COLUMBIA, Md. (April 4, 2023) – The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission announces the appointment of Ruchika Nijhara, Ph.D., MBA, as executive director of the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (MSCRF). As executive director, Nijhara oversees all MSCRF activities and seven programs accelerating stem cell research, commercialization and cures.

The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission (Commission), which oversees the fund, was established as an independent unit within the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). It leads the way in identifying and supporting the most promising stem cell technologies in our region.

It’s the best and worst of times for decision makers. Swelling stockpiles of data, advanced analytics, and intelligent algorithms are providing organizations with powerful new inputs and methods for making all manner of decisions. Corporate leaders also are much more aware today than they were 20 years ago of the cognitive biases—anchoring, loss aversion, confirmation bias, and many more—that undermine decision making without our knowing it. Some have already created formal processes—checklists, devil’s advocates, competing analytic teams, and the like—to shake up the debate and create healthier decision-making dynamics.

The world of work is changing pretty rapidly, but one thing has been pretty consistent over the past few years: Workers are feeling optimistic about their prospects. The U.S. economy keeps adding jobs at a healthy clip and unemployment remains at pre-Recession lows, making this a jobseekers’ market.

Here’s a look at the current state of the American workplace:

We know that Americans log longer hours at work than their counterparts in other countries, are chronically sleep deprived, and don’t take enough vacation.

According to the annual Project: Time Off report, things may be getting a bit better. The analysts discovered that the 7,331 Americans surveyed (who work full time and therefore get paid time off from their employer) took an average of 16.8 days off in 2016, marking the second year in a row of taking slightly more vacation days.

Does every startup need outside capital to get started? To listen to venture capitalists speak, business is a case of “survival of the fittest” and startups are tiny tadpoles swimming in an ocean full of sharks.

That may be true in some cases, particularly when a business idea is attempting to address a multi-billion dollar problem with what its founders hope will be a multi-billion dollar solution. But how often is this the case?

Our editors pick the 50 companies that best combine innovative technology with an effective business model.

I’ll admit it: my views on innovation strategy have been dramatically shaped by working in a Fortune 500 corporation. The size and scale of opportunities you pursue, even in a company that was not always all that innovative, oriented me to think a big team and significant dollars are vital for real innovation.

Given that, moving to an entrepreneurial environment in 2009 was new territory when it came to learning innovation strategy lessons.

Image: http://brainzooming.com

LAS VEGAS, June 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- For over half a decade the Global Crowdfunding Convention (GCC) has been the cornerstone of education for people struggling to raise capital to come and learn from crowdfunding industry leaders and rockstars in reward, equity, real estate and donation-based crowdfunding. The crowdfunding industry has grown quickly.

In 2012, crowdfunding raised $1.7 billion in capital – but last year, total capital raised using crowdfunding reached over $60 billion! This represents a seismic shift in the way that startups, non-profits, entrepreneurs, and even real estate can now be funded. Crowdfunding is a crucial funding method for new and established businesses, for those who might not have access to, nor the requirements for other forms of financing. Crowdfunding isn't randomly asking for money.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) recently released a report on Bioscience Innovation in the States: Legislation and Job Creation through Public-Private Partnerships. This biennial report provides a good summary of state initiatives serving the industry plus a discussion of new developments and trends by state.

Researchers have pinpointed the reason that deep-water corals emit an erie glow. Scientists know that in shallow waters, the organisms light up green, using fluorescent proteins as kind of sun block. The proteins soak up harmful ultraviolet rays, re-emit green light and shield their symbiotic algae, which supply most of the corals’ energy needs through photosynthesis.

"Walls are in the mind"– this is one of the suggestions deployed along the "Path of meditation" in the Island of San Giulio on Lake Orta in northern Italy, west of Lake Maggiore. Playing the game of open innovation, we change our mind. As Virgil (The Aeneid, III, 72, quoted by Seneca, Epistulae morales to Lucilius, III, 28) says, “…terraeque urbesque recedunt” (“… leave the cities and the shores behind”). Passion combined with determination can produce outstanding results. According to “The First Word to Cross the Ocean”, one out of five “historical miniatures” by Stefan Zweig, leveraging the power of electricity, it was his passion together with the will to succeed in the bold enterprise that allowed Cyrus W. Field to bring about the laying of submarine cables for telegraphic transmissions between Europe and America.

Kate Raworth, a senior research associate at Oxford University and senior associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, wants to challenge the old ways of thinking about economics and develop sustainable new patterns for economic growth. In her book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Raworth encourages careful consideration of measurements beyond the standard gross domestic product metric. Thoughtful economic planning, in her view, should include health and well-being, the environment and other factors important to quality of life. She spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about her “doughnut” view of  more holistic economic distribution, and why it holds so much benefit for the future.

Fish are easily some of the lowest maintenance pets.    

The only hassle you need to worry about is aquarium maintenance, but not everybody has the time or knowhow. Now, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, EcoQube C Aquarium can make  cleaning your aquarium a problem of the past.    

The idea was conceived by a pair of aquarium enthusiasts after completing extensive research on how ancient civilizations used aquaponics as a solution for food and water shortages. This gave them the idea to employ the historic system of agriculture with modern aquariums.  

Image: ADI VENTURES 

On Friday afternoons during the summer, your body may be at work but your brain is thinking about the weekend. You’ve got places to go, things to do, and relaxation on the agenda. So how much work are you actually getting done?

Probably not much, and that’s why more companies are implementing “Summer Fridays,” a program that gives employees the flexibility to leave early or take the entire day off. In a study by the consulting firm CEB, now Gartner, 42% of the organizations are offering their employees Summer Fridays this year—double the amount just two years ago.

One of the hardest decisions entrepreneurs make when they start a company and raise outside capital is figuring out what an acceptable “burn rate” is. That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management.

Factories and manufacturing used to be at the heart of the American workforce. Of course those days are long gone, but America’s innovative spirit can still be traced back to the plant floor. According to The New York Times, factories and farms employed 60 percent of the workforce in 1900, but by 1950 that number was 36 percent. By 2014, it had dropped all the way down to 10 percent.

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Greg Rollett explains the only way to leave your cubicle behind and become an entrepreneur.

His tip? Become an entrepreneur. 

There's no typo there. The only way to learn everything you're going to need to know to run a successful business is by doing -- by committing with everything you have and taking the leap. You can build the parachute as you fall.

The Chronicle’s third annual Shark Tank: Edu Edition, held during the South by Southwest Edu conference in March, featured five people pitching ideas — some concrete, some theoretical — to improve higher education.

Two of the contestants presented plans to improve the study-abroad experience. Another proposed ways to help faculty develop teaching skills. The fourth outlined a business model that could help ease the friction students face when transferring from community colleges to four-year institutions, and the fifth offered experimental plans to use artificial intelligence and text-messaging "bots" to tackle problems in student retention.

Working across cultures can sometimes be frustrating, but the results are well worth the learning journey.

Companies operating in many countries benefit from having a multicultural top management team. However, working in such a team is challenging. People from different cultures behave in ways we often find perplexing, and suspending our judgement on these differences is difficult.

My family and loved ones complain that I seem to always be “on.” It's hard to argue with them. I typically average four hours of sleep a day and work late into the night.

Being a workaholic isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- if you know how to balance work with pleasure. If you love your work, your “workaholism” likely brings you feelings of fulfillment. And if you hate your job, you probably feel like quitting every morning when your alarm wakes you.

I guess everyone knows the tragic story of the EastmanKodak Company: founded in the 19th century, dominating the photographic film market during most of the 20th century and finally collapsing into bankruptcy in the early 21st century, shaken by a new technology they had once decisively initiated.

Some people get a sense of warmth when they approach the gigantic blue and yellow buildings that we know as Ikea. Some liken Ikea as Disney World for adults. Most people get sucked into an Ikea and stay there for hours, or sometimes even days,   There’s something about being able to take a couch, kitchen table and desk home in your Smart Car, that many find appealing.  Who doesn’t love putting together 10 foot book shelves with a simple allen wrench?

