Nicole Junkermann, the renowned businesswoman and investor based in London, is the founder of NJF Holdings. Born in Germany 40 years ago, she always tries to focus on innovation when planning her investments.
“I constantly look for ideas with the potential to change industries and traditional business models. Fortunately I have been successful in many of my investments, but obviously not in all. As a matter of fact, if an investor tells you that he is successful in all his investments he is lying. One thing is certain, if you seek to revolutionize an industry or a traditional business model by betting on technology and innovation, you have a high probability of success: but the mere idea is not enough, it must also be executed. I have invested in business models and great ideas that have not succeeded because the execution has not been good, there are so many factors for a business to succeed that it is very difficult to find the formula for success. But this i can tell you: if you have a good idea, you are constant , you work and you innovate, you will have a better chance of succeeding than the rest”.
Nicole Junkermann entrepreneur: innovation
Junkermann is on a roll. Her investments, always focused on the technological component, are countless. Blockchain is one out of many: with over 58 million wallets, $6200B transacted, and the lowest fees in the industry, it’s no wonder it’s arguably the most trusted cryptocurrency wallet.
“The blockchain is undoubtedly a revolution, which goes far beyond cryptocurrencies. The blockchain can be applied to many industries and cases. The concept of having decentralized information and management in an interconnected network is very interesting. Little by little I am sure that it will be more present in people’s lives, especially in sectors such as finance or even for day-to-day procedures. Can you imagine a world in which it is not necessary to go to the notary for each management because there is a blockchain network that validates the operations? The efficiencies and savings in time and resources can be enormous. For companies it can also mean great advances, especially when it comes to streamlining procedures. With “smart contracts” that use blockchain technology to save modifications, any type of negotiation can become much more efficient. The blockchain can also help streamline financial operations because the network can validate the operation in a matter of seconds with the available data. The applications and opportunities around this technology are endless and every day I am surprised by the new uses that are made of it, it will undoubtedly have a super important role for society in the medium and long term”.
The Vice Presidential debate showed sharp contrasts between the two parties’ agendas for the economy, health care and more. Here are some quotes from Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
Harris on a vaccine: “If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it, absolutely, but if Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.”
Pence on a vaccine: “The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine – if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration – I think is unconscionable … stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
Harris on the economy: “Joe Biden believes you measure the health and the strength of America’s economy based on the health and the strength of the American worker and the American family. On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who measures the strength of the economy based on how rich people are doing, which is why they passed a tax bill benefiting the top 1 percent … that the American people will now have to pay for.”
Pence on on the economy: “More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline. President Trump and I will keep America growing. The V-shaped recovery that’s underway right now will continue with four more years of President Donald Trump.”
Harris on the U.S. military: “This is about a pattern of Donald Trump’s, where he has referred to our men who are serving in our military as suckers and losers. Donald Trump, who went to Arlington Cemetery, and stood above the graves of our fallen heroes and said, what’s in it for them.”
Pence on the U.S. military: “President Donald Trump not only respects but reveres all of those who served in our armed forces, and any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous.”
Harris on policing: “ We need reform of our policing in America and our criminal justice system which is why Joe and I will immediately ban chokeholds … we will require a national registry for police officers who break the law. We will … get rid of private prisons and cash bail.”
Pence on policing: “There is no excuse for what happened to George Floyd, justice will be served. But there is also no excuse for the rioting or the looting.”
Climate change in dangerous, but same goes for protesting against climate change. London’s Metropolitan Police said on Monday it had so far arrested 267 people taking part in demonstrations organised by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion.
Thousands of climate-change protesters took to the streets in cities around the world on Monday, launching two weeks of civil disobedience to demand immediate action to cut carbon emissions and avert an ecological disaster.
“As of 1815hrs today (1715 GMT), 276 people have been arrested as part of the Extinction Rebellion protests in London,” the Metropolitan Police said on Twitter.
