Doing Business, now in Antarctica!

One intrepid soul has managed to take Doing Business to a whole new latitude. Tom Davenport, a senior manager in FIAS, arrived at the South Pole on January 2, and he made sure to bring along his Doing Business flag. Tom has made a bit of an heroic journey to get to this point - he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in December 2006, and underwent chemotherapy and surgery in the following ten months. But this hasn't stopped him from trekking on skis from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole and back - a journey of more than 700 miles each way (not to mention the changes in altitude).

As for a Doing Business ranking for Antarctica, Tom reports that we might not be there just yet. There are only a handful of private firms operating in Antarctica, and they use the regulations of the treaty members to which they belong. Perhaps the Doing Business team could calculate an aggregate of the treaty members' rankings, weighted by the number of firms each has operating in Antartica?

To follow Tom's return journey to Hercules Inlet (and for a very cool map of his trip), check out his blog - fromend2end. And while you're at it, you can make a donation to the Colon Cancer Alliance or the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada, two organizations Tom is supporting in his journey.