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher’s efforts to hotwire the region’s fledgling life sciences industry is getting a spark from a new seed capital fund targeted to helping develop new medications.

The Pittsburgh Revolution Fund is soliciting $200 million, which will be made available in the form of investments in drug research teams with the idea of spinning out companies, said Bill Newlin, chairman, Newlin Investment Co., a seed-stage investment firm in Sewickley.

Image: Pam Panchak/Post-Gazette 

One of the more significant quotations of last week came from President Donald Trump, when he reportedly described the Germans as “bad, very bad,” referring to their automobile exports. He returned to the theme Tuesday:

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is hitting the gas on its support of area accelerator programs.

As part of the 2016 KC Accelerator Challenge, the Kauffman Foundation announced Tuesday that it’s awarded a total of $840,000 in grants to eight local venture accelerator programs.

“Our goal is to increase entrepreneurial success in Kansas City through high-quality support programs because we know from recent research that more startups lead to higher productivity, wage growth and quality of life for the entire community,” Kauffman Foundation CEO Wendy Guillies said in a release. “We believe the startups are empowered when they connect to established resources.

Image: http://www.startlandnews.com 

Swarms of cicadas are unexpectedly crawling out from under trees from North Carolina to New Jersey. The red-eyed insects are almost impossible to miss; they fly around lazily, plunking into backyard barbeques and crashing into cars. They litter the ground with their crunchy husks as they molt. Most noticeably, they chirp en masse for their mates, producing a relentless, shrill buzz that is recognized as a song of summer. And within a month they are gone.

Keeping your customers delighted; delighted to experience your product or service and delighted to share their experience with others. This is the essential task for every business.

How will you attract more people, connect with them more rapidly, build stronger engagement with them, extend their attention, and enhance your revenue? In our always connected world where distracted is our normal state of being, with the flick of a finger your boring messaging will disappear and be replaced with something else trying to capture your customer’s attention.

Play Bigger Advisors Co-Founder Al Ramadan describes the evolution of the category for software that manages business customer relations, and how Salesforce founder Marc Benioff came to dominate it by inventing a category for incumbents that made their software seem antiquated compared to the cloud service he was offering.

Image: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/

Many British people voted to leave the EU because they felt like they had been abandoned by the European project. The Union cannot afford to let the same happen when it comes to robotisation, warns Nomi Byström.

Nomi Byström is a postdoctoral researcher in Digital Disruption of Industry at Finland’s Aalto University.

The Brexit vote last June is high on the list of major political shocks in 2016. True, already prior to the result and for years, accusations in the UK against the Union could be exceptionally harsh, even vitriolic.

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OncoImmune, Inc. today announced that is has closed on a $15.0 million Series A round of fundraising led by 3E Bioventures Capital (“3E”).

The new capital will be used primarily to develop a novel clinical stage asset targeting the CD24-Siglec pathway that regulates host inflammatory response to tissue injuries, which has broad implications in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, cancer and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). OncoImmune will continue clinical testing of its lead clinical product, CD24Fc, in a Phase II trial for the prevention of acute GvHD following myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant. CD24Fc has received orphan drug designation for GvHD in both the US and Europe. The funding will also support development of other immuno-oncology (IO) assets with a focus on solid tumor targeting monoclonal antibodies, cancer vaccines, and immunotherapy-related adverse events.

Some wearables help people track how many steps they take in a day, but others can change lives entirely.

A special headset with a video camera, the eSight 3, lets people with certain types of blindness see things near and far.

"What it does is it uses a video camera to capture what's going on in front of someone in real time, allows the user to control how that video is processed, and then through a series of advanced optics and very high-resolution display, it presents that video image to the user in such a way that it overcomes in many cases the cause of their vision loss and allows them to see very well again," said Dr. Brian Mech, president and CEO of eSight.

Image: esight

There are some things you simply never want to say at work.

These phrases carry special power: they have an uncanny ability to make you look bad even when the words are true.

Worst of all, there’s no taking them back once they slip out.

I’m not talking about shocking slips of the tongue, off-color jokes, or politically incorrect faux pas. These aren’t the only ways to make yourself look bad.

Healthy city living is about more than eliminating food deserts and boosting access to healthcare. It also means the ability to safely ride your bike down the street, breathe clean air and not have to choose between paying the rent or buying dinner.

A two-year analysis from Maryland-based de Beaumont Foundation’s CityHealth project sized up the 40 largest U.S. cities by all of these factors and more, and found that more than half aren’t taking the necessary steps to improve the health and well-being of their residents.

Running has a reputation for causing wear and tear on knees over time, leading to joint pain, arthritis or other injuries. But a recent small study found that 30 minutes of running actually lowered inflammation in runners' knee joints, leading many to question whether running really does increase a person's risk for injuries—or if it helps prevent them.

To fully benefit from new business technology, CIOs need to adapt their traditional IT functions to the opportunities and challenges of emerging technology “ecosystems.” Here’s how it’s done.

IT has traditionally functioned as the foundation to keep a company running. One of its core functions has been to protect company operations with firewalls and encryption to keep external technologies out.

The total number of IPOs fell 38% per year for the last two years.

If we focus only on tech IPOs, the downturn is even more dramatic. There were only 15 tech IPOs last year, which is down from 28 in 2015 (-47% year over year) and 62 in 2014 (-55% year over year).

Image: https://www.wallstreetdaily.com

So, here we are: With a new president come new concerns over surveillance powers that could so forcefully bite us in the ass.

The public has good reason to believe that President Donald Trump would love to expand data-collection programs in his administration. He's said, repeatedly, that he'd like to surveil mosques. Rep. Mike Pompeo—Trump's pick

TED-style talk with mayors of Silicon Valley cities. Brought to you by Bay Area Futurists and Science Fiction Society of Silicon Valley.

Entrance is FREE.

What would cities look like at year 2050? Will there be cars? Will we have to pay rent? Will there be police?

Guests: Mayor of Palo Alto – Greg Scharff Mayor of Menlo Park – Kirsten Keith Former Mayor of Mountain View – Mike Kasperzak

For the last eight years, Nicolas and Rachel Sarah have been slowly weaning themselves off fossil fuels. They don’t own a refrigerator or a car; their year-old baby and four-year-old toddler play by candlelight rather than electricity at night. They identify as Christian anarchists, and have given an official name to their search for an alternative to consumption-heavy American life: the Downstream Project, with the motto to “do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.”

For more than a century, the Globe Store was the heart of Scranton’s downtown. Now closed for 23 years, it remains a powerful symbol to nostalgic Scrantonians who collect its artifacts and reminisce about the beloved retailer on Facebook and YouTube.

Now life is coming back to the iconic building. A year ago, the shuttered store’s display windows were filled with an exhibit of Globe Store artifacts: gift boxes and cards, shopping bags and labeled merchandise. In December, shoppers once again thronged the Globe’s first floor for a ScrantonMade seasonal market.

Maps that detail the contours and boundaries of housing discrimination during the Great Depression were among National Geographic’s Best Maps of the Year.

Johns Hopkins historian N.D.B. Connolly was one of the academics behind “Mapping Inequality,” according to the JHU Hub, as one of a group of professors from four universities that brought maps from the National Archives online. A team from the University of Maryland’s Digital Curation Innovation Center led by Richard Marciano also played a big role.

Image: HOLC's map of Baltimore. (Screenshot via Mapping Inequality) 

As the founder of CoinTelegraph and a partner in BitNation, entrepreneur Toni Lane Casserly is starting to think about a world with more fluid borders. Whether it’s through what she terms a “civilized refugee crisis” as a result of climate change, a refugee crisis as a result of continued war and conflict, or the progression of humanity's mindset (which admittedly will take much longer, if it happens at all), a technology is being cultivated to support such a world: Blockchain.