Protestershave been labelled "uncooperative crusties" by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The demonstrators - who are demanding action on climate change - should abandon their "hemp-smelling bivouacs" and stop blocking roads, the PM added.
Extinction Rebellion activists are protesting in cities around the world, including Berlin, Amsterdam and Sydney.
Some glued and chained themselves to roads and vehicles - those who did so outside Westminster Abbey were later removed by police.
Extinction Rebellion (XR for short) wants governments to declare a "climate and ecological emergency" and take immediate action to address climate change.
It describes itself as an international "non-violent civil disobedience activist movement".
Extinction Rebellion was launched in 2018 and organisers say it now has groups willing to take action in dozens of countries.
A conservation group has released 80 juvenile sand lizards, one of the UK’s rarest reptiles, into the wild in Hampshire.
Marwell Wildlife, led by PhD student Rachel Gardner, released the lizards onto Eelmoor Marsh Site of Special Scientific Interest near Farnborough as part of a three-year release plan and research project.
Radio tags weighing less than 0.3 grams were used to assess the animals’ activity, and the lizards were tracked upon their release into the wild.
The research included evaluating behaviour, habitat use and survivorship of individuals, which are uniquely identifiable by their spot patterns.
Ms Gardner said: “We have seen some unexpected behaviours, for example, some individuals travelled over a hundred metres away from the release site within just a couple of weeks.
“Considering the size of the animals [a few centimetres long] and the complexity of the heathland environment, this is quite a distance in such a short space of time.”
Once common across heathlands of southern England, sand lizard numbers have depleted due to habitat loss, and they are now only found in a handful of sites in southern England, Wales and Merseyside.
Marwell Wildlife, as part of its conservation programme, has now brought the total number of sand lizards reintroduced to Eelmoor Marsh to over 240 individuals, with the aim to establish a self-sustaining population.
Ms Gardner said: “It’s been a privilege to work on this project and observe the sand lizards in such detail.
“We hope the research will help inform and make recommendations for the reintroduction protocol in the future, and therefore help optimise its conservation success.” - PA Media
Was Prince really so mean? Sinead O’Connor has accused the musician, deceased in 2016, of attempting to “beat her up” and leaving a female member of his band with broken ribs.
“Prince tried to beat me up,” she told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain.
“It was a very frightening experience. He summoned me to his house one night and I foolishly went alone. He was uncomfortable with the fact I wasn’t a protégé of his and that I’d just recorded the song.”
She continued: “He was wanting me to be a protégé of his and ordered that I don’t swear in my interviews. I told him where he could go and he went for me. He went upstairs and got a pillow and he had something hard in the pillow. I ran out of his house, hiding behind a tree.
“We met on the highway in Malibu at five in the morning – I’m spitting at him, he’s trying to punch me. I had to go ring someone’s doorbell, which my father always told me to do if I was in a situation like that.”
O’Connor said the singer was “into some pretty dark drugs at the time” and added: “I’m not the only one he went at.
“One of the girls in his band was in the hospital with broken ribs at the time.”
She also claimed there were other women who were attacked by the singer and said they should come forward to share their stories.
Last week, O’Connor apologised for saying she “never wants to spend time with white people again” following her conversion to Islam.
Prince’s estate has not replied yet to O’Connor’s accusations.
In 1991, if you’d suggested making a pair of white headphones, people would have laughed at you. Headphones were black, they said. Everyone knew that. They went over your ear, and they plugged into large, square computers or MP3 players, which were grey or black themselves. Technology was what sold high-end audio and computing products; the processing power of an Amstrad or a PC was what attracted a consumer’s interest. Only an idiot would care what his computer looked like. Ten years later, Jony Ive and Steve Jobs would prove them wrong, taking the audio technology market by storm with their sleek new (white!) Apple iPod and graceful accompanying earbuds. Well, half wrong – technical specs like processing power were still important. But design was too. Jobs and Ive would sell 100m units in the next six years.
