When politics is as heated as it has been in the U.S. this election cycle, it’s hard to resist the desire to talk about what’s going on with your coworkers. But is the office the right place to discuss whether you are a Clinton or Trump fan? Or whether you’re happy and furious about Brexit? What’s the most tactful way to go about it? And what should you do about the coworker who can’t tamp his enthusiasm and relentlessly talks about politics?

GE Healthcare has launched an accelerator, called five.eight, focused on startups creating technologies that can improve care delivery in the the developing world.

Portfolio companies from four social impact investors – Acumen, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, Unitus Seed Fund and Villgro – will be among the initial applicants for the first accelerator program, officials said.

Image: GE Healthcare CEO John Flannery said the goal is go help foster a global healthcare ecosystem. - http://www.healthcareitnews.com

Samsung Electronics has launched a startup-incubating program in Israel as part of its efforts to help promising startups expand their presence, the electronics giant announced Monday.

The Samsung NEXT Tel Aviv will serve as a center for startups there. A startup may be funded up to US$1 million by Samsung, and the South Korean tech firm will cooperate with venture firms with cutting-edge technologies through a stake purchase and mergers and acquisitions.

While crowdfunding is an exciting prospect, most people only have a cursory knowledge at best of the key principles of a new industry.

But because that industry is so new there are some unique opportunities to access the people who know crowdfunding the best, including those who lobbied for and helped design current legislation.

Image: Ruth Hedges invites everyone to the fifth annual Global Crowdfunding Convention - http://www.banklesstimes.com

The worst reality, which is also part of what makes entrepreneurship so visceral — is the true feeling of Failing With 100% Responsibility.

You will never, ever feel Failing With 100% Responsibility as a “mere” employee. It’s hard there, too — but it’s not the same. If you aren’t the founders, and the business fails. You pick yourself up, and find another job. You move on. If as a non-founder, you fail at your individual job, that is rough. But the company can survive that. You move on.

Restoring some fairness and balance to the story of Roger Ailes

If I were to ask you — you being the average, massively well-informed TAS reader — to identify the greatest living entrepreneur of the 21st century, whose name would spring to mind?

You might think first of Bill Gates. But no, he was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century. And after he stepped down at Microsoft in 2000, much of his wealth was created by the two CEOs who followed him.

Treasure hunters and explorers David Lang and Eric Stackpole are creating what they call the world's first low-cost underwater drone.

Back in 2012, Eric told David about gold lost inside an underwater cave in California that was just begging to be found. So, naturally, the two set out on their path becoming millionaires, scheming ways of locating and extracting the hidden treasure.

SYDNEY, Australia — Heron Island, a coral cay at the southern tip of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef awash in piercing sunlight and translucent seas, has been a proving ground for reef science for more than 80 years.

Because of its clear blue waters and mostly cloudless skies, Heron Island is one of a handful of sites worldwide where scientists from the United States, Bermuda and Australia have converged with a tricked-out NASA Gulfstream jet to modernize the way the world looks at its fragile coral reefs, an early warning system of a changing climate.

Image: Researchers preparing to collect data off Lizard Island, Australia, for a study of the Great Barrier Reef that will also use aerial images. Credit Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences/Jpl-Caltech, via NASA

It is a matter of weeks before we know the identity of the next President of the United States. Until the moment he or she is sworn in, a cadre of nearly 900 people at the White House will work their way towards a leadership transition. When President Barack Obama’s helicopter lifts off on January 20th taking him into retirement, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be populated with hordes of neophytes, doubling down for the next four years in service to a brand new boss, such is the regularity and predictability of that political process.

For ten years or more, China has been a uniquely powerful engine of the global economy, regularly posting high single-figure or even double-digit annual increases in GDP. More recently, growth has slowed, prompting sharp falls in international commodity prices and casting a shadow over the near-term prospects for developed and emerging markets.

The race to find the next Silicon Valley continues to meander in all sorts of directions across the country.

The latest leader in potential cities? St. Louis.

As Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight reported this week, the Midwestern city has seen a heavy increase in startup businesses, despite the fact that the country as a whole has seen a dip in the trend. In 2014, the national startup rate fell 8 percent. In fact, that same year, Gallup noted that there was a decline in new businesses, as startups struggled to find financing for their ventures.

