The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now accepting nominations for the second annual Gates Vaccine Innovation Award. The award aims to recognize, celebrate, and spur transformative ideas for achieving health impact through the delivery of vaccines. Nominations will be accepted through August 31, 2012.

“Vaccines work to give children a healthy start in life,” said Steve Landry, interim director of vaccine delivery at the Gates Foundation. “New ways of thinking about age old vaccine delivery problems are essential to ensure that all children have access to the vaccines they need.”

Amid all the excitement over the JOBS Act’s creation of an exemption for crowdfunding, few have noticed that crowdfunding securities offerings are not yet lawful under the Securities Laws. While the JOBS Act did create a new exemption from registration for crowdfunding under Section 4(6) of the Securities Act, the SEC has been given a 270-day mandate to create and implement rules governing crowdfunding by sale of securities. This mandate runs until Dec. 31, 2012, so crowdfunded securities offerings will not be lawful until late 2012 or even 2013, depending on when the SEC adopts the necessary rules.

If I had to sum up living in Northern California in only a couple words, it would be sun, sun, sun, warm, sun and wine.  I have to admit that I live in the most beautiful part of the world.  The temperature is between 65 and 85 every day.  It is sunny and clear, complimented occasionally with a light breeze.  There are always flowers blooming and birds chirping year round.  I’ve actually gotten into arguments with friends about which day was more beautiful: today, yesterday or the day before (“Well yesterday had a slight mild breeze…”).  This amazing weather is not just good for the people, it’s good for agriculture and it is *great* for wine.

After a whirlwind trip in Israel for Microsoft’s Think Next conference and meeting with many up-and-coming startups, I have a whole bunch of tales to tell. For those who are aware of the tech scene in Israel, you’re familiar with the description of the country as “Startup Nation”, and for those who aren’t, you’ll start to understand why once I start telling you all about it.

As I came to learn, Microsoft is a huge force in Israel, lending a hand to many of the startups that I met. The company is attempting to build a really strong ecosystem of entrepreneurs, developers, engineers, and design talent, and decided to start the company’s first ever accelerator right in the heart of the country.

It’s fair to say that tech accelerator programs are launching, well, frequently now, all with the same basic template. Between Blueprint Health, DreamIt Ventures and Entrepreneurs Roundtable, Betabeat can barely keep up with the demo days just here in New York. It’s difficult to say who started the craze; Y Combinator may have pioneered the form, but TechStars put its version on TV and open-sourced the term sheets. Either way, everyone wants to launch or join a 12-week program that offers a seed investment and features meetings with mentors and a demo day with investors. Everyone including the state of New Jersey.

Before signing up for your local startup accelerator or incubator, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Is your pitch perfected? Does it matter which group you join? Is there a right or wrong time to sign up? We asked these fifteen entrepreneurs for their nuggets of advice on navigating the world of startup accelerators.

Do your research to find the right fit

You should do your homework on any accelerator you’re considering. What do they offer? What are some of their success stories? What happens to companies that don’t succeed? How often do their teams get funded? Depending on the accelerator you join, you’ll get very different answers to those questions. Make sure to not only talk to the accelerator but also past companies, both successful and not.

Venture capital has begun playing an increasing role in fueling the Latin American region’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

In its 2011 Scorecard, the Latin American Venture Capital Association estimated that funding for venture capital and private equity deals in Latin America more than doubled from 2009 to 2010, topping $8.1 billion. Of the 12 nations in the region evaluated by the association, Chile, Brazil and Mexico respectively scored highest on a range of criteria that define a favorable investment climate, including political, legal, regulatory, tax and other risk measures.

The TR10 represents the 10 most important technological milestones reached in the last 12 months. To compile the list, Technology Review selects the technologies we believe will have the greatest impact on the shape of innovation in years to come.

This impact can take very different forms: one technology points toward a method of discovering better battery materials for mobile devices and electric vehicles; another offers a new way for entrepreneurs to fund the commercialization of emerging technologies. But in all cases, these are breakthroughs with the potential to transform the world.

A group of young entrepreneurs will have a chance to pitch their business ideas to billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The kids, who are between 7- and 16-years-old, were all named finalists in a contest sponsored by "The Secret Millionaires Club" cartoon that Buffett appears in.

Ever wanted to create a game or app, but don't know how to program?

You aren't entirely out of luck: GameSalad is here for you.

Instead of using complicated programming languages, you can build a game within GameSalad using a bunch of pictures and flow charts that describe what you want to do with the app.

Few activities are more frustrating than staring at your old computer, helplessly willing it to move faster. In business, and especially when it comes to small businesses, a slow computer will not help your bottom line. Equally draining are the costs of constant visits from IT consultants and technicians.

While age is a commonly cited cause of slow PC performance, there are usually additional reasons. Many users have no idea that their computers are bogged down with unneeded applications, adware, cookies, and massive amounts of background processes. Left unaddressed, these issues hinder PC performance, decrease productivity, and increase the amount of time spent dealing with IT problems. So what can be done? Here are seven things.