We’ve come a long way since then. It’s now a truism to say that aesthetic design is as important as the raw power, the actual capability, of a product, but it bears repeating nonetheless. Your headphones need to look good as well as produce crisp sound quality, or kids won’t wear them in public. A sleek, well branded laptop will dominate the market against a cheaper, uglier model with the same specifications. Often, a car’s reputation relies as much upon how it looks as how it performs. This is the paradox of desirability: that different people place different value on aesthetic and performance variables. And everyone has different tastes. Some brands cater better to those who like beautiful objects, and some appeal to those who want unrivalled functionality, but every successful creator knows how to effortlessly merge the two.
It was this pairing of functionality and form that Jean-Christophe Chopin had in mind when he founded the BORN Series. Encapsulated in the three pillars of design excellence – desirability, functionality and being made with integrity – the winners of the 2019 BORN Series in association with Land Rover are all members of the BORN Society whose work has been judged as at the head of their field by an expert jury: Gerry McGovern, Chief Design Officer at Land Rover, Nathalie Bernce, CEO of SmarTech, and Nicole Junkermann of NJF Capital.
The judges chose winners and nominees in the Technology category on the explicit theme of “Desirability”. Over a triumphant Milan Design Week, the winners from France, Italy and Spain were announced to the world with an exhibition that coincided with the 500th anniversary of the death of the city’s most famous artist, Leonardo da Vinci, a man as well known for the desirability and beauty of his art as the innovation of his masterful inventions.
From France, Nicolas Moulin, Olivier Partrat and Jean-Christophe Dol’s Olfinity indoor air system took first place: an air purifier with an almost gong-like design, reminiscent of a record player, perhaps, that can soothe and calm to the same effect – the beginning of an olfactory journey to transport you to a Buddhist temple, a Parisian salon, or anywhere in between.
Meanwhile, nominee Jean-Michel Karam’s Ieva Twin-C was also recognised; a device whose design draws on the desirability of watches, channelling the traditional historic grace of Swiss haute horlogerie, but whose function is decisively forward-thinking, helping its user measure air pollution, luminosity, noise, temperature, humidity, and ultraviolet activity to understand how they can improve their wellness and environmental awareness.
The Spanish prize for Technology was won by Glovo, the on-demand app designed by Oscar Pierre that connects customers to independent local couriers, who then deliver goods to them from any restaurant or shop in a city, or take packages from users for delivery without delay. Anything from pizza one evening if you don’t feel like cooking, to medicine from the local pharmacy if you’re ill and can’t leave the house; Glovo streamlines and removes the stresses of modern life.
And from Italy – arguably the historic home of design excellence, as evidenced by Milan Design Week – there were a plethora of brilliant creators nominated. Notably, Filippo Pagliacci, Giuseppe Pizzuto & Diego Ponzetto (a.k.a. Movitra)’s Tytus titanium crash-proof glasses won the Special Functionality Prize for a patented concept so thrillingly simple that it’s astounding no-one had made these glasses before: they fold across the bridge of the nose, then rotate 180 degrees to leave the lenses facing different directions. Fold the arms down, and they’re now on either side of each lens, protecting it from scratches.
As ingenious was the eventual winner in the Technology category, Jacqueline, the IoT Smart teapot by Innocenzo Rifino and Diego Rossi. Rifino and Rossi’s teapot looks like a handbag; one can imagine it dangling from the elbow of Grace Kelly. Jacqueline heats water to the perfect temperature for whatever delicate tea is being brewed, anywhere from 40 to 100 degrees Celsius, and can keep it at that point for up to an hour.
There’s such variety demonstrated throughout the winners and nominees, and indeed all the thousands of entries to the competition, that it’s hard to isolate a single strand that they all have in common other than the abstract idea of “being desirable.” To paraphrase a famous 1964 quote from a US Supreme Court justice: “I won’t attempt to define good design, but I know it when I see it.” And the nominees’ success was clear from the judges’ reactions.
