innovation DAILY

Within 5.5 miles between the upscale neighborhood Westover Hills and the much poorer Gilpin in Richmond, Virginia, there's a 20-year difference in average life expectancy.

Richmond is far from unique, as these maps dramatizing life-expectancy differences across cities show. In Philadelphia, you can travel five miles from Society Hill to North Philadelphia and get 20 years taken off your life. Or what about Chicago? Just seven stops on the "L" train will produce a 16-year difference.

Image: https://www.fastcoexist.com

The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Journal of Technology Transfer have launched a new prize challenge that seeks participants to develop impact studies on technology transferred from federal laboratories.

Interested parties will write a paper that describes the economic and/or societal impacts of technology created in federal labs and transferred outside of those facilities, NIST said Tuesday.

Latin America just might be the most overlooked emerging market on the planet.

The venture dollars in Latin America can’t hold a candle to India or China (compare China’s $11.8 billion in new VC funds for the first half of 2016, down 14 percent according the WSJ, to Latin America’s $218 million), and the region’s 600 million inhabitants get overlooked by investors who think that you need to reach a billion users to be a “real startup.”

Cashiers, cleaners, servers and other workers in Florida's gigantic service sector are a key to the state's economic future, several experts said Wednesday at the annual forum of Florida Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise Florida.

Diversifying the economy with industrial and tech jobs was also a major focus, and the chamber released statistics that said Central Florida is actually more diverse than other regions of the state, if you include Brevard County.

Image: http://www.orlandosentinel.com

In discussing how education is moving away from a prescriptive model to one that encourages more autonomy, Olin College President Richard Miller contrasts older tenets of learning with newer principles. These include long-held beliefs such as learning before doing, versus learning experientially; or that teaching is necessary for acquiring knowledge, versus learning independently.

Image: http://ecorner.stanford.edu

September 28, 2016 Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced $10 million in awards to 10 "Big Data Spokes" projects to initiate research on specific topics identified by the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs (BD Hubs).

Project topics range from precision agriculture to personalized education. The data spokes reflect the unique priorities and capabilities of the four BD Hubs, which represent consortia from the Midwest, Northeast, South and West of the country.

Renowned investor and author Michael Moritz describes how expansive and transformative it can be to put one's self in an environment where a lot can be learned from the organization or people around you. Such experiences can redefine your idea of excellence and influence your professional path, according to Mortiz, chairman at Sequoia Capital and co-author of the 2015 book "Leading."

Image: http://ecorner.stanford.edu

If entrepreneurs grew like mushrooms, it’d probably be near impossible to navigate all the economic “disruption.”

The harsh reality is that almost anyone can come up with a novel business idea. Transforming that idea into a budding enterprise takes a lot more, including the right support structure, tools, resilience, mindfulness, guts — and maybe even a dash of luck.

Image: Credit: Photo by Jay Mantri - Back to the Roots founders Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez.

Anytime you talk to a current entrepreneur or even someone thinking about starting their own business, usually one of the biggest motivations is wanting to be their own boss.

The idea of "working for the man" has lost its luster, and the pursuit of freedom to do what you want, when you want is extremely sexy and appealing.

Image: HBO - Thomas Middleditch featured in Silicon Valley an HBO original

The federal Liberal government is strongly hinting to the tech sector it may launch a sequel the previous Conservative government’s Venture Capital Action Plan.

The venture capital industry has been clamouring for a repeat of the program, introduced in 2013, which saw the government commit $340-million to four venture capital “fund of funds” firms, alongside another $112.5-million from Ontario and Quebec.

Google has made a series of announcements that make one thing very clear: it plans to take India’s Internet by storm.

The company is no stranger to working in India, with its railroad station Wi-Fi project already proving to be a notable success. But today it announced a series of new products and projects squarely aimed at the Indian market, signaling its intent to tap a market of 1.25 billion people where only 200 or 250 million are currently online.

When Salesforce announced a new $50 million fund in June, it also disclosed that it would open a new startup workspace in downtown San Francisco.