As a web designer, I have come to understand the importance of collaborating efficiently with my clients. When I first started out, I wanted to do a great job for my clients, and give them exactly what they wanted in a site. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know how to get there.

Over the years, however, I have learned some key questions that I always ask every client before beginning the design process. Going beyond general stylistic questions that you might expect a designer to ask, these questions are designed to get to the heart of what it is you need your website to be for your business.

Given that Japan has some of the biggest tech companies on the planet, it’s easy to overlook its startup scene. It’s also probably fair to say that the country’s emerging tech companies also don’t get nearly as much press those from Silicon Valley, or even China and Russia.

Thing is, once you take a step back from the massive corporates, there are some very exciting things happening in Japan. At a recent tech event I had the privilege of finding out about a handful of them.

1. Beatrobo

CEO/Founder: Hiroshi Asaeda

A music community service which enables users to share their favorite music with their friends. Users can create their own avatars and start listening to their friends’ favourite music easily. Hiroshi Asaeda is a convincing CEO, his English was excellent but he doesn’t seem to clear on his business idea, and what is original about sharing music. Beatrobo is aimed at US markets and is unavailable in Japan but the development team is in Japan.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- As a 23-year-old contract worker for agribusiness giant Syngenta, Amber Arrington enjoys her job as a greenhouse technician, roaming the aisles of the company’s greenhouses and inspecting supplies of corn.

But ask her how she feels about the legendary research park where she works, and a puzzled look comes over her face.

“I don’t hang out here or go out to lunch here,” she said. “... I leave and then come back to work.”

‘What if?’’ It’s the question that powers Boston’s innovation economy. In academic labs, at start-ups and nonprofits, and within corporate walls, teams of exceptionally smart people hunt for ways to render the impossible possible. It may involve finding a new route to deliver potent drugs to a tumor...

Franchising is huge - $2.1 trillion in economic output, 825,000 establishments and 18 million jobs - in the United States but its not necessarily the cheapest way to go into business for yourself.

Still, many franchises are available that won't cost a fortune. Both Franchise Business Review and Entrepreneur.com list franchises that you can buy for less than $50,000. Sometimes a lot less. And that's a good thing because the industry has struggled since business loans have dried up and home equity has declined. (A home equity loan used to be one of the most common financing sources for a franchise.)

Great ideas are conceived every day; innovative concepts and technologies have the potential to revolutionize business operations, save lives, create new markets and redefine industries. Despite this, only a small percentage of them ever make it to market. Why? Because coming up with a transformational idea is not the hardest part. Building the right culture and turning a concept into something customers will champion, buy, or even change the world, can prove to be much more challenging.

And yet, invention is critical. Every nation must embrace it as a means to economic prosperity and competitive strength. A recent “Global Innovation Barometer” conducted by General Electric confirms that innovation is a primary driver of economic growth, job creation and prosperity. Currently, the United States leads the way, but the margins are shrinking.

Seeking Mentor Extraordinaire

Young, uber-talented, aspiring entrepreneur seeks successful corporate maven for long-term mentoring relationship.  Must be rich, successful, well-connected and willing to share the secret formula.  I enjoy weekly guidance sessions over coffee and biscotti or advice-filled walks on the beach.

Go ahead.  Drop that hook in the water and see if anyone bites.

The Mentor of Oz

If mentorship is so crucial to your success as an entrepreneur, what is your plan for finding this coveted relationship?  Personal ads like the one listed above?  Creepy.  How about cold-calling Jack Welch?  Get ready for a restraining order.

The deck is stacked against you finding the penultimate mentor who is eager to invest regular hours to mold, shape and inspire a high potential protegee like you.  Those individuals are truly rare.  Successful executives already navigate overloaded schedules and a variety of demands on their time and energy.

While the Baltic countries are small compared to their EU partners, they are said to have an outsized role in generating new start-ups, particularly through their big ideas in the tech sector. Today, we look at Lithuania, which has been campaigning aggressively through Global Entrepreneurship Week in the Baltics and has rapidly been gaining a place on the entrepreneurial map.

Students are an excellent place to start when assessing the vibrancy of a nation’s startup culture. Lithuanian students seem to have no problem working part-time upon graduation while setting up their own businesses. Combined with high levels of education, a multilingual talent pool, and investments in internet infrastructure, a lively entrepreneurial culture is spawning many startups and young companies that quickly target regional and global markets after testing their concepts in their small local market.

Corner any up-and-coming Kevin Systrom wanna-be and have a heart-to-heart about the challenges of building a successful company and at some point you’ll likely wander into the territory of bemoaning how tough it is to hire people with technical skills. At a party recently a startup founder told me “If you could find me five great engineers in the next 90 days I’d pay you $400,000.” Which is crazy talk. Unless you stop to consider that Instagram’s team (mostly engineers) was valued at almost $80 million per employee or that corporate development heads often value engineers at startups they are acquiring at a half-million to million dollars per person. $400,000 actually might not be so crazy for a basketball lineup’s worth of guys who can sling Ruby or Scala code.