We’d like to know where else, in the universe of technology podcasts, you can find an episode that includes Swedish high-tech skiing treadmills, a soccer ball that stores enough energy during play to power an LED light (pictured), a reporter who “embeds” with some tekkies who want to keep information flowing into and out of Iran, and a WTP listener who is running…wait for it…a global project designed to crowdsource design ideas for rebuilding Haiti. I mean, seriously. We’ve got all of this in this episode of The World’s Technology Podcast. Before I give you the links for the episode, let me just take a minute and ask you to spread the word about the podcast. Tell your friends, or enemies. Tweet us, share us on Facebook, and/or blog about us. We need you to help the podcast grow, to help us reach new audiences. We know we’re an acquired taste — tell your friends to nibble a little bit. Who knows? They might even get hooked on us.

Anyway. Here are some relevant links from episode 277:

• Blog: Sweden’s skiers see high-tech training advantage
• Video: Swedish high-tech skiing treadmill
• Pictures: Using RTK GNSS to measure the cross-country course in Whistler
• sOccket homepage
• Jim Witkin’s NYT blog post on the sOccket
• More on Austin Heap
• Mark Dytham, Astrid Klein and Pecha Kucha for Haiti

OK, so here’s also a link to the new Talking Travel podcast with Lonely Planet that I mentioned at the top of the show.

We’re on Twitter and Facebook. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Philip Boit is Kenyan and he was a runner.  Philip Boit, did you run barefoot?

PHILIP BOIT: Yes.  Of course.  I could say its funny, but I really ran barefooted when I started my running in Kenya as almost everybody in Kenya does that when we are still young.

MARCO WERMAN: Now Philip, you gave up running years ago, but you’ve not given up on representing Kenya internationally in sports.  You’re hoping to be in Vancouver next month as a cross-country skier competing in the Winter Olympic Games.  That’s still up in the air, though at this point as you haven’t qualified yet.  Philip, you join us from Seattle.  Tell us, you came from a family of runners.  Your uncle won a bronze medal in the 800 meters at the Munich Olympics.  Why did you give up running fro cross-country skiing?

PHILIP BOIT: For sure, there are still a lot of questions.  People have been asking so much about that because Kenyans, we are doing very well in running.  Also, my – - was been very good running.  But I find out that we are overcrowded in Kenya with running, so I was trying to venture into a different sport, skiing, or a winter sport.

MARCO WERMAN: Right, you got some sponsorship the first time around.

PHILIP BOIT: Yes the first time around about four years, I got sponsorship with Nike, that was the 1996 all the way to Olympic, 1998 and after that Nike quit.  But for me, it was not the end of skiing.  I went on skiing.

MARCO WERMAN: So, you’re having problems with getting sponsorship.  Why do this?  What is it about cross-country skiing that keeps you going?

PHILIP BOIT: For me, I think my muscles, running muscles all – - to skiing muscles, which I was not going to go back running again.  So I said I have to pursue this career all the way.  Even though I don’t have sometimes sponsorship, but I fight all the way that I should keep on going.  That’s motivation that I should keep on going with skiing.

MARCO WERMAN: It’s pretty difficult to keep going because you come from a country where you can’t really train.  I mean there’s very little snow to speak of in Kenya.

PHILIP BOIT: In Kenya we don’t have snow at all.  Maybe in the big mountains like Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, up at the mountains which we cannot make it as it’s so high.  So I have been coming to Europe, mostly to Finland, but sometimes I skip about one or two years without skiing.

MARCO WERMAN: How did you manage to pay to come to the United States on this trip?

PHILIP BOIT: My ticket was paid by Olympic Committee of Kenya.  They did pay themselves.

MARCO WERMAN: When you’re in Kenya, Philip, what do you do?

PHILIP BOIT: I do farming.  I do a little bit farming, having some cows and also planting maize or corns.

MARCO WERMAN: How much have you had to rely on agriculture to underwrite your Olympic bid?

PHILIP BOIT: Yeah, I – - because – - I have to sell some of my farming goods also and put into my training.  Or sometimes I can sell even some cows and paying my payment of training area so I get assistance also from my family.

MARCO WERMAN: You were the first athlete to represent Kenya at the Winter Games.  How are you feeling about your chances right now?  You’re still trying to qualify for the Games in Vancouver.  Do you think the Olympic Committee will give you an exemption?