In May, new rules from the SEC went into effect that allow companies to raise capital from anyone in the U.S., opening up opportunities for people, who typically did not have access to these types of deals in the past. It took nearly four years for the rules to kick in after the 2012 JOBS Act allowed for equity crowdfunding, and meanwhile, 30 states enacted their own crowdfunding laws.

CHINA is on the cusp of an innovation revolution, with the country's biomedical and healthcare sectors making great leaps in the last decade. The achievements are quite visible: the exponential growth of publication of academic articles, patent filings, international exchanges, globalisation of new drug R&D activities, and accessibility of new drug R&D technology capability platforms from both China and overseas, just to name a few.

Do you have what it takes to innovate? I'm not talking IQ, degree, or job title.

I'm talking the curious confluence of behaviors that come with the territory of being someone who turns top of the line ideas into bottom line realities.

What do you picture when you hear of new technologies and hot startups? Perhaps a trendy office space overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and tech moguls from San Francisco? Well, think again.

At the recent Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Silicon Valley — an annual event hosted by President Barack Obama and attended by nearly 700 entrepreneurs — one message came across clearly: Great ideas come from anywhere. And, increasingly, they’re coming from talented entrepreneurs who are overcoming the odds in cities like Nairobi, Kenya or Kingston, Jamaica.

Image: https://blogs.worldbank.org

In the wake of Brexit, somebody drove a mobile billboard around London with a message on it imploring startups to "Keep calm and move to Berlin."

But as this chart from Statista shows, Berlin doesn't really need the help. It's already the top of the heap in Europe when it comes to size of venture capital investments, and investment is growing faster there than in London. Interestingly, VC investment in Stockholm skyrocketed last year, vaulting the Swedish capital ahead of Paris. 

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com/

Start-up Village (SV), India’s first PPP model incubator, is all set for a national scale-up with the Department of Science and Technology approving Start-up Village’s phase 2 in its completely digital version. The world’s first digital incubator for student start-ups ‘SV.CO’ will be launched on July 13 at Thiruvananthapuram. The Phase 2 will focus on creating an entrepreneurial culture amongst the country’s five million engineering students by providing them a completely digital incubation framework, ranging from application for admission to teaching, mentoring and graduation, officials of SV said.

Image: http://www.financialexpress.com

"Nervous about getting up in front of a crowd? Just imagine your audience in their underwear!"

"Wondering how you can grab everyone's attention? Crack a joke to break the ice!"

There’s no shortage of well-meaning public-speaking advice out there—some of it familiar to the point of cliche, some of it novel.

The truth is that to become a great speaker, you need to be aware of what you shouldn’t do just as much as what you should do. And to get your head around both the dos that will help you become a more powerful communicator, you first need to ditch the bad advice. These six common ideas should be the first to go.

Image: via Wikimedia Commons

It is rare to go to a government event, especially where political leaders are speaking, in which you can stay awake or be truly inspired. Indeed, I had very low expectations of President Barack Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), which was held at Stanford University last week. I thought it would be nothing more than a publicity vehicle for the administration. But I left extremely impressed with the dynamism and energy that it generated and the positive impact it had on the entrepreneurs who were there from the United States and the developing world.

Entrepreneurs can often be so focused on making the company culture fun and lighthearted, that employees don’t understand the importance of productivity. That’s why we asked 12 founders from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) how they make their expectations clear without damping the mood. Here’s what YEC community members had to say: Play at Work

Scientists are using facial recognition technology and 360-degree underwater photos to examine the effects of coral bleaching in a speedy and innovative way. 

New software building on the two can examine thousands of images over weeks, rather than years. It's 900 times faster than previous methods and more accurate than a human. 

Company culture: the shared beliefs and behaviors of the collective. If you want to change the culture, you have to change the beliefs and the behaviors of the people one mind at a time.

Unwritten Rules

I believe that the culture lies within the unwritten rules of a company. The unwritten rules of an organization are where the beliefs and behaviors come to life. These unwritten rules are then shared person to person. For example:

The California Supreme Court reached this decision Monday after representatives from the building industry argued that affordable housing mandates could be considered “government confiscation of property,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The California Supreme Court reached this decision Monday after representatives from the building industry argued that affordable housing mandates could be considered “government confiscation of property,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Frank Alexander wasn’t expecting his book, Land Banks and Land Banking, to wind up so big.

“In 2010, when we created the Center for Community Progress one of the reasons we did so, Dan Kildee and I, is [because] we could not keep up with the demand, the calls we were getting about vacant and abandoned properties, or requests for help for drafting legislation,” says Alexander, an Emory law professor. “The 2011 [book] was purely a defensive measure on my part as a way of getting information out there so I didn’t say the same thing on a telephone call everyday.”

One of the greatest challenges for a startup founder is growing the startup into an organisation that is far beyond his own strengths and limitations. It can be sometimes difficult to part with responsibility when what you’re responsible for, has become an integral part of you. That’s when you find you need to hand over responsibilities to people you trust and more importantly, people who can do what you do: lead.

As the founder and CEO of Training the Street, Scott Rostan has been teaching financial-training courses to interns and analysts at Wall Street firms as diverse as Credit Suisse, UBS, and the Blackstone Group for more than 15 years.

Before that, he was a new hire himself on Merrill Lynch's investment banking team.

It takes a dedicated amount of time and energy to build good, strong, lasting business relationships today. They are such an integral and necessary part of success, but people don’t seem to want to put in the work. Alert: lasting business relationships just don’t happen and develop without the dedicated, consistent work. Our business network should be a qualified, selective group of people we count on, tap into and rely on for support, direction and insight. We have to find that balance of being givers and takers. We can’t just give or take, we need both. Far too many people don’t ask for help when they need it and that can be fatal in small business.

Engineers at Harvard have developed a soft robotic glove that allows people with limited hand mobility to grasp and pick up objects. The device could help the estimated 6.8 million people in the United States who have hand mobility issues, whether from a degenerative condition, stroke, or old age.

Nine patients with ALS, muscular dystrophy, incomplete spinal cord injuries, or complications from a stroke have tested the glove so far.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

Leading CEOs worldwide expect major changes to their company’s business model until 2020. As a consequence, organizations are currently about to realize that, today, business model innovation has become as important as technological innovation. However, developing new and viable business models still represents a serious challenge for large incumbent firms despite their resources, know-how, and key technologies. This article provides 10 guidelines for mastering business model innovation challenges in established companies.

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Varian Medical Systems (NYSE:VAR) is announcing that financing for the Maryland Proton Therapy Center (MPTC) was completed today. The MPTC project is being financed by parties including Deutsche Bank AG, Varian, and several private investors. Varian has committed to loan up to $35 million to the project through its subsidiary in Switzerland. Varian's commitment is in the form of a subordinated loan that is due, with accrued interest, in three annual payments from 2020 to 2022.

In 2010, community and business leaders formed an economic-development group and set ambitious goals for the next 10 years: 150,000 new jobs, $8 billion in capital investment and per-person income growth of 30 percent.

Five years later, Columbus 2020 says it is on track to meet those goals and even exceed them, according to a report to be released this morning.

The EBAN Awards ceremony took place during the Gala Dinner on evening of the 7th of May at the Evoluon Conference Center in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. 

EBAN recognised European Business Angel Federations, Networks and Investors who have demonstrated excellence and commitment to driving business angel investment over the last year. Furthermore, MBAN awards were granted for the first time for two different categories and also two special recognition awards were assigned to the organizations and individuals actively engaged in the angel investment community. Paulo Andrez, President Emeritus of EBAN, joined President Candace Johnson in bestowing the awards.

Image: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com

Two-thirds of US public and private companies still admit that they have no formal CEO succession plan in place, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Corporate Directors last year.1 And only one-third of the executives who told headhunter Korn Ferry this year that their companies do have such a program were satisfied with the outcome. These figures are alarming. CEO succession planning is a critical process that many companies either neglect or get wrong. While choosing a CEO is unambiguously the board’s responsibility, the incumbent CEO has a critical leadership role to play in preparing and developing candidates—just as any manager worth his or her salt will worry about grooming a successor.

