Takeaways.  Some obvious and some not to.

For more than 2,000 years, women have been excluded from the system of money. Often engaged in unpaid labour, usually barred from inheriting wealth, frequently forbidden to have bank accounts, and commonly unable to own property, women in the history of East and West have been effectively left out of the world of investment and credit. Today, the prints of past exclusion can still be seen in laws and practices of developed and developing nations.

Now, however, major institutions throughout the world are working together to create a more inclusive system to promote growth and equality. Power Shift 2014 uncovered exclusionary practices, identified effective reforms, and celebrated champions of change.

!.  Set bigger goals and you’ll surprise yourself 2.  Don’t ask friends for their opinion about your product or service. They’ll never tell you the truth. Just ask strangers.       3..  You need to meet people before you need them, so start building your network now. 4.  Never eat lunch alone; it’s an opportunity to make new connections.          5.  You’ll not be remembered for being a good business woman but you’ll be remembered for being a good mum/sister/friend etc. See yourself as a human first, and a woman second. 6.  Learn how to say No. For example: “I’m saying No to this so I can say Yes to something else.” 7.  You are what you do! Start doing more with what you have. 8.  Women need to introduce more numbers into your business plans. Men’s business plans have more numbers so they look more impressive and most of the reviewers approving the business plans at the banks are also men!       9. Ask for help. Women are notorious for not asking for help when they need it. –

Two years ago, in something like a quirky, B2B Craigslist hookup, Heinz, Ford, Coca-Cola, Nike, and Procter & Gamble found one another. Since then, the five companies have been exploring ways to replace conventional, petrochemical-based plastic with materials derived completely from plant matter.

This week, Ford announced that it and Heinz have made a good bit of progress, as they’ve worked to turn the latter’s tomato waste into the former’s bioplastics. Ford says that tomato skins, for example, may ultimately be used to create plastic for wiring brackets, panels, or storage bins. (Still no word on the seeds and stems, which, as any college student can tell you, are problematic.)

Ellen Lee, a plastics research technical specialist with the automaker, says that “Our goal is to develop a strong, lightweight material that meets our vehicle requirements, while at the same time reducing our overall environmental impact.”

Which is great, but it avoids any mention of economic imperatives. Despite the hazards involved in producing and employing plastics derived from petrochemicals, companies keep doing so because it’s cheap. Recycling old materials and creating new ones from waste takes time and considerably more money — at least in the initial phases. That’s a deterrent to managers and shareholders focused on the bottom line.

There are also limits to the safety and effectiveness of these new materials. Plant-derived products may be fine for building storage bins, but no one’s found a way to use them as substitutes for sheetmetal. (Though that hasn’t kept some from trying.) Shifting to aluminum car bodies can lessen the environmental impact of auto manufacturing, since aluminum is easily recycled, but the dream of a fully recycled or bio-based car is a long way off.

And sadly, future technology isn’t necessarily much cleaner. As eco-friendly as battery electric and fuel cell vehicles may seem, they still require a lot of resources — not just mined metals that create car batteries, but also electricity that’s often generated from “dirty” sources.

Like global warming, education, the obesity epidemic, and countless other contemporary problems, greening cars can’t be done in one fell swoop. It’s death – or in this case, success – by a thousand cuts. Kudos to Ford and Heinz for taking a stab at it.

In the interest of developing electric cars, Elon Musk will give you his patents if you want them. The chief executive of Tesla Motors, the electric car company, will let competitors use its patents, numbering several hundred, without the fear of triggering a lawsuit. In a blog post Thursday, Mr. Musk notes his reasoning for a decision that would ordinarily leave patent lawyers scratching their heads.

Namely, that “annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars,” he says in the post. “It is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis.”

This decision goes along with the company’s stated goal: showing that an electric car can be every bit as utilitarian and cool as a gasoline-fueled car.  Musk says patents hinder progress and stand in the way of companies developing electric cars.  “Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport,” he says in the post. “If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal.”

Because so few companies are producing electric cars, Musk is confident that others’ use of its technology will not hurt the Palo Alto-based company. In his view, the competition is not other electric car manufacturers, but rather “the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.”

At major auto manufacturers, the amount of electric cars produced, or cars that burn no hydrocarbons, totals less than one percent. By opening up its patents, Musk hopes to reverse this trend. Granted, he recognizes that things won’t change overnight. Rather, the move comes more as a symbolic gesture to begin moving an industry toward a spirit of greater cooperation in an effort to begin producing more zero-emission vehicles.

“Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers,” Musk says in the post. “We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.”

Musk noted that Tesla will continue to secure patents for its future products so that other companies don’t take the idea and patent it themselves, according to Forbes. Still, future patents will also be available for free.

The UAE has emerged as the most popular destination for professionals looking to migrate, according to a new study by networking site LinkedIn.  The global study, which tracked talent migration among the 300 million members on LinkedIn’s network, found that the UAE gained 1.3 per cent as a percentage of its total workforce in a 12-month period, topping a list of 20 nations.

Of this talent inflow, 75 per cent was from outside the Middle East, and more than 40 per cent reported a new role with a promotion and higher designation, a statement said.  India was the top destination from where most professionals moved to the UAE, followed by the UK, Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia.

The industry sectors that attracted the most talent were management & leadership, engineering, sales accounting and lifestyle.

The UAE has attracted more professional talent as a percentage of its workforce than countries such as Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, India, Singapore and Australia, the statement said.

Ali Matar, head of Talent Solutions, LinkedIn MENA, said: “This latest study shows that two Middle Eastern nations, UAE and Saudi Arabia, have gained talent at 1.3 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively. Talent inflows are from Europe, USA, the Subcontinent, and other Arab nations, showing that the Gulf states still retain their attractiveness for employment.”

Overall, the study found that the countries that topped the list in exporting talent to other countries were Spain, United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy and Ireland.

The UAE is building up its talent base as it prepares to host Expo 2020 in Dubai. The six-month long event is expected to provide up to 277,000 new job opportunities in the market and boost the economy.  W-T-W.org will explore the reasons why and particularly opportunities for women.