PHILIP BOIT: Oh yeah, I hope so.  I was in very good shape – - and Finland.  I had already skied and got 302 points and they wanted 300.  So I needed only two points to take away so that I would be qualified, but they needed 300.  And I had some problem – - in Kenya.  When I arrived in U.S. about two, I stayed about two or three days and I was sick.  I got fever and flu and it was like decreasing my power or my speed.  When I competed in U.S. I really went down.

MARCO WERMAN: Vancouver would be your fourth and final Olympics.  What will you do if you can’t compete?

PHILIP BOIT: For now I’m still positive that I will go because the way I can see, it looks positive for me.  I think I’ve not put that option of not competing.  I still have that positive attitude for the Olympics.

MARCO WERMAN: Stay positive man.  We’re rooting for you.

PHILIP BOIT: Thank you.

MARCO WERMAN: Philip Boit is hoping to represent Kenya at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  He’s currently petitioning the IOC to get an exemption to allow him to compete.  Thank you very much for speaking with us Philip.

PHILIP BOIT: Thank you very much.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Watch the Snow Leopard in action:

• Ghana Ski Team

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: This is The World. I’m Marco Werman. Every time the Olympic Games roll around there’s usually one or two competitors who are just a bit surprising – fish out of water. Take the famous Jamaican bobsled team who took part in the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. Well the next winter games get underway 101 days from now in Vancouver and there will be another unusual participant but he won’t be there just to make up the numbers as The World’s Alex Gallafent reports.

ALEX GALLAFENT: Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is a slalom skier. He happens to be from Ghana. Not a lot of snow there. But he happens to love throwing himself down snow-covered mountains at high speed.

KWAME NKRUMAH-ACHEAMPONG: Unless you’ve been at the top of a giant slalom or super [PH] G course looking down and looking at the slick slope, all the gates, and everybody looking in your face, waiting to see what you can do, it’s really hard to understand why people go into ski races when they know they can break their legs, their necks, their back. It’s just a wonderful sport.

GALLAFENT: And Acheampong is good at it. He’s just qualified to represent Ghana at next year’s Olympics – the country’s first representative at the winter games. Oh and he only started skiing six years ago.

ACHEAMPONG: I got a job at the indoor ski center, picked up a pair of snowblades and had a go.

GALLAFENT: That indoor ski center was in the UK, the country where Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong lives today. He’d left Ghana to pursue a master’s degree in tourism management but school was expensive. He had to get a job. Working as a receptionist at a sport’s center seemed a good fit. Free indoor skiing was a bonus.

ACHEAMPONG: I just did it for the fun of doing it. [INDISCERNIBLE] every staff member who worked there. So I just had a go. And it’s kind of snowballed and I find myself heading to Vancouver.

EDDIE EDWARDS: I just think he should go there and enjoy every minute of it.

GALLAFENT: That’s Eddie Edwards also in the UK. Over two decades ago he captured the world’s attention at the Calgary games. Eddie Edwards was known as the Eagle. In regular life Edwards worked as a plasterer. He still does in fact. But at the Olympics his quixotic mission was to excel at the ski jump. He didn’t. Eddie the Eagle Edwards was depending on your perspective a hero of amateurs everywhere of simply the worst ski jumper ever to appear at the Olympics.

EDWARDS: There were those who thought this is great and that was exemplifying the whole Olympic spirit. And there were those who felt I wasn’t an athlete and shouldn’t have been there.

GALLAFENT: Eddie Edwards expects Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong will get the same kinds of reaction in Vancouver.

EDWARDS: I think he knows and everybody else knows that I don’t think he’s going to win a medal or go even close. But he should go out there and enjoy the whole experience of being in the Olympics and do the best he can. That’s all everybody can expect of him and just enjoy it really.

GALLAFENT: But hold on says the Ghanaian skier who has a nickname of his own – the snow leopard.

ACHEAMPONG: I think Eddie the Eagle let the whole fun side of what he was doing take over you know what he was trying to achieve and instead of being looked upon as a professional sports person he became a joke.

GALLAFENT: Ouch. The snow leopard isn’t messing around here. When he has the funding he trains in the Italian Alps and he’s far from the worst Olympic level skier around. Still Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong is realistic about his Olympic chances.

ACHEAMPONG: I can’t win the races I go into. [INDISCERNIBLE] tough. So skiing is a sport which just has an endless challenge for me. And I don’t want to look at the final table of athletes and see myself at the bottom. I’d want at least five other athletes to be behind me.

GALLAFENT: You wouldn’t bet against him. For The World I’m Alex Gallafent.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.