Starting today, people in Germany can crowdfund their bright ideas using Kickstarter. If it comes as a surprise that they haven't been able to do so for a long time, that's understandable.

Germany, after all, is the fourth biggest economy in the world. It has the largest population in the European Union. It's famed for the quality of its engineering and the caliber of its technical universities—valuable assets when it comes to creating the sort of gadgets that rank among the highest-profile Kickstarter campaigns. Basically, if you were to design a country from scratch to be an attractive venue for crowdfunding, it would have many of the characteristics of the German market.

Being an entrepreneur seems to be one of the most popular lifestyle aspirations these days. According to most definitions, anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur, but most people don’t realize there are many startup types out there, and picking the wrong one can be just as disastrous as being stuck in a cubicle at work, or doing things with no interest and no skills.

At EMC World, columnist Rob Enderle attended a session on venture funding efforts. Because EMC takes a different approach it often has to defend its strategy. So here is a look at the ‘5 stages of venture capital denial’ developed by EMC’s investment group.

Lewis Geffen discusses US venture capital trends and how they have migrated from the West Coast to the East Coast and vice versa. For example, East Coast investors have become more “company-friendly” with their terms, due to a change in mindset among successful investors who want to follow the West Coast model. This shift has prompted a decline on the East Coast in the use of accruing dividend provisions and participating preferred stock. Additionally, there are some trends migrating from East to West for different reasons, including See more +

If your ideal job involves clocking in at 9 and heading home at 5, good luck finding it. According to new research from tax and consulting firm EY, people across the globe are working longer hours than ever before. In a global survey of 9,700 adults between ages 18 and 67, nearly half (46%) of managers around the world reported logging more than 40 hours a week, and 40% said their hours have increased over the past five years. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/working-more-than-40-hours-a-week-2015-5#ixzz3ZJ1Y9grq

NextGen Angels recently announced plans to bring its brand of under-40, entrepreneur-friendly angel investors to 12 more U.S. cities, with plans for international expansion down the line. I caught up with CEO Dan Mindus, who founded the group in 2012, about both the expansion and the venture market in the Greater Washington area. Based on our conversation, there are two important things about the local funding market that every entrepreneur should probably know:

Despite the rush in every academic institution to offer more courses on entrepreneurship, I still haven’t found it to be something you can learn in school. Of course, you can pick up the basic principles this way, but the problem is that the practical rules for success are changing so fast that no academic can keep up. The best thing you can learn in school is how to learn.

Innovation. Every company wants it. Entire books have been written about it. Scores of business consultants make their living off it. And the press are always applying it as a label to whatever product, company, or idea is hot at the moment. But the use of the term 'innovation' to describe so many different things has pushed the concept dangerously close to becoming nothing more than an overused corporate buzzword with no real meaning. And meaning matters.

WASHINGTON—Having secured a funding boost for the National Institutes of Health in the 21st Century Cures legislation, House Democrats now say the Food and Drug Administration would be ill-equipped to handle the new burdens under the bill without more resources.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, raised the matter during a hearing Wednesday on the latest iteration of the legislative package, which is intended to accelerate the pace of innovation in medical drug and device development.

Being a startup founder who is obsessed with my own personal growth, I frequently get sucked into blog posts with titles like “The top 5 traits of all successful entrepreneurs.” These articles tend to cite characteristics such as passion, persistence, inspiration, an eye for talent, a data-driven mindset, great communication skills, and the ability to galvanize team members toward a common long-term vision.

Good Morning. The United States is at risk of losing its edge as the capital of global innovation. In 1968, the country spent 9.1% of its federal budget on basic R&D; today, just 3.6%, the WSJ’s Robert McMillan reports. U.S. companies have also cut back. Until rather recently, much of that basic R&D, which isn’t tied to a particular commercial mandate, came out of corporate labs such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC. Today, the U.S. relies on the federal government to fund nearly all of that work, and it just isn’t enough.

To meet the demands of 2020, the 5G research has attracted global attention and made remarkable progress. 5G will be the first meaningful unified wideband mobile communication system. A recent research has systematically overviewed the latest progress on the 5G research and highlighted the network architecture and several promising techniques which could be employed in the future 5G systems. The research also foresees potential research keypoints and directions.

Researchers have identified two seemingly unrelated but strong predictors of obesity: having low self-esteem related to one’s weight and keeping food visibly available around the house, outside the kitchen.

The Ohio State University study focused primarily on determining whether the home environment – architectural features and food storage and availability – was associated with obesity, but also measured a number of psychological factors. While architectural features had no relationship to obesity status, several food-related findings did.

BY DAVID LUMB

3-D scanning is widely used to ingest physical objects such as furniture into digital files. As its name suggests, Manhattan-based startup Body Labs wants to do the same with human bodies. But unlike a coffee table, your body changes, and a scan today won't be exactly the same as a scan made three weeks ago—which is exactly what Body Labs is counting on. By tracking your body's subtle changes, Body Labs is exploring just one of its technology's applications to build a happier, healthier you.

A very small and rare species of shark is swimming its way through scientific literature. But don’t worry, the chances of this inches-long vertebrate biting through your swimsuit is extremely slim, because if you ever spotted one you’d be the third person to ever do so.

This species common name is the “pocket shark,” though those in the field of classifying animals refer to it by its scientific name Mollisquama sp., according to a new study published in the international journal of taxonomy Zootaxa. While it is small enough to, yes, fit in your pocket, it’s dubbed “pocket” because of the distinctive orifice above the pectoral fin–one of many physiological features scientists hope to better understand.

Image: http://scienceblog.com

A special group of freshmen is taking Duke and Coach K back to the NCAA Final Four.

The Blue Devils and their trio of freshmen starters are going to their 16th Final Four, a record-matching 12th for coach Mike Krzyzewski, after a 66-52 win Sunday in the South Regional over Gonzaga.

Up until about 20 years ago, it was simply another, somewhat uncommon way to speak about interference. Now, “disruption” is a thing each of us knowingly permits, and that purported leaders both intend and seek — without really asking whether there is some value worth preserving in whatever order we’re upsetting.

To disrupt is the raison d’etre of seemingly every startup. The rowdy children of the business world, startups are eager to disrupt for the sake of it. Merely improving upon a product or service seems weak in comparison to upending an existing industry. There is even a tech conference called Disrupt, offering a Silicon Valley American Idol for hopeful moguls with a side of hype and occasional outbursts of casual misogyny.

The transition to daylight saving time this Sunday at 2 a.m. may be particularly hard for people who are unhealthy, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that people who are obese or have obesity-related health problems have higher amounts of  "social jet lag," which is when the body's internal clock is out of sync with a person's social and work clocks. Daylight saving time can worsen this condition.

Google Ventures, Google's investment fund, has backed consumer tech companies like Uber and Nest — but the biggest percentage of Google Ventures' assets are now invested in science and, in particular, oncology.

HEIDELBERG, Germany, February 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Roche and BioMed X announced today that they have entered into a collaboration agreement to establish a research group focusing on the development of a novel sensor technology platform based on new nanomaterials such as graphene.

Outstanding early career scientists from leading academic institutions world-wide are invited to submit original project proposals in the fields of biotechnology, nanotechnology and engineering.

DOE Launches Office of Technology Transitions. The Department of Energy (DOE) has formed the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), a DOE-wide unit that will "coordinate the commercial development of DOE's research outputs" in order to expand the commercial impact of DOE research. The OTT will coordinate technology transfer activities at all DOE research and production facilities, including the 17 DOE national laboratories. The OTT will also house the DOE's Energy Technology Commercialization Fund, a $20 million fund that is used to support the commercialization of applied energy technologies by matching private investments.

