Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
1. TAP INTO GREEK LIFE
“Sororities and fraternities are some of the most useful and least tapped into resources for small businesses. If you’re looking to target a young demographic, they’re a relatively easy group to reach and are alway looking for interesting programming and informational speakers — you can share your ideas, get feedback and maybe even find future employees in the process.”
- Alexis Wolfer | Founder/CEO, The Beauty Bean
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As young professionals, we have been tagged with a bias that we must overcome before we can truly be effective, engaged team members. Young professionals lack the experience to be viewed as productive members of a team until they “put in their due.” Like all biases, this can be undeserved, but for the most part is very true. Talent alone will not convince a thriving company of your value.
I have identified three factors that have positioned me to work with smart, high level executives at a growing small business that will flip this bias in your favor, so you can stand out.
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A JOLT of caffeine can boost memory, according to a study that provides a scientific motive for students slurping coffee, tea or energy drinks when cramming for exams.
A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found that caffeine enhances certain memories for at least a day after they were formed.
Evidence for caffeine as a memory booster has been anecdotal until now.
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Reshoring Initiative to Help Mississippi Reshore The Reshoring Initiative is a partner with Mississippi State University in a $1.9 million award from the Make it in America Challenge, a $20.5 million federal fund to promote reshoring, job creation, and training. We will be speaking, consulting and training on reshoring and skilled workforce development. The MSU grant will be used to:
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I’ve always loved Peanuts cartoons. You can share them with anyone and while they are often profound, they’re never offensive. Naturally, I resonate with Lucy, outspoken and bossy as she is. Except in the matter of Light. I’m thinking a lot about Light today, because these are the darkest days of the year, at least here in the northern hemisphere. These short days make it feel like the sun is only a fleeting visitor. That’s when you need really need to connect with an alternate source of Light.
Image: http://switchandshift.com
When it comes to smart cities, Europe is the model for the rest of the world to learn from. European cities tend to be denser, have better public transit, larger commitment to cycling and walking, a stronger focus on sustainability and low-carbon solutions, and perhaps most important, a culture and citizenry more engaged in the journey towards more sustainable and smarter cities. Of course this is a generalization: this series of regional ranking reports has demonstrated leadership from cities across the globe.
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The technology transfer process
Funding from sources such as industry and the federal government enables faculty at academic institutions to pursue and develop innovative research. (For more information on R&D funding, see previous Index issues on R&D expenditures at Illinois universities and industry funding for academic R&D.) To achieve commercialization of this research, a nascent technology must pass through three “gates”—invention disclosures, patenting, and licensing. Each of these gates serves to eliminate less commercially viable products, so the technologies that reach the licensing phase typically have direct applicability to businesses and industry. The length of time this process can take varies, but it is not uncommon for it to be several years.
When I interviewed Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and now CEO of Nest, two years ago, he told me that he started the company, which sells smart thermostats and alarms, because existing products for taking control of your home over the Internet were clunky and appealed only to the technically minded (see “Nest’s Control Freaks”). “Home automation is for single geeky guys. It’s not for families,” he said.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com
Who are the entrepreneurs pushing hardest for technology advances that will connect patients with better healthcare? They’re people like Sean Duffy, who’s using the Web to help people make behavioral changes that could head off Type 2 diabetes at his startup Omada Health, and Joanne Rohde, whose company Axial Exchange is building systems that help patients stay in touch with their doctors before and after office visits.
Image: http://www.xconomy.com
A review of what 10 smart folks have to say about whether we're in a tech bubble. Everyone from Dr. Doom to Marc Andreessen to Tim Draper to Reid Hoffman to Bill Gurley weigh in on a topic that has been generating lots of chatter these days.
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With hundreds of crowdfunding platforms online, it's hard to know which to choose. Do you go with a donation-based service like Kickstarter or RocketHub? An equity-investment site like EarlyShares? A debt-investment platform like Prosper? Should you pick one that lets you keep whatever you raise, or one that requires you to raise a predetermined amount? Or should you eliminate the middleman altogether and build your own page using a white-label platform like Crowdhoster?
Image: Photo © Ewan Burns
Ursinus College is opening a center for entrepreneurship this spring. The idea is to bridge different fields of interest with an eye on marketing a product or service. It’s called U-Imagine: the Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies. Carol Cirka, professor of Business and Economics and co-director of the center, says in recent years, college grads come out and get jobs in areas that were not in their field of study. She says the center will address that situation.
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Face it. Today everything is so connected and time to market so short, that the only real competitive advantage that has slowly crept up on us, is innovation. The surge of interconnected ICT has also fuelled the fire. Although one might qualify innovation as 'radical' or 'incremental', it's a very slippery bar of soap to get a handle on. But get it right and you get to clean up.
Although there are companies where innovation sits comfortably with their core capabilities, when Steve Jobs was asked how to systemise innovation his answer was "you don't". So there goes the theory of a unified equation for innovation.
Architects’ training offers a model of how avoiding gender bias can be instilled into scientists, says Shirley Malcom. Women are poorly represented in science, and in most areas of engineering, despite legal requirements for equal opportunity in many countries. Major reasons for this include a lack of opportunity for education, advanced training and meaningful employment. Even where these are present, women may have limited chances for advancement in spite of their capacity and competence.
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I talk a lot in this column about how graduate programs might be run differently. The graduate enterprise faces a lot of problems, so there's plenty to talk about. But I don't run a graduate program, and we don't hear enough from the people who do.
Image: Brian Taylor for The Chronicle
New York - U.S. venture capital firms raised $4.9 billion from 48 funds during the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of 12 percent compared to the level of dollar commitments raised during the third quarter of 2013, but a 21 decrease by number of funds, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). The dollar commitments raised during the fourth quarter of 2013 is a 53 percent increase from the levels raised during the comparable period in 2012 and marks the strongest quarter for venture capital fundraising, by dollars, since the third quarter of 2012. Venture capital firms raised $16.7 billion from 185 funds during full year 2013, a 15 percent decline by dollar commitments compared to full year 2012 and the slowest annual period for fundraising since 2010.
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Deadline: Friday, March 28th
The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) is heading to Boca Raton, Florida for their 2014 International Conference. The theme this year is Regionalism for Innovation and Growth and you are invited to share your insight with leading research park professionals from around the world.
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Tim Draper sees a bubble coming. Marc Andreessen doesn't.
CB Insights, the venture capital tracking outfit based in New York, has put together a valuable roundup of just how some of the top investors and commentators in the game view the recent runup in valuations for companies like Box, Dropbox and Snapchat.
Image: No bubble, says Mark Andreessen. David Maung/Bloomberg
How does social trust or capital foster entrepeneurship? This article makes a compelling argument for how the strength of local social networks and trust can help create an environment where business innovation and creation can grow,
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There are between 20 and 30 venture-backed companies that are now valued at more than $1 billion. But it's an open question what their valuations will be until they go public or get acquired.
Image: http://www.bizjournals.com
