UseDem
UseDem is a project about upcycling old jeans into new wearable products. Each pair of jeans will come out a completely different and unique bag. Check them out on WeChat!
LIFESTYLE PRODUCTS
Greenwave
Greenwave is a MUST in Shanghai. As the quality of water is really bad, we have to buy bottles of water all the times, which represents a huge amount of single used plastic. Thanks to greenwave, there is a sustainable solution to avoid this consumption. Indeed, Greenwave is offering a large amount of water filter products, that they can directly install on your sink/shower. Follow them on WeChat and ask for more informations!
Eu Noia
Eu Noia sells a range of therapeuthic, ecoconscious aromatherapy blends. You can find hair, body and home products, all made from organic ingredients, healing essential oils and native botanical extracts. Everything is sourced from New Zealand. The goal? To soothe the symptoms of the busy city life! Available on WeChat!
This list of vendors is non-exhaustive and they are probably many more to add to the list, but when you first arrive to the city, I believe knowing those brands is already a good start. And never forget that every little move counts to save our beautiful planet 🙂
If you liked this “Top 10 green vendors in Shanghai” article, don’t hesitate to share!
If you want to read more on sustainability and lifestyle, go to The Light Of Yoga!
Did you know that population aging is poised to become one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century?
According a University of California, San Francisco UCSF study, 60 years old participants and older who reported feeling lonely face a 45 percent increase in their risk of death.
But, what if we could avoid that? Use technology to help seniors feeling loved, and supported by their loved ones, wherever they might be? What if we could give that “peace of mind” to all the children who left their parents alone at home?
The ultimate goal is to prevent them from having diseases, helping them being healthy. Because the last thing we all want is letting them alone suffering. Or placing them into retirement homes!
That is why, Charles Bark, Founder, and CEO of HiNounou Intelligent Robot Company, started to think about a solution. A feeling he got after experiencing a terrible feeling when his mom felt alone at her house.
HiNounou’s Home Wellness Kit
A comprehensive solution
12 years of research and development and 4 different countries. That is what was required to create HiNounou. Children now have direct access to their parents or grandparents’ wellness. In total transparency and on a daily basis! HiNounou designed a comprehensive solution utilizing AI & Healthcare Technology.
This is allowed by the Home Wellness Kit. It includes three main devices:
A Connected Medical Devices (IoT) for regular biomarker monitoring (which only take 5 minutes a day for the senior)
A DNA Genomic Test specially formulated for chronic disease risk identification
A Senior friendly smartphone with the HiNounou App. This app designed to help Seniors keep regular track of their own wellness. It’s designed for them and extremely easy to use.
HiNounou is using well-known blockchain technology. This famous decentralized and unhackable network. The health data are therefore stored and shared only to parties pre-approved by the Seniors and/or their authorized caregivers.
Strategic Partnerships
HiNounou also secured a partnership with PingAn. PingAn is the number one insurance provider in China. As a result, seniors have instant access to no underwriting accident and death insurance services. The big news is that they have access to insurance up to the age of 100 years old! Big improvement in China. But since China wasn’t enough, HiNounou also partnered with AXA, the worldwide leader in Insurance. This partnership is providing a 24×7 hotline for teleconsultation with medical professionals.
In addition, seniors are rewarded for daily wellness monitoring with Nounou tokens. Once received they may exchange the tokens within the platform to enjoy a variety of customized products and services. For instance, they’ll able to get discounts on flights, food, energy, retail products, supplements, nutrition coaching, Tai chi classes, etc.
And HiNounou is not ready to stop for the next level: HiNounou’s AI companion robot, and never let your loved ones feeling alone again.
ABOUT HINOUNOU INTELLIGENT ROBOT COMPANY
HiNounou Intelligent Robot Company is a Connected Healthcare & Intelligent Data Platform company. HiNounou is committed to cutting-edge technology and is on a mission to empower the world’s Seniors to live longer, healthier and happier, at home.