Epic Games has created a $5 million fund to provide financial grants to developers who are creating games and other innovative projects.

In doing so, Epic is joining a number of game-platform owners who are courting developers with actual cash to help them create games that run on that platform. From a business view, it pays to invest in their own platforms. In this case, Epic Games is competing with rivals such as Unity for the hearts and minds of developers. And when it comes to creating a game that shows off a platform, cash is now king.

Image: Tim Sweeney Image Credit: Dean Takahashi 

After days of rumors, the evidence is starting to mount that Apple is seriously considering building an electric car to take on Tesla. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the company has had a project code-named “Titan” in the works for the past year, with "several hundred" employees assigned to it.

The WSJ notes, of course, that “Apple may decide not to proceed with the car,” and adds that that the battery and electronic technologies developed in the project could be useful in other divisions of Apple. But it also cites insiders suggesting that the size of the team and some of the individuals working there “indicate that the company is serious.”

Image: http://readwrite.com 

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has taken control of Swiss company GlycoVaxyn in a $190m deal that bolsters its early vaccines pipeline.

GSK already owned a stake in GlycoVaxyn and had been working with the company since 2012 on the development of conjugate vaccines for bacterial infections. 

Buying the remainder of the company gives it a portfolio of early-stage candidates including an Escherichia coli vaccine in phase I trials and - more importantly - exclusive rights to the Swiss company's platform technology for making new vaccine candidates.

Roche ($RHHBY) now has another approval under its belt for eye drug Lucentis. And it's in a market it can call its own: Lucentis is the first U.S.-approved treatment for diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME).

That's an edge Roche can now boast over Regeneron ($REGN) rival Eylea. While both meds have the regulatory green light to treat DME--which hits almost 750,000 U.S. patients, Roche notes--only the Swiss pharma can say its drug heals retinal damage in those patients. Together, DME and DR are a leading cause of blindness in U.S. adults under the age of 55.

Inovalon Holdings Inc., a Maryland health-tech company with a focus on data analytics, is scheduled to go public next week in an offering expected to raise up to $613 million. That's up from the $500 million the Bowie company originally estimated when it first filed to go public back Dec. 30. The company, in its amended Jan. 29 filing, said it will offer 22.2 million shares of common stock at an estimated price of $20 to $24 per share.

Image: Credit: Joanne S. Lawton -  Dr. Keith Dunleavy, seen here in 2008 when his health-tech company was called MedAssurant.

Some people seem better than others at fighting the flu, and you might suspect they were born that way. A new study of twins, however, suggests otherwise.

In one of the most comprehensive analyses of immune function performed to date, researchers analyzed blood samples from 105 sets of healthy twins. They measured immune cell populations and their chemical messengers—204 parameters in all—before and after participants received a flu shot.

Image: Cytomegalovirus infection. Credit: Yale Rosen via Wikimedia Commons

TODAY’S QUESTION: Many people say that one of Tennessee’s biggest challenges is later stage funding for start-ups that benefitted from TNInvestco monies. Is that a reality? If so, how can we address the need?  

David Belitz, Managing Partner, Chattanooga Renaissance Fund:

I do think the lack of later stage capital is real for Tennessee. However, I think the concerns are a bit overblown. If we build good companies, have good exits or just build big stable companies, the money will find us. I also think good entrepreneurs will find the money. It may not all be from Tennessee, but they will find it.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Germantown-based Intrexon Corp. a synthetic biology company, plans to raise up to $150 million though a secondary offering of common stock, the company said late Tuesday. Intrexon (NYSE: XON) was trading at around $29 a share Wednesday. Led by biotech billionaire Randal Kirk, who serves as chairman and CEO and is the company's largest financier, Intrexon raised $160 million when it went public in 2013.

The Cobas Taqscreen MPX is the only test approved by the US Food and Drug Administration that can simultaneously detect the HIV, hepatitis B and C viruses in human blood and plasma, Roche said.     Having a single test eliminates "the need for consecutive rounds of testing" Roche said, stressing that it could shorten the time it takes to reach a crucial diagnosis of the killer viruses.

Image: Roche

You don't have to be a nut to be healthy. You just have to want to get healthier than you are now. Baby steps.

Here are a handful of free, at-your-own-pace apps that can point you in the right direction if you're looking to slim down or perk up.

1. IF YOU'VE TAKEN THE "IGNORANCE IS BLISS" APPROACH TO EATING Fooducate

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

e "next generation of science" is at risk unless major changes are made to increase opportunities for young researchers, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels wrote in a scientific journal article published Tuesday.

Only 1 percent of National Institutes of Health grants went to researchers under the age of 36 in 2012, less than one-fourth of the share three decades earlier, Daniels wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And researchers who see such statistics — and limited opportunities for tenured faculty positions — are increasingly discouraged, he warned.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Yes, I know everyone’s buzzing about 4K TVs, smarthome gadgets, and fitness wearables at the Consumer Electronics Show but I decided to sit this one out and actually get some work done. Besides, I’m too partied out from the holidays for Vegas.

Instead, I thought I’d give you a glimpse of what I think are some interesting venture capital trends as we head into the back half of the decade. But don’t expect me to crunch any numbers for you. These are insights you can base strategic decisions on; you’ll have to find charts for your marketing pitch elsewhere (or just click on the links).

According to a recent article in The National Law Review, universities controlling and supporting the commercialization of their own research is not a new trend in the academic world. Recently, for example, the University of California created UC Ventures, “an independent fund to pursue investments in UC research-fueled enterprises” in September 2014, stated the school in a press release. 

For years, organizations have lavished time and money on improving the capabilities of managers and on nurturing new leaders. US companies alone spend almost $14 billion annually on leadership development.1 Colleges and universities offer hundreds of degree courses on leadership, and the cost of customized leadership-development offerings from a top business school can reach $150,000 a person.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The year of 2014 was a big year for telemedicine. The idea of using technology to provide remote health care has been around for years, but it really started to take off this year with the proliferation of wearable devices, and providers starting to embrace seeing patients through video chat.

In July, Dignity Health unveiled telemedicine robots to bring in specialist physicians from remote locations. Then, in October, Google unveiled a new ‘talk with a doctor now’ video chat service. Even pharmacies got into the act, with remote medical kiosks popping up in Walgreens, CVS, and Wal-mart.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The year 2014 ushered in a new wave of what is often wrongly thought of as the “sharing economy.” It’s more accurately termed the Rental Economy—a collection of changes that have empowered anyone to loan out goods and labor at the touch of a screen.

This year saw a rise of focused yet decentralized startups making it possible for ordinary people to supplant the roles traditionally played by, for instance, taxi fleets and hotel chains.

Image: http://readwrite.com/ 

NEW YORK — Startups in the San Francisco Bay Area receive heaps of attention for their technological developments, partly helped by hefty funding rounds from prominent local venture capitalists. But as far as Jon Lehr is concerned, if startups aspire to sell their technology to big companies, they would do well to consider a little city called New York.

Image: Office space for startups at Work-Bench in New York on Dec. 11. Image Credit: Jordan Novet/VentureBeat 

“If meritocracy exists anywhere on earth, it is in Silicon Valley,” wrote David Sacks in an email to The Times’s Jodi Kantor.

Kantor was working on an article, published in The Times on Tuesday, about the Stanford class of 1994 — the class that graduated a year before Netscape went public, and, for all intents and purposes, started the Internet economy. She was exploring why the men in that class had done so much better in Silicon Valley than the women.

I’ve prepared one-stop primers on the three areas I’ve focused on this year — privacy, innovation, and reputation — to give marketers an overview (with lots of useful links) on where we’re at right now, and a few actionable suggestions for 2015. They’re also subjects I’ll follow next year, so I hope we can have an ongoing dialogue.