The new space, called the Salesforce Incubator, finally opened on Wednesday. Located in San Francisco's SOMA district, where a lot of startups open shop these days, Salesforce Incubator will house 14 startups for the next 5 months for free.

Salesforce, which happens to be San Francisco's largest tech employer, sent us these pics of the new space. Check it out:

Image: Salesforce Incubator - Salesforce

When I started out as an entrepreneur, I made plenty of decisions without knowing what the outcome might be. I still do. But back then, I didn't have the same level of experience to guide me. Looking back, these were four of the toughest but most critical lessons I learned during those first few years when the learning curve was the steepest.

Image: Flickr user Heisenberg Media

Women entrepreneurs run 30 percent of all small businesses, and together employ 7.9 million people and generate $1.4 trillion in sales (as of 2015). Needless to say, these are pretty staggering numbers.

All that success is wonderful. However, there exists an underlying issue that is keeping women from being even more impactful -- difficulty finding funding.

Women-owned businesses receive just 7 percent of venture capital investment money, which is highly disproportionate to their role in the economy. Additionally, loan approval rates for female entrepreneurs is 15 to 20 percent less than it is for men. Clearly, something is not right.

Astro Teller, director of Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, distinguishes pointless failure from the kind of failure that leads to insights that can accelerate innovation. He explains how the time spent figuring out how to do something is in fact learning. "I'm not pro-failure. I'm pro-learning," he says. "We mean find incredibly efficient ways to learn."

Image: http://ecorner.stanford.edu

The great entrepreneurs of the last century — folks like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison — spawned huge companies that were designed around a model of scalable efficiency. In that model the job of workers was to fit into their roles and perform tightly specified and standardized tasks in a highly reliable and predictable way. The employee society was born. Enormous wealth was created for the entrepreneurs who pioneered this way of organizing business, and enormous value was delivered to the marketplace. And most of us became employees.

In recent years, customer experience (CX) has emerged as a major differentiator for large companies, including financial-services providers. In a McKinsey survey of senior executives, 90 percent of respondents confirmed that CX is one of the CEO’s top three priorities.

It’s a priority because the stakes are so high. For financial institutions, for example, rising customer expectations are pressing organizations to come up with more functional improvements even as alternatives to traditional financial services are emerging. In this dynamic environment, financial institutions face a stiff challenge to differentiate their offerings while reducing cost and complexity for customers—and to do it at a profit.

The pace of digital disruption is increasing by the day. And as the saying goes, change is the only constant. 

Digital disruption challenges business models, alters workplaces and brings career paths into question. To survive in this new normal world, organizations must constantly innovate. Those that do stand to succeed, while those that don't risk becoming irrelevant. 

As usual, we bring you the top five entries from our most recent list. This week, it's the top venture capital recipients in Maryland, based on funding received between the first and third quarters of 2015.

There is a myth that entrepreneurship is something which can’t be learned and comes naturally in an individual. However, in reality, entrepreneurship is an art that anybody can learn, provided that person knows how and what to learn. Here are some lessons I’ve learned the hard way from experience.

September 27, 2016 The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded five new grants to teach entrepreneurship and to support research and innovation at regional hubs across the United States under its Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program.

The innovation hubs, known as I-Corps nodes, provide the research infrastructure and training to help researchers transition fundamental science and engineering discoveries to the marketplace. They also support a number of I-Corps sites across the country and deliver a seven-week I-Corps curriculum to the I-Corps teams.

Image: http://www.nsf.gov

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., Sept. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Tel Ganesan, president of TiE Detroit, a non-profit entrepreneurial organization, and managing partner of Kyyba Ventures, a technology and healthcare investment firm, has announced that TiECon Midwest is offering a platform of investment opportunities up to $1 Billion for start-ups with ideas that can improve health on a global scale.

The $1 Billion investment is nearly five times larger than the largest venture capital fund in the state of Michigan's history and is open to entrepreneurs globally in health and wellness in the non-pharmaceutical arena.

