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Meet the company that brought 'Ebola' to CES
Every year, CES manages to bring thousands of exhibitors to Las Vegas, spreading them across the Las Vegas Convention Center and throughout hotels like Mandalay Bay, Sands Expo and The Mirage. For members of the media, the abundance of companies at the show makes the task of keeping up with every one of them extremely hard -- but it must be done. Exhibitors, on the other hand, have to reach out to journalists and host press conferences in hopes of getting valuable airtime for their product, whatever it may be. Naturally, due to the madness that is CES, smaller companies have to get creative to compete for attention with the tech giants of the world, such as Samsung, LG, Sony and more. And it helps tremendously if their product is, you know, actually good. So, when we got an email with a subject line that said, "WakaWaka Brings Ebola To CES," we instantly took notice. According to recent statistics, Ebola is estimated to have infected more than 20,000 people worldwide, the majority of them in West Africa. To date, the deadly virus has taken roughly 8,000 lives. At first glance, you think, "Are they seriously using a disease for promotional purposes?" Indeed, the company behind it, WakaWaka, wasn't really bringing Ebola to CES, but that's quite a bold way to approach pitching a story to journalists and other CES attendees.
A lovefest between the LG G Flex 2 and WakaWaka
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-485091{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-485091, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-485091{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-485091").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Even though this year's CES is coming to a close today, the Engadget stage is still going strong. Yesterday, we sat down with LG and WakaWaka, which makes a solar-powered portable charger that drives a buy-one-give-one initiative -- similar to what Toms does with its shoes. LG Mobile's Lee talked about the G Flex 2 and showed us some of the new features on the flagship smartphone, such as its curved screen. For his part, WakaWaka's co-founder and CEO, Camille van Gestel, touched on what his company is trying to do with the WakaWaka Power+, like how it's already helped hundreds of thousands of people across the world who don't have access to electricity.
