A trip to the art museum could have turned into a very costly trip for a 12-year-old boy in Taipei when he lost his balance and put his hand through a painting worth around $1.5 million. The damaged work, “Flowers” by Italian master Paolo Porpora, was part of a Taipei exhibition of artwork by or influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Porpora was a  41  still life artist who produced baroque-style paintings, often of fruit and flowers. The work was 200cm tall, depicting flowers in a vase. The film  42  by the organizers of the “Face of Leonardo: Images of a Genius” exhibition shows the boy – in shorts, sneakers, a blue T-shirt and holding a drink – walk past the painting, catching his foot and stumbling over. He looks up at the painting, shown later to have a fist-sized gash at the bottom. The boy  43  , looking around at other people in the room. Organizers did not believe that the boy intentionally vandalized the oil painting, saying that it was obvious that the boy did not mean to push it.“All 55 paintings in the venue are  44  pieces and they are very rare and precious,” a post on the exhibition’s Facebook page said. “Once these works are damaged, they are permanently damaged.” Nevertheless, the exhibition organizers decided not to  45  the boy for the damage and said that the painting could be easily restored. This incident, however, made them reconsider displaying valuable paintings in the open.

　　Maritza, a professional yoga trainer, is one of almost 100,000 users of Bliive－a Brazil-based website that brands itself as the world’s largest online time-exchange platform. Bliive looks and feels like a social media platform. Its users trade services, including guitar lessons, air conditioner repairs and tarot card readings, without any cash or creditcard transactions. For each hour of service provided, the user receives Time Money, with which they can buy another service. Maritza earned almost 40 hours’ worth of Bliive services. With that much Time Money, she was able to create her own website about breathing techniques, including her own branding. Each person offers his help in one-hourchunks, and people who have “exchanged” Time Money can rate and review the quality of the service provided.

　　Bliive was founded a year and a half ago by Lorrana Scarpioni, a 24-year-old public relations student. She now employs a team of about a dozen people in Sao Paulo. She came up with the idea after watching documentaries about the sharing economy and alternative currencies. “If people were willing to engage in couch surfing－letting complete strangers into their houses－surely there was a potential for exchanging something as simple as one hour of a service,”Lorrana says.“Bliive is a collaborative network of time exchange. We see this platform as a movement that shows people the real value of exchanges and how they can develop themselves this way.”

　　Bliive takes the concept of the sharing economy－popularized by platforms including Uber and Airbnb－a stepfurther. It creates a new channel between the supply and demand of services, and does away with conventional cash altogether. More than 90,000 services are on offer on the website, making it larger than other barter-based sites. “Theno-money-involved transferences can be a great alternative to keep people developing themselves. We see a lot ofpeople who have graduated with very nice degrees, but they don’t have jobs,” she says. While Bliive aims to become more profitable, Lorrana is keen to retain its core values. “We use these talents and values to create a world that ismore collaborative and less competitive, more focused on the value of people, not just the value of money,” she says.