A French firm innovates for American retailers and their customers.
One of the great pleasures of living in a market-based economic system is tracking adaptations. For an economist there is great pleasure in this practice, even when the innovation offers him no pecuniary gain. The coronavirus has brought a raft of such innovations to match the special needs the disease has imposed on people. One remarkable adaptation comes from France, of all places. Though that economy is better known this side of the Atlantic for bureaucratic rigidities than for flexible responses, a small French firm has innovated in ways that allow it to offer people assurances on which retailers and restaurants maintain state-of-the-art virus protections. Such assurances are no doubt particularly valuable to the elderly and those of fragile health, but they also have the promise of widespread appeal.
The company name, WizVille, in a manner beloved of youthful techies, combines the word, “wizard,” no doubt to imply something clever or magical, with the word, “ville,” French for town and the root of the English word, village.
