Technology pioneers 2011 (WEF report)

The Technology Pioneers 2011 - Empowering People and Transforming Society report from the World Economic Forum offers some interesting read, since the technologies that innovators are working on today will shape our world tomorrow... Unsurprisingly, most companies in this year's list of 31 technology pioneers are about improving sustainability challenges, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions.

The most striking conclusion is that 18 companies out of the 31 listed have their origin in the United States. Europe, with 5 companies (2 from the UK, 2 from The Netherlands, 1 from Switzerland) looks a bit bleak in comparison (the WEF is based in Switzerland, so you can't blame this on US-centricity of the organization). Interesting as well: the first African company to appear on the list is from Nigeria.

The 2 'tech pioneers' that got most of my attention were:

• Novacem (UK), a company that not only found a way of reducing the CO2 emission of making cement, but they even make this cement absorbing CO2!
• ReputationDefender (US), a software company that helps to manage (and correct) our online profile, no doubt this type of tools will become increasingly important (and maybe this is a prelude for a trend towards asocial media?)

As said, interesting read...