Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson, French conglomerate Thales and U.S. chip company Qualcomm are testing how a 5G network could work using low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. The benefits are expected to include coverage of extreme geographies or remote areas across seas, oceans and other locations where terrestrial coverage is absent, enabling global connectivity for transportation, energy and health sector 5G use cases as well as boosting 5G smartphone subscriber roaming service capabilities.
 
The space-based network could also be used as back-up support to terrestrial networks in the event of major network outages or disasters.The expected security capabilities of 5G non-terrestrial networks mean that national government communications may be a main use case, to enhance safe and secure national security and public safety government networks.

Read on to learn more about this story and the week's most relevant technology news impacting business.

Product Recovery Technology International (PRTI) has an unusual business model for a waste management company: It says it has found an eco-friendly way to make used tires part of the circular economy and earns money each time it accepts a tire and by selling the solid fuel, oil, gas, and steel it extracts from them. But it doesn’t stop there. The U.S. headquartered company is using economical energy generated from the transformation of used tires to mine bitcoin and power its own micro grids and data centers.

The company, which is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, has spent the last six years in mostly stealth mode, tweaking the technology at a pilot plant to ensure it will work at industrial scale. It is now preparing to open a plant in Virginia that can process 2.5 million tires per year. “This is just the start,” says CEO Chris Hare.  Scrap tires pose a major environmental headache worldwide due to their bulk and the chemicals they can release.  PRTI is looking for strategic partners to help it quickly roll-out some 170 plants inside the U.S. and 800+ plants across the world. “We are looking for locations, investors and partners,” he says.  “We want to work with partners in parallel, so we stand a chance of making a meaningful dent in this massive global problem.”

Length of time it will take for women to reach parity with men, according to The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2022 report.  The report, which was released July 13, benchmarks the evolution of gender-based gaps in four areas: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment. It also explores the impact of recent global shocks on the growing gender gap crisis in the labor market. Global gender parity for labur force participation had been slowly declining since 2009. The trend, however, was exacerbated by the COVID crisis. As a result, in 2022, gender parity in the labor force stands at 62.9%, the lowest level registered since the index was first compiled 16 years ago. Among the industries that hired the highest share of women into leadership positions in 2021 are non-governmental and membership organizations (54%), education (49%), government and public sector (46%), personal services and well-being (46%), healthcare and care services (46%), and media and communications (46%). In contrast, six industries hired significantly more men than women into leadership positions in 2021: Technology (30%), agriculture (28%), energy (25%), supply chain and transportation (25%), manufacturing (22%) and infrastructure (21%).
 .