Image: http://www.wral.com 

Jessica Mah, the CEO of inDinero, a San Francisco-based accounting software startup, sees reading as so important to the growth of her company that she reads two books a week. Mah, one of Fast Company's Most Creative People, explains:

I love reading about how the most successful and creative business leaders built their businesses and how I can take that idea and run with it or modify their strategies for inDinero. My routine is to take advantage of and fill my weekends and after-hours and travel time with reading. I also suggest books to my executive team, some I have not read, so they can learn different things and bring the best ideas up for discussion. It’s a team effort.

Image: Miss Auras via Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes it's an economic cycle that forces your hand. Other times it's an opportunity where the career upsides outweigh the compensation package. Or maybe you've just had to move. No matter your reason, accepting a lower salary than the one you've earned previously isn't any fun. But there are actually some upsides to making less, and they can change your perspective on your career and even yourself in ways you might not expect.

If it feels like everyone is suddenly talking about venture capital, don't worry, you're not alone.

"I'm always surprised, I go to parties and people introduce themselves as a venture capitalist," says Michael Panaccio, principal at Melbourne based Starfish Ventures, one of the older VC firms in Australia

"Let's say you are a wealthy person who has $20 million to $30 million in net assets, and they are happy to have their son or daughter set up a fund and invest $2 million in a number of start-ups. They would go around town saying they are a VC."

As you may already know, Y Combinator (the most successful incubator in the world) is currently in Nigeria as part of their office hours world tour. YC CEO Michael Siebel was at the first edition of OIIE's StartUP Friday in Lagos on Friday and then TechCirlce's "Building a startup: A chat with Y Combinator, incubators & Co" on Saturday, September 24, 2016. YC COO Qasar Younis was also present at the TechCircle event, where they gave numerous tips on how to get into Y Combinator amongst other stuff.

Australia is on the cusp of an agricultural technology innovation boom, with entrepreneurs urged to submit startup ideas to reinvigorate and boost our $60 billion agriculture industry.

Financial advisory and accounting services provider Findex and the National Farmers' Federation last week announced the launch of a pre-accelerator program as part of a joint initiative called SproutX designed to collate startup ideas to nurture and commercialise the best ideas in food, fibre and agribusiness.

There’s tremendous buzz these days about innovation. Large companies try to kick-start sales with new state-of-the-art products, competing against startup businesses introducing truly groundbreaking offerings. Often, the big companies swallow the small entrepreneurial companies to get their hands on technology and gain a competitive edge in the market.

Image: David Day, Assistant Vice President & Director of Office of Technology Licensing at the University of Florida, is with his team. Day, in the center with the blue hair, lost a bet with his crew, hence the dying of his hair.  - http://www.floridatrend.com

New research highlights Auckland’s thriving innovation ecosystem

New JLL report out today on the rise of tech hubs

A new whitepaper released today by global real estate firm JLL shows how the evolution of Auckland’s innovation spaces is changing the shape of commercial real estate.

The report, entitled ‘Sustaining momentum: The role of property in the tech hub puzzle’, considers what start-up companies require once they outgrow co-working environments and need to find their own space. It identifies Albany, Takapuna, the CBD fringe, Onehunga, Glen Innes and Manukau as locations that have the right characteristics to appeal to new tech companies.

K.J. Dell’Antonia has plenty going on in her life. As a columnist and contributing editor for the Well Family section at the New York Times, she manages other contributors and near constant content. She has four children who play competitive hockey. This involves copious weekend travel, time at ice rinks, and time in ice rink parking lots. "I’ve done more source interviews from rink parking lots than I can count," she says.

The average American read 12 books in 2015, according to findings from the Pew Research Center.

Reading for pleasure, according to Dr. Josie Billington, deputy director of the Centre for Research into Reading at the University of Liverpool, can also improve your health, preventing conditions such as stress, depression, and dementia. "Reading can offer richer, broader, and more complex models of experience, which enable people to view their own lives from a refreshed perspective and with renewed understanding,"