“Over 7,000 creators from around the world entered the BORN Series this year”, noted Gerry McGovern of the competition. “With such an exceptionally high standard of competition, it was a pleasure to recognise those creators who truly and passionately believe that desirable, functional products, made with integrity, can change the way we live for the better.” Nathalie Bernce, whose global company Smartech acts as a retail hub for the world’s latest innovations, with premium stores all over the world said, “At Smartech we spend a lot of time discovering the best innovations the world has to offer, the cutting-edge trends that our customers love. The BORN winners are at the forefront of this, making the impossible possible.” And Nicole Junkermann, who as both an investor and lover of technology is highly knowledgeable and passionate about world-class design, observed that “At its heart, great design is all about desirability. The most desirable products promote a symbiotic relationship between form and function, delivering an experience that’s effortless and elegant. So the key question I ask when looking at these BORN award winners is: Do I want to own the product they have designed? The answer is invariably yes.”
And so to the future. With the mainland European winners announced, design excellence from the UK, USA and international markets further afield will be celebrated. Nominees range from Ujet, a graceful folding scooter with roots in Ulm, Germany, to the UK’s Elvie, a discreet, clean-cut line of health products that put women first, and Sphero, an American initiative to teach children to code and create using programmable robots.
No one idea is the same as any other; each transcends national boundaries and is simple enough for a newcomer to comprehend whilst using ingenious technology. Ultimately, each product has one simple common factor: we desire it.
Summer in Finland is a spectacular time of the year. For those who venture north of the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set at all from May to August, while further south the sun can be visible for nearly around the clock during June and July. When nights are almost as light as day it is possible to do all the same things that you would do during the day. The greatest difference comes from the incredible change in the nature of the light.
The sun takes on a reddish-yellow colour – almost like during sunrise or sunset – and everything around you is bathed in an unimaginably warm, bright light. A nocturnal swim and sauna is a definite must under the Midnight Sun. Lakes and sea waters warm up from June onwards. The quintessential way to take in the Midnight Sun is at a cottage. Many people in Finland have a cottage in the family – often a private little retreat by a lake somewhere. Finns love their quietness, and visitors should also experience true northern style relaxation by escaping the daily grind to a peaceful hideaway. Some like a different approach. The Midnight Sun extends your day with those extra hours you keep hoping for in your daily life. Make use of it and go hiking, canoeing, fishing or play a round of golf in the wee hours.
An old popular belief in the Midnight Sun mythology is that when a young maiden collects seven flowers under her pillow on Midsummer night – the longest day of the year – her future fiancée will show up in her dreams. The best place to experience the Midnight Sun is Finnish Lapland. The Midnight Sun Film Festival (founded by famous filmmaker brothers Kaurismäki) and folklore festival Jutajaiset – both in June – are great ways to enjoy local culture and the Midnight Sun. In the South, the best time to enjoy the Midnight Sun is around Summer Solstice. A traditional midsummer party in Seurasaari island in Helsinki or a rock festival in the heart of Lakeland both share the magic of white nights. Photo: Saana Kotila/ Midnight Sun Film Festival Although the full Midnight Sun can only be experienced above the Arctic Circle, the nights are white throughout the country. Even Helsinki on the southern coast has virtual daylight around the clock. Late at night, the sun just briefly dips beyond the horizon before rising again, blurring the boundaries between fading night and dawning day.
As Helsinki is a coastal city, we recommend island-hopping and all kinds of outdoor activities in the summer. But, should you still wish to go clubbing and stay indoors, be warned – getting out of a dark nightclub at 3 a.m. can be a bit confusing, as it feels more like 3 p.m. You wouldn’t be the first to swap sleep for an afterparty on the beach – in full sunlight, of course! For Finnish children, summer evenings equal no bed time. There is a time for sleeping and it’s called winter – just ask the bears and other mammals that hibernate through most of it. We say don’t worry about sleep; make the most of the Midnight Sun!