Venture investors often demand proof of concept in the marketplace before they’ll pour precious capital into a technology start-up.

If you’ve helped grow successful companies in the past, however, it turns out all you really need is your resume and a few co-founders.

That’s what happened when a little-known company called Expel, Inc. popped up in Herndon earlier summer. Despite having no customers, no office and only a few employees, the company has already attracted $7.5 million from well-known local technology funds Paladin Capital Group and New Enterprise Associates.

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Sept 28, 2016---- An aggressive agenda of business growth, job creation, and capital investment highlighted today’s release of a new strategic plan for the province’s bioscience sector. Titled ‘Next Generation Prosperity’, the document released by the PEI BioAlliance assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the sector and establishes five year targets for job creation, export revenue growth, investment in R&D, and attraction of private capital into bioscience businesses.

Image: http://www.peibioalliance.com

"Microsoft was born to do a certain set of things. We're about empowering people in organizations all over the world to achieve more. In today's world, we want to use AI to achieve that."

That's Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, crisply explaining the company's artificial-intelligence vision to me this afternoon shortly after he hosted a keynote at Microsoft's Ignite conference for IT pros in Atlanta. But even if Microsoft only pursues AI opportunities that it considers to be core to its mission, it has a remarkably broad tapestry to work with. And the examples that were part of the keynote made that clear.

Innovation and entrepreneurship are hot topics in New Mexico, but the state’s largest metro area may have a ways to go before they impact overall job creation.

Startups created 1.9 percent of all jobs in and around Albuquerque in 2014, according to data released this month from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com

For 226 years, men led the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency that fosters American innovation and entrepreneurship. Enter Michelle Lee, the agency’s first female leader.

A Silicon Valley native who built a radio with her father in the family living room, Lee grew up with female classmates who thrived in math and science.

Image: Scientists Miss Nellie A. Brown (standing), Miss Lucia McCollock, Miss Mary K. Bryan and Miss Florence Hedges (seated L-R) work at a laboratory between 1910 and 1920. Photo by National Photo Company Collection/Library of Congress

In early September 85 smart people gathered for two days at the Pfizer conference center in New York City to talk about their practical experience in identifying, engaging, driving value from and (at times) failing with the most innovative employees in their respective businesses. The 2016 Corporate Intrapreneur Summit was 100% on point in targeting key areas of interest around how intrapreneurs in a corporate setting.

Throughout the program, speakers from CISCO, USAA, Whirlpool, Vodafone, Farmers Insurance, BASF, Sony Music, Northwestern Mutual, etc. gave valuable insight into a range of cutting edge thinking and actions, with a mix of strategic and tactical insights. Some consistent themes came through these official (and informal) discussions, which have been collated below. Take a look and let me know your thoughts:

Switzerland – a tiny country with few natural advantages – has become incredibly successful in the world of banking, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and more. James Breiding, author of the bestselling book, Swiss Made, explores the enabling factors for innovation in Switzerland. He makes the point that when an entrepreneur comes up with a new and innovative method or product, there will be resistance from those who have accepted the status quo. Entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs need to have thick skin if they wish to disrupt the market.

Image: http://www.innovationmanagement.se

You spoke a lot about incremental and systemic innovation today. What is the difference?

Incremental innovation fits into existing business models and economy. It’s a better way to do something. It may be a totally new and disruptive product, but it fits the existing system.

It can be done without government intervention…

It can, but small companies may need help. They may need money, or access to facilities to test an idea. The point is it assumes the main economic system and market continue.

Image: http://www.euractiv.com

The research arm of China's tech giant Tencent issued the 2016 White Paper on Innovation and Entrepreneurship during the company's global partner conference on Thursday in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province.

Tencent Research Institute built the innovation and entrepreneurship pioneer index to measure the level of urban development and entrepreneurship potential of cities.

Assessed by indicators of talents, market, environment and capital, the white Paper listed the top 50 entrepreneurial cities in China

Here are the top 10 pioneer cities in innovation and entrepreneurship in China.

