Observer editor among int’l journalists on ‘Sharing Economy Tour’ in US
TWENTY-FIVE senior international journalists, including the Jamaica Observer’s Arlene Martin-Wilkins, are currently on a Washington Foreign Press Centre-sponsored reporting tour on the sharing economy, which is redefining business and economic models in the United States.
The nine-day tour will take the journalists across three states and will provide them with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the sharing economy and its significance in both the US and global economies.
The sharing economy has become a major topic of discussion and study, and its influence is widespread. The proliferation of collaborative consumption models has also sparked a wave of innovative technological platforms designed to facilitate shared access to a range of goods and services.
The tour begins in New York, where Martin-Wilkins and her colleagues will meet with business leaders of major collaborative consumption enterprises, as well as representatives of their traditional economy analogues, whose services are encountering new competition. The journalists will also discuss with municipal and state policymakers the practical challenges posed by the rise of the informal economy.
The journalists will then visit Las Vegas, site of the Downtown Project — a privately-funded urban revitalisation effort aimed at promoting community engagement and facilitating cross-pollination across business sectors. They will tour various Downtown Project facilities and projects to get first-hand knowledge of its innovative business model, tech start-up incubator, a unique urban centre built on a converted shipping container depot.
The tour ends in San Francisco, where the journalists will visit companies at the forefront of the sharing economy movement, including in Silicon Valley, as well as venture capitalists fuelling the movement. Meetings will also be held with municipal government representatives to learn how they have responded to the emergence of the Internet-based sharing market.
