By now, you might be familiar with the concept of particle accelerators through the work of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the monstrous accelerator that enabled scientists to detect the Higgs boson.

But the LHC is not alone — the world is equipped with more than 3o,000 particle accelerators that are used for a seemingly endless variety of tasks. Some of these machines, like the LHC, accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light to smash them together and probe the fundamental building blocks of our universe. Others are used to seal milk cartons and bags of potato chips.

Image: It's kind of like a microscope on steroids.Brookhaven National Laboratory

The term ‘disruptive innovation’ has gained considerable momentum within the business world recently, and we are now seeing ‘newbies’ evolve and disrupt ‘business as usual’ and dominate the marketplace. As more businesses join the innovation revolution, and transform their sectors, we ask ‘what makes a successful innovator?’  

Is it nature?

 Often people choose their roles based on their personality and tend to do things they are comfortable with. Some may go on todevelop their careers in roles such as marketing, law and accountancy, and there’s a place for all kinds of people in the business world.

"The world is changing and so is Lincoln's place in that world."

Congratulations, you are the recipients of the first Tweet ever authored by a Mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska. I doubt that it will be regarded as a seminal moment in humankind's technological advance. And in the interest of full transparency, it might also very well be the last Tweet from this Mayor. But the effort does bring up the larger point which I would like to focus on today.

Our world is changing rapidly. And it is changing in ways unimaginable even a few years ago. We know it, even if we don't consciously acknowledge it. Every time we text, check out the latest Tweet or order a pizza online, we validate the notion that the processes by which we interact in almost every sphere of our lives has been, and is being, forever altered.

Image: http://journalstar.com

While every entrepreneur is unique and each story is different, there is a common factor that unites them – they take risks, follow their dreams and pursue their passions. Take the winners of the 702 and CapeTalk Small Business Awards with Sage One, for example.

702 winner, The Munching Mongoose, a gourmet food retailer, blew the judges away with their dedication to customers and focus on sustainability. CapeTalk winner Yoco, a card payments company, stood out because of their strong belief in empowering the growth of entrepreneurial businesses.

HELSINKI and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Tekes) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a partnership that will enable Finland to utilize Watson cognitive computing to help doctors improve the health of its citizens, and strengthen and develop the Finnish innovation and business ecosystem in the fields of health and well-being. To facilitate the collaboration, IBM intends to establish a Watson Health Center of Excellence in Finland, the first Nordic Healthcare Competence Center, and the first National Imaging Center of Excellence outside the United States in Finland. These centers are expected to employ 150 people over the next few years.

Image: Tekes - the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation and IBM sign a landmark collaboration that will enable Finland to utilize Watson cognitive computing across its health ecosystem. From left to right: Maarit Palo (IBM), Tuomo Haukkovaara (IBM), Pekka Soini (Tekes), Mika Lautanala (Tekes)

One of the most talked about topics regarding Apple's new AirPods is the concern of some that the slippery devices will, like EarPods, slip out of your ears and get lost.

Tim Cook finally answered those concerns in an interview on Good Morning America on Wednesday. 

When host Robin Roberts asked him about the issue of losing the pricey ($159) devices, Cook immediately went into Apple presentation mode. 

The assembly line at Feetz has 100 humming 3-D printers. Their sole purpose is to make shoes.

Each printer is named after a cartoon character: Wonder Woman, Scooby-Doo. Though whimsical, the printers, which cost $5,000 each, are out to upend mass retailing by making every shoe to order, cheaply.

“We’re the technologists coming in to help,” said Lucy Beard, chief executive of the two-year-old Feetz, in San Diego. “I saw 3-D printers in a magazine, and I thought ‘mass customization.’”

Image: Carly Nakayama checks on the 3-D printing process in the San Diego office of the tech cobbler company Feetz. Credit Tara Pixley for The New York Times

AVERY CHENOWETH spent childhood summers on a front porch in Tennessee, where adults would say, over pitchers of martinis as fans slowly turned, “If you listen carefully, you may learn something.”

He’s still learning. Now 60, Mr. Chenoweth, with a 65-year-old partner, recently started a business called Here’s My Story, whose gaming app brings history alive through location-based role-playing.

It works with Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, where users participate in the lives of historical figures. Slaves, soldiers and nurses are depicted through an interactive process that takes the oral storytelling of Mr. Chenoweth’s childhood beyond the front porch.

Image: Originally a novelist, Avery Chenoweth had a major heart attack that left him too fatigued to write. He had to look elsewhere to pay the bills. Credit Khue Bui for The New York Times

Location, location, location. Not only is it the number one rule of real estate, but it’s also a de facto rule for where to build startups. And the number one location, unquestionably, is Silicon Valley. The stretch of peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco has spawned some of the most innovative and valuable companies on the planet. So then why (after building a company outside the valley, getting acquired by Google and spending nearly a decade there) would my co-founder and I start our company in Los Angeles instead?

