In the 1967 film The Graduate, Walter Brook gives a baby faced Dustin Hoffman advice he should never forget. “I want to say one word to you. Just one word.” After pausing for dramatic effect, he continues, “Plastics.” Now, almost forty years later, Dustin Hoffman has forty times the wrinkles. Yet Brook’s advice is still as relevant as ever; plastics are still the secret to success. But these aren’t any ordinary petroleum based plastics. Eco-friendly plastics, which can be used to make everything from bottle caps to plastic bags, promise to be the industry of the future.

Driving to Wolftrap this past Friday, a story on NPR’s Marketplace prompted me to turn up the volume – the national business media was covering WIZZIT, a South African cell phone banking firm that NextBillion has covered extensively in the past. For the uninitiated, WIZZIT is a 1-year-old start-up changing the face of South African banking. Their low-cost cell phone debit service, which comes with a funky Maestro debit card, has quickly developed what the Mail and Guardian calls a “cult status” in poor townships. Marketplace’s Gretchen Wilson describes how it works:

It's painful as an (admittedly fairweather) fan of the US team to acknowledge that even with all the gossip about how Brazil's World Cup team is performing below

expectations they will still probably fly home with a sixth championship under their belts (I'll refrain from making a joke about Ronaldo's weight problems here).  Friendly rivalry not withstanding, I'm hoping the international media will start to turn their attention to the undiscovered talent Brazil has to offer.  No I'm not talking about the next Freddy Adu - I mean that the country doesn't just have the most successful soccer stars, it has the world's most successful hybrid system as well, produced by Eletra Industrial.

I’ve decided to come clean and admit it. I hope Brazil wins its sixth World Cup. So for those of you cheering for the Ghanas and Ecuadors of the world, you will find little solace in this post, which extols the virtues of corporate superpower, Microsoft, and its latest business venture in Brazil. These days, being a Brazil fan and a corporate cheerleader is difficult, especially at an environmental organization where everyone fights for the little guy. But hey, look on the bright side, I could be praising Apple and its latest gismo to be unveiled in Cupertino.