Summary:

Every company innovates. It’s an inescapable function of operating each day and, like both voting and abstaining contribute to the outcomes of elections, some of it is purposefully notable, and lots of it forgettable by default. Innovation is also a buzzword du jour of management theory, media headlines, and the pipe dreams of generation of wantrepreneurs, so addressing it from a marketing perspective is all but unavoidable in 2015. The questions of what and how will loom large.

During Tesla's (NASDAQ: TSLA  ) annual shareholder meeting earlier this year, CEO Elon Musk promised "a fairly exciting upgrade to the Roadster." On Friday, Tesla finally revealed what Musk was referring to: an upgrade that can boost the Roadster's all-electric range from 245 miles to around 400 miles. 

Image: Tesla's Lotus-inspired Roadster. Image source: Tesla Motors. 

Recently, I launched a way to get myself more involved within the entrepreneurial community globally, called office hours. It is one of my favorite ways to easily meet smart and aspiring entrepreneurs.

While hearing and working with many smart entrepreneurs, I have realized that many of them are making significant leaps towards leaving the corporate world and carving a path on their own.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Deloitte Consulting LLP of Chicago, in a 50-state study of economic indicators commissioned by the Iowa Chamber Alliance, found that Iowa ranks in the bottom quarter of states in providing a good business environment for small to medium-sized companies. The state also ranked in the bottom 25 percent for tax complexity and providing a good place for entrepreneurship and innovation, Deloitte's regression analysis of all states found.

"There is an increasing appreciation by people that they actually own their data"

In the field of health research, data have long been held closely by the researchers who collected it. The knowledge is considered proprietary information owned by whoever conducted and funded the study, even if it has the potential to lead to future health advances.

California has been associated with risk-taking, entrepreneurship and innovation since the Gold Rush. Today, California is still an innovation engine in such varied sectors as agriculture and the Internet. But only one homegrown industry can stake a claim as a leading contributor to our state’s economy and the health of people around the world: the life sciences sector.

Image: UC Davis researcher Lutz Froenicke, who has sequenced the genome of the peanut, is part of California’s growing biomedical sector. MANNY CRISOSTOMO This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Trust moneys in revocable accounts are 100 percent revocable upon demand, including all principal and interest. With a revocable agreement, you may change the funeral home and the selected funeral services or merchandise at any time without penalty.

Each year, MaRS conducts a survey of our “ventures,” the startups we support with venture services. As part of Data Catalyst’s work trying to discover trends and patterns in the innovation economy, we thought the MaRS venture survey results would provide an interesting window into the startup ecosystem in Toronto and surrounding region. The survey results aren’t all encompassing, of course, but with 597 companies reporting, it’s a valuable dataset that provides a snapshot of what’s happening in and around the city.

Watch a bunch of interviews of founders of successful companies, and here’s what you don’t hear:

We tried eight different marketing channels — AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, social media, events, retargeting, SEO, guest-posting, PR, and so on. All of them worked a little bit, so together it was substantial — a trickle from each that added up to a river. Then we optimized each of them, improving each a bit more every month, and sure enough revenue doubled every year.

 

Monrovia—Sometime soon a slender robot that looks like Casper the ghost and works like Skype on wheels may visit the bedside of an Ebola patient in West Africa, as a doctor nearby instantly transmits data to other researchers over a portable Wi-Fi network.

The historic Athenaeum Press Building is a squat, brick structure that dominates a block on the eastern edge of Cambridge, Mass., adorned with a statue of its namesake Greek goddess staring across the Charles River into Boston.

On a July morning that dropped enough rain to trigger flash-flood warnings, Alexis Borisy sat on a black club chair in the cavernous lobby, wearing the fedora he is rarely seen without and a polar bear patch on the knee of his jeans (which, it turns out, has less to do with global warming than with the fact his kids really like polar bears).

The US healthcare industry is undergoing a major transformation as healthcare reform encourages consumers to play a far more active decision-making role. Yet despite this traditionally business-to-business industry moving quickly to a business-to-consumer model, companies have been slow to join the digital movement. Unlike successful B2C companies in other industries—which offer mobile solutions, provide personalized product recommendations, and empower customer-service agents with a 360-degree view of the customer—most healthcare providers and payors are lagging, as are pharmaceutical companies and medical-device manufacturers. That’s problematic when customers are increasingly expecting a better, more personalized experience from companies taking advantage of the host of digital tools and analytics at their disposal.

CLEVELAND, Dec. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Newly released data from a recent national survey shows companies are fearlessly leveraging Open Innovation (OI) to develop groundbreaking products, accelerate business results and lead their industries.

This means organizations are achieving innovation goals by drawing from resources and solutions outside their own walls, while reducing risks through proven OI methodologies.

A material that simultaneously reflects light and radiates heat at frequencies that vent it through the Earth’s atmosphere could one day help cool buildings on hot days. The material cools itself to a temperature below the ambient air, and has been tested on a rooftop at Stanford University by its inventors, who are now working on scaling up the design.

Image: Free Digital Photos

You might be interested in a methodology for solving issues which confront the founder or founders of an early stage (the garage version) emerging growth company as the company launches.

The idea, which occurred to me while speaking to an event sponsored by the Crowdfunding Professional Association ("CfPA") in DC on September 30th and October 1st, involves a dual approach for raising money, combining a pitch for donations under the rewards-based crowdfunding networks and platforms, the most prominent being Kickstarter and Indiegogo, with conventional fund raising under the auspices of Regulation D, Rule 506(b).

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Utter the term "angel investing" to Dick Reeves, and you won't hear anything about 20-something tech billionaires clad in hoodies and sandals.

"Out here in the hinterlands, it's not Silicon Valley-like at all," said Reeves, who heads up Angel Syndicates Central, a Huntsville, Alabama-based network of small investors who provide seed funding for early stage companies.

"We're much more modest people. We invest much smaller amounts...it's a different game," Reeves told CNNMoney.

Do today's startup CEOs have an advantage over their corporate counterparts? Are they more likely to be digital natives -- and therefore leverage social media more effectively than old-school leaders?

In A World Gone Social, we talk at length about the dinosaur leaders who have failed to adopt social as an active listening device -- a way, for the first time in history, to gather the input of employees, customers and stakeholders in realtime at the right time. And, we provide examples of organizations that have discovered the power of social far too late, and then asked in bewilderment as their socially-enabled competition blew past them:

NEW YORK and PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 17, 2014 BNY Mellon, a global leader in investment management and investment services, announced that it has established an innovation center in California's Silicon Valley. The opening of the facility is part of the company's plans to use emerging and disruptive technologies such as Cloud Computing, Big Data and the Internet of Things to gain new business insights, develop inventive, operational and technological capabilities, and identify potential new ventures that anticipate and cater to emerging client needs.   

Image: Free Digital Photos

I recently became good friends with my water meter once I found it and cleaned the dirt off its face. This friendship was prompted by a water leak that made my bill go through the roof. There was no surface indication of the leak. I don’t pry the lid off the concrete container and manually check the water meter on a regular basis. Do you? Someone from the water company has to do that on a monthly basis to read the meter to determine my bill.

Image: http://rroyselaw.com 

There have been reports that claim that New Jersey is no longer the pharmaceutical powerhouse it used to be, including a recent Asbury Park Press story by Michael L. Diamond (“What NJ needs to learn from other states,” Oct. 18).

We disagree. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of New Jersey’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

The investment terms hammered out between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in the third quarter point to a slowing in the pace of deal-making from the white-hot second quarter, according to Fenwick & West's latest Silicon Valley Venture Survey.

Herndon, VA  November 14, 2014

The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced today the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF) Request for Proposals (RFP) for FY2015. The solicitation opens on November 14, 2014 and award announcements are planned for early June 2015.

Governor McAuliffe and the General Assembly appropriated $2.8 million to the CRCF for FY2015 for programs targeting Virginia's public and private colleges and universities, the private sector, nonprofit research institutions, and political subdivisions. Six programs are being offered during this solicitation: Commercialization, Eminent Researcher Recruitment, Facilities Enhancement Loan, Matching Funds, SBIR Matching Funds, and STTR Matching Funds.