A new map shows the most innovative countries in the world according to the Global Innovation Index 2016.

The map, created by The Independent's i100, uses the data from the report and puts it all into one visualisation. 

The darker the shade of red, the more innovative the country. 

The Global Innovation Index ranked countries by measuring seven key metrics that enable innovation in each territory:

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Last week’s G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China showed that U.S. leadership has driven a growing global consensus on a number of issues central to the growth of the digital economy and the high paying jobs of the future.  Due in no small part to U.S. leadership, this year the G-20 endorsed policies long advocated by the United States that will help drive innovation and entrepreneurship and make the digital economy an engine for global opportunity. 

The federal government isn’t making the most of its chief technology officers and is missing out on significant technological innovation, according to a report published by the Professional Services Council.

Titled “Ensuring the Effectiveness of Federal Chief Technology Officers,” the study found about two-thirds of the CFO Act agencies have CTOs, but their job descriptions, duties and reporting structures vary greatly across government, and most aren’t empowered to actually deliver innovation. 

Image: President Barack Obama talks with Megan Smith, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Dr. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, during a technology strategy discussion in the Rose Garden of the White House, Oct. 8, 2014. // Pete Souza/White House

Today’s companies need to be able to roll out digital products and services quickly to address customers’ ever-evolving needs. They need flexible technology systems and business processes to do that and to create lasting competitive advantage. For the past several years, many companies have been experimenting with two-speed enterprise architectures to achieve these goals. Under a two-speed model, the processes, software, and other differentiating functions or capabilities that support the customer experience are refreshed quickly and frequently. The capabilities that support transactional back-end functions, meanwhile, are updated more methodically to ensure system stability and reliability.1

The GRE Regional Economic Gardening Program is designed to provide sophisticated, tailor-made technical assistance to local companies poised for growth in the Greater Rochester, NY region. GRE partners with the Edward Lowe Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that supports entrepreneurship, to provide this unique program to Rochester area companies.

Image: http://www.rochesterbiz.com

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — At first glance, Moderna Therapeutics looks like the most enviable biotech startup in the world. It has smashed fundraising records and teamed up with pharmaceutical giants as it pursues a radical plan to revolutionize medicine by transforming human cells into drug factories.

But the reality is more complicated.

A STAT investigation found that the company’s caustic work environment has for years driven away top talent and that behind its obsession with secrecy, there are signs Moderna has run into roadblocks with its most ambitious projects.

Image: ARAM BOGHOSIAN FOR STATStéphane Bancel spent most of his career in sales and operations before becoming CEO of biotech startup Moderna Therapeutics. 

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) today announced $37 million in funding for 16 innovative new projects as part of a new ARPA-E program: Integration and Optimization of Novel Ion-Conducting Solids (IONICS). IONICS project teams are paving the way for technologies that overcome the limitations of current battery and fuel cell products.

Soft skills have garnered increasing attention in the workplace over the last 20 years. In fact, emotional intelligence is one of the fastest growing job skills, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.

Ironically, those are the very skills hiring managers say the latest crop of college graduates lacks as they’ve focused on honing their technological prowess. Yet managing our emotions effectively in the workplace is a major component of success for all of us.

David Petr, who has been hired to guide economic development in Montgomery County, said the county has what it needs to compete against rival Fairfax County: a quality work force.

“The true benefit of doing business here is the quality of talent,” Petr said Tuesday after a meeting with the Montgomery County Council.

Image: New Montgomery County Economic Development Council CEO David Petr answers a question at a lunchtime meeting with the County Council. DOUGLAS TALLMAN

In business writing, there’s one rule you just can’t break: It has to be about the reader, not about you.

Most people understand this already, at least intellectually. They’re sophisticated buyers of products and services, and they use a similar lens to decide whether to read something: They calculate whether it will provide value to them. Yet when the roles are reversed and they’re the writers, they often forget this lesson — they’re smart buyers but irrational sellers. That’s because they see their writing, on some level, as a piece of themselves. They think it will confirm and validate their ideas.

A decade ago, clean-energy companies were the hot trend that venture capitalists were chasing. Oil and natural-gas prices were on the rise and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” had just made its premiere.

But high hopes that the clean-energy sector would replicate the big returns of biomedical and software startups quickly faded. Instead, monumental losses piled up: Venture-capital investors lost more than half of the $25 billion they pumped into clean-energy technology startups from 2006 to 2011.