Image: Tourists enjoy cherry blossoms at the Moshan scenic spot in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, March 12, 2015. As weather warms up, cherry blossoms here are in full bloom. (Photo/Xinhua)

The cut-throat nature of today’s commercial ecosphere only sees an upward surge. Entrepreneurship is now perceived to be every other person’s dream or way out of the situation they find themselves in. If you genuinely feel positive about your idea, innovation or business plan, then it is imperative that you undergo a measure of introspection before taking that giant leap of faith.

Sequoia, a multibillion-dollar venture capital firm and an early investor in the likes of Apple and Google, has shut down a dedicated investment fund for Israeli startups, according to local news site Calacist (via news aggregator No Camels) and multiple sources.

Sequoia Israel — which raised five funds to invest specifically in Israeli startups, with the last two funds in the region of $200 million (£154 million) — will be folded into Sequoia’s US operation in Silicon Valley. That means Sequoia will continue to back startups in Israel but investments will be made out of Sequoia’s global fund as opposed to a fund operated out of Israel.

“The table stakes for (venture capitalists) has never been higher,” says Judith Elsea,  co-founder of the fund-of-funds Weathergage Capital, in our latest interview.

With the rise of stronger and stronger operational models, like Andreessen Horowitz, the value add VCs must provide has increased significantly. So in this world of heightened competition for LP money, what do LPs want to see in prospective fund investments? According to Elsea this can be broken down into three key elements.

I have heard that entrepreneurs are born but some people say they are made. Which is which? I have a desire to enter into business but my worry is, Am I cut for it? How can I know if I will succeed? — Richard

A lot of people have wondered whether they will be successful in business based on their personality or abilities, hence the question, “what makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?” Prof. S. D. Sarasvathy of the University of Virginia was pondering over the same question over a decade ago and came up with the best conclusion I have come across so far.

One of the axioms of the entrepreneurial community is that the working world consists of two basic types of people: born entrepreneurs and born employees.

I don't think it's necessarily that simple, but it's true that the vast majority of people go to work for a fairly set number number of hours each week and they receive benefits and a paycheck.

Even as signs emerge that the stock market is peaking, investors are pouring money into venture capital funds at the fastest rate since the ill-fated dot-com boom that reached its height in 2000. The lure: venture capital investments have brought investors returns far superior to the overall market.

Hot VC Sectors Already this year, venture capital funds raised $22.9 billion during the the first six months compared to $28.2 billion during all of 2015. The pace was especially brisk in the first quarter of 2016, with about $13.0 billion raised. Large investors have been attracted by a 10-year average annual rate of return of more than 4 percentage points above that produced by the S&P 500, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mark Cuban likes to call Tower Paddle Boards, a San Diego-based company that sells stand-up paddleboards, one of his best “Shark Tank” investments ever.

The company’s growth explains why. When Cuban invested $150,000 for 30% of the company in 2011, Tower Paddle Boards just had $260,000 in revenue. This year it expects to hit nearly $10 million in revenue.

But there’s another reason that makes the 11-person startup special: Tower Paddle Boards is super efficient, having achieved that growth by working only five hours a day.

Xconomy New York —  As the child of a military physicist, Richard Lifton was forced to move around a lot, from Washington D.C., to Albuquerque, New Mexico to Ankara, Turkey. As an adult he settled in Connecticut, where he became a renowned geneticist at Yale University.

Now he’s on the move again, relocating to New York, where he faces perhaps his biggest challenge yet: serving as president of one of the city’s famed research institutions, Rockefeller University, and in so doing taking over for Marc Tessier-Lavigne, someone widely seen as igniting the city’s biotech scene.

Image: http://www.xconomy.com

I accepted my first management role early in my career, heading up a 15-person team at GE Global Research's semiconductor laboratory. It was a big step at the time, but today I manage 28 labs of over 500 people, in addition to our research headquarters with around 2,000 people on site. Making that first shift from contributor to leader wasn't easy, but it set me up for the other big changes I'd go on to make in my career.