A vote by the board of NorTech on Monday, Nov. 10, approving a merger with another regional economic development nonprofit, Team Northeast Ohio, marks the first step in a long-awaited private-sector strategy to boost the Northeast Ohio economy.

The business and philanthropic leaders behind the strategy see it as way to add vibrancy to a regional economy that has lagged the rest of the country in the creation of new jobs. The Team NEO board earlier approved the merger.

Image: http://www.crainscleveland.com 

A Rock Hill home was vandalized with water and symbols of witchcraft a week after a tenant was evicted.

The house, located on Chestnut Street, was empty and the locks had been replaced after the tenant moved out, according to a police report.

As cheap cloud computing services erode IBM’s traditional hardware business with alarming speed, the company finds itself facing an uncertain future. If only there were some clever machine it could turn to for advice.

Image: A scientist from the Spanish oil company, Repsol, and an IBM researcher use a visualization tool developed in IBM’s Cognitive Environments lab, based in Yorktown, New York.  - http://www.technologyreview.com

As CEO Kerry Rupp has presided over the expansion of technology accelerator DreamIT Ventures from moving into areas like Austin, Baltimore and Israel to expanding into new areas such as healthcare and minority-led businesses. But Rupp has stepped down, according to a report from Technically Philly.

Image: Kerry Rupp, a managing partner at Dreamit Ventures

Raymond C. Stevens and Peter Kuhn, two of the country’s most successful researchers of molecular structures and processes and their application to pharmaceutical-drug manufacture and medical treatments, have become the latest hires in what the University of Southern California is billing as its "game-changing" enlistment of biomedical scientists.

Image: http://chronicle.com

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann and David L. Cohen, chair of Penn’s Board of Trustees, hosted Penn students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and friends, as well as the region’s business and tech community, at a series of events last Friday to celebrate innovation at Penn and showcase Penn’s Pennovation Works, at the South Bank, a hub for innovation and new business ventures.

Image: http://www.upenn.edu

Investors and innovators have been trying to develop better tools for groups to communicate, collaborate, and make decisions for decades. Since businesses have become increasingly global and engage more remote workers, the need for collaboration tools is even more pronounced. And while hundreds of millions have been spent on technology, investors still think that there’s more work to be done.

Image: http://techcrunch.com

Remember about 10 months ago, when you swore that this would be the year that you finally get your act together and plan a Halloween costume ahead of time?

Yeah. There's always 2015.

If you've found yourself panicked because you waited until the last minute to select a costume, don't worry. Depending on your level of skill in painting, makeup, hair and wardrobe, there's likely a costume below that you can create ASAP. (Remember: you can always keep it simple, stupid.)

Delivering recommendations from a presidential committee he co-chaired, MIT President L. Rafael Reif addressed a forum on the future of manufacturing in the U.S. hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a report from the committee, known as the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) 2.0, outlining a series of recommendations for renewing advanced industrial production in the U.S.

Today GE Healthcare officially opens Health Innovation Village, its first health tech startup campus, at its Finnish headquarters with the Minister of Economic Affairs in Finland, Jan Vapaavuori and the Mayor of Helsinki, Jussi Pajunen.

The Health Innovation Village saw its first inhabitants move in this summer. Today, it is the home of 20 health tech startups operating in the fields of wireless technologies, sensors as well as apps and cloud services.

KATHMANDU: The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has seized bid bonds from two hydropower project promoters after they failed to generate electricity as agreed.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) on August 29 had written to the Authority urging cancellation of survey and electricity generation licence of those who failed to generate electricity as stated in the Required Commercial Operation date (RCOD) of the Power purchase agreement (PPA).

Capital investment activity at non-corporate businesses has been declining for the past decade, data from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report shows. Between 2000 and 2011, the latest year data are available, the average non-corporate non-financial business reduced its gross fixed capital formation by one-third, when measured in inflation-adjusted terms.

This decline is troubling. Investment in machines, office equipment, vehicles, software, and other fixed assets helps companies to boost their productive capacity. A lower average level of investment means that businesses are investing less in plant and equipment than they used to.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, LLC. announced that it intends to expand J-Labs (formerly Janssen Labs) and include a new incubator branch at Texas Medical Center’s (TMC) recently-launched Innovation Institute. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, J-Labs will feature a 30,000-square foot facility that will accommodate up to 50 life science startups. The announcement was part of a presentation at the Texas FreshAIR annual conference, an initiative designed to create partnerships between the University of Texas (UT) System and the life sciences industry. UT operates numerous research and clinical care facilities within TMC, which recently opened a new program, the Texas Medical Center accelerator (TMCx), to offer support to entrepreneurs and help develop early-stage companies.

Inovio Pharma (Nasdaq: INO) announced the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded $12.2 million for a collaborative study that will be conducted by scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; Inovio Pharmaceuticals; and MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN). The group will develop DNA-based monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for infectious disease treatment. DARPA is an agency of the US Department of Defense that creates and supports novel technologies important for national security.

Ah, the beauty of the food chain.

Beachgoers at Cape Lookout National Seashore captured sharks getting their grub on earlier this month in a massive feeding frenzy near the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. Hundreds of sharks followed a school of bluefish right onto the beach on Oct. 8, while seagulls and pelicans dove in for the leftovers.

Inherent gender differences between men and women do not make one gender better or worse at high-growth entrepreneurship, said Teresa Nelson, Ph.D., Astia Global Advisory Board, Astia Executive in Residence 2013-14, and Chair in Entrepreneurship at Simmons College. Social norms, expectations, and early training direct men and women down different paths. It is only recently that there has been a concerted effort to change perceptions and provide training.

A recent report published in the October issues of Entrepreneur magazine points out that Harvard University and Babson College are among the top colleges for entrepreneurship, putting together top-tiered entrepreneurship curricula for their students.

The rankings were produced by Princeton Review and are separated into two sections: undergraduate and graduate programs. According to the rankings, Harvard University ranks first place in graduate programs, while Babson College tops the undergraduate list.

A business’s professional appearance is directly related to the degree of competence, trustworthiness and available resources they exude to clients and potential leads alike. If someone were to consider using a business’s services, only to walk into their office and find its clutter reminiscent of a pigsty, they are very unlikely to trust that business with anything at all, much less their financial interests.

Image: http://ventureburn.com

LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Facilitating economic empowerment is a big task that will require bold thinking by smart, passionate individuals and groups. Today, we’re kicking off an initiative that aims to encourage this type of big thinking: the LinkedIn Economic Graph Challenge.

Image: http://blog.linkedin.com

A sergeant in the city police force was worried about rising ethnic tensions. With a few keystrokes on his computer he mapped the boundaries between the feuding ethnic groups and altered the daily patrol schedule to focus more on those areas. A manager of the local public-health systems was working to contain an outbreak of an infectious disease in one of the city’s shantytowns.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Morehouse College was founded just two years after the Civil War. The Atlanta, Georgia historically black college would go on to be one of only two to produce Rhodes Scholars, and count among its alumni none other than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Oct. 24-26, its historic grounds will be the setting for a one-of-a-kind event: The Platform Summit. Luminaries from the arts, business, and politics will join together with young people and future luminaries to produce powerful solutions to diversify the innovation economy.

Image: Free Digital Photos

The Internet of Things is definitely becoming a Thing, in the same way that big data’s a Thing or the sharing economy’s a Thing. And the thing about a thing that becomes a Thing is, it’s easy to lose sight of the things that made it a thing before everyone declared it the Next Big Thing that will change everything.

Image: Free Digital Photos

The Commonwealth's announcement yesterday that it will invest $12 million into boosting 'STEM' subjects in Australian schools is yet another example of its failure to recognise the critical nature of these skills to the future of our economy.

The funding would be great to boost science, technology, engineering and maths in one city or one region, but spread across the national schooling system it works out at about $4 per head.

