Luxury Action, a Finnish luxury travel company, is set to open a movable igloo hotel at the North Pole in April 2020 that will operate every April from then. Guests will stay in one of 10 heated, glass-walled igloos at night, where they can gaze at the stars, and probably the Northern Lights, through glass ceilings. During the day, they will sightsee around a glacier, meet arctic scientists and indigenous people, and hopefully catch sightings of seals, polar bears, arctic birds and other wildlife. http://www.luxuryaction.com/

With a mix of additives and old rubber tires, this new pavement creates a putty that reacts to water. When water hits the road, the putty makes calcium silicates that fill any cracks, producing a constantly self-repairing road. https://www.springwise.com/sustainability-innovation/construction/self-regenerating-rubber-pavement

This assessment helps an entrepreneur or business person to pick a social issue they care about and then learn how well they are addressing the issue in eight areas of their life. It offers mentoring sessions after the assessment is complete in order to help the person create a plan. Then the revenue from the assessment helps fund children globally learning about the same social issue. The product is at https://scriptsplash.org/social-issue-assessment/

This program helps children learn about a social issue as they learn to read in their local language. At the same time it guides them in making a plan to address the social issue and share the fruit of their efforts with other children around the globe. The project is at www.Scriptastic.org.

In time for Tech23, local alum and Adelaide's emerging scaleup, Presagen has partnered with DTEX & US-federally funded R&D group Mitre.org, to apply its AI technology to a hard cyber challenge - detecting & mitigating insider threats. While initial healthtech focussed, Presagen's AI platform trains on data that is distributed globally without needing to move it or be centralised - an innovation in itself! Presagen is also solving a more general and critical problem in AI – building robust, scalable and responsible AI products. Watch this space. https://www.presagen.com/single-post/2019/09/28/Presagen-to-collaborate

Many a company has talked up the idea of using non-invasive input devices to tap into our neurons and make things like text entry possible just by thinking. The possibilities for the less able bodied and other applications are endless. So far, the progress is either in greater R&D funding & university collaborations (always a positive step) or lots of hyped marketing (not so good). Facebook's latest acquisition could be a closer move towards productisation of this technology. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/23/facebook-buys-startup-building-neural-monitoring-armband/