We are operating in a new business environment -- one that is purpose led. Millennial buying power is projected to increase to 50 percent by 2020, and they are increasingly making up more of our workforce. For this cohort, buying -- and working for -- brands that have a firm purpose is a primary driver for engaging with them. As a result, smart companies are laying the groundwork for long-term survival in this fast-changing time by making 'purpose' a driver of both innovation and decision-making.

Image: Free Digital Photos

So you've dragged yourself to a networking event. Now what? Standing by the hors d'oeuvres table isn't going to get those contacts you need for your next big project or job search.

Looking open and approachable--where your eyes, smile, and feet are pointed--is your starting point. From there, you can use a few small-talk conversation starters to break the ice. Keep your eyes off your phone, and you'll be fine.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Rest, and think.

What does your ideal day look like? When do you wake up? Who do you spend time with? What do you do?

What does your ideal work look like? What do you create? How does it make you feel? Where are you when you’re creating it?

What is your ideal life?

Image: Free Digital Photos

Donors have given $2.5 million to Wichita State University to create a key leadership position in developing its new innovation effort, President John Bardo announced Thursday.

The Sam Bloomfield Chair in Innovation Engineering “will have an astounding impact on Wichita State,” Bardo said in a statement.

Image: Free Digital Photos

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Before you dip your toes in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Geeks and Nerds (GaN) Corporation Chief Executive Officer Jonn Kim has three words of wisdom: "Start with passion."

Kim, winner of the 2014 Russell G. Brown Executive Leadership Award from the Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County, said passion is the fuel organizations need in a dynamic – and competitive – business climate.

AL.com asked several successful entrepreneurs and small business advocates in the Huntsville area to share their advice for fledgling startups.

Image: Rob Adams, owner of Mind Gear Labs in Madison. (File)

Of all of the things in your workday that could cause you to feel stressed, but checking your email likely seems like the most benign.

But when Gloria Mark, a researcher at the University of California at Irving strapped heart-rate monitors to a team of U.S. army civilian employees, she discovered that email was in fact a major cause of stress.

Let’s just get this one out of the way.

1. You probably won’t get a fair hearing. The seductive narrative of Silicon Valley stars a genius-hero who goes on a journey, overcomes myriad obstacles, has a flash of insight and is rewarded by wise and benevolent investors with Series A funding.

This narrative is bullshit, but it’s everywhere. Take Marc Benioff’s bookBehind the Cloud. Not to pick on Benioff – I’m a fan, his foundation does good work and his book contains its own chapter on why you shouldn’t raise VC – but he started salesforce.com on leave from his executive gig at Oracle, with $6m in savings (!!!), $2m in seed money and the mentorship of Larry Ellison. That makes it difficult to buy into any portrayal of him as an underdog — but it also offers some insight into the kinds of people that do get funded.

Slapping an alarm clock and dragging yourself out of bed is no way to start the next best day ever. We have a few more effective ideas, from the likes of Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and others.

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do today?" Steve Jobs suggested asking ourselves. Check out the video above for ways to make the most of your morning--and the rest of the day as well.

LONDON, Sep 23, 2014 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- AstraZeneca announced today that its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, has received fast track designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its investigational monoclonal antibody (mAb) MEDI3902 for the prevention of nosocomial pneumonia caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa), a highly drug-resistant bacterial pathogen that causes serious disease in hospitalised patients. The FDA’s Fast Track programme is a process designed to expedite the development and review of drugs to treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need.

Physicists have verified a key prediction of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity with unprecedented accuracy. Experiments at a particle accelerator in Germany confirm that time moves slower for a moving clock than for a stationary one.

The work is the most stringent test yet of this ‘time-dilation’ effect, which Einstein predicted. One of the consequences of this effect is that a person travelling in a high-speed rocket would age more slowly than people back on Earth.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/34517490@N00/2743877537

The rampant spread of technology-mediated learning has set off fits of hype and hand-wringing—yet the U.S.'s traditional centers of higher education have mostly failed to confront the pace of change and the implications for students. There is probably no way anyone can keep up with this transformation: the technology is simply evolving too rapidly. Nevertheless, we keep trying. Will these developments truly serve our goals for advanced education? We need to know urgently.

Image: Peter and Maria Hoey - http://www.scientificamerican.com

Prior to preparation of a business plan, the entrepreneur should ask some hard questions. Hundreds of thousands of new businesses are organized in the United States each year; unhappily, most of them fail within the first year or so. Since the great majority of start-up companies are financed out of the pockets of their founders, the high failure rate should be a sobering statistic for would-be entrepreneurs. It may be fortunate for the economy as a whole that so few are daunted by the sober statistics, but it is hard on the individuals who do not make it. Nonetheless, available literature on the business aspects of organizing one's own firm rarely inquires into this threshold issue of whether one should set out on one's own in the first instance.

Image: https://vcexperts.com

A few months ago, we all wondered what exactly the iPhone 6 would embody, what specifications it would boast, and what new groundbreaking ideas it would bring to life. So the questions floating around the internet for the past few months have been to the tune of this:

What could Apple possibly do to improve the iPhone 5s? How could a brand that relied so much on the vision of Steve Jobs build another successful device without him? And, would the iPhone 6 be an evolution or revolution?

 

I look up from the magazine at the clutter of paperwork overflowing the “desk” that doubles as my kitchen table. Financial statements. The latest technical report from my engineering team. Proposals and pitches in various states of completion. My email inbox is a bottomless vortex, dooming all that enters to potential oblivion. The clock reads 1:33 am. My net worth isn’t yet $30 million, but I do have a nice cup of tea to soften the blow.

CDH Venture, an arm of one of China’s biggest asset managers CDH Investments, has been overshadowed by the manager’s private equity unit in the last few years, but a recent management shuffle and new investment strategy may turn CDH Venture’s luck around.

CDH Venture has recently closed a third venture capital fund at just over $100 million, but the offering fell short of its $150 million target, a person familiar with the situation said. At around the $100 million mark, CDH Venture III is far smaller relative to CDH Venture II, which totaled $500 million, and comes in under its $200 million initial venture fund.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (September 8, 2014) – Innova Memphis is pleased to announce the first closing of its third venture capital partnership, Innova Fund III, L.P., with $20 million in capital commitments.

“We are very pleased, in this challenging fundraising environment, to have earned the support from our lead investors,” said Ken Woody, Partner. “We believe our success in raising Fund III is a testament to our disciplined early-stage healthcare and technology focus, as well as the performance of our existing portfolio companies.”

Nearly a month after letting it slip that it would be bringing an IBM (NYSE: IBM) Innovation Center to the Triangle, Big Blue offers some clarity on what that might mean for the region.

While specific location and time frame for its delivery remains uncertain, execs do say an Innovation Center won’t just drive adoption of IBM products. It will also further fuel the growing entrepreneurial environment.

Image: MICHAEL C FOSTER Maria Tafuri, Director for IBM's Innovation Centers & Ecosystem Development

With two new portfolio companies added in August, the New Orleans BioFund has now invested over $2 million in 12 local companies. These firms have created more than 135 jobs across a variety of industries, from biotech to nutrition. Two new recipients include Your Nutrition Delivered, a fresh food delivery and vending startup, and Jack and Jake's, a 27,000 square foot market (left) expected to open in October in Central City that will offer affordable, locally grown food and products. The Biofund now looks to grow and expand its capital offerings this year to include equity investments, convertible debt instruments, and short term loan vehicles.

The JOBS Act became law on April 5, 2012, with the promise to open a new world of funding for startup businesses through equity crowdfunding. Entrepreneurs were excited that Congress passed a law creating a Kickstarter-like tool to raise capital by selling stock online. Equity crowdfunding had promised to bring ideas to life, businesses to fruition and the American Dream back into play.

Then, nothing happened.

Every business owner would love to inspire a sense of loyalty and support for their brand from each one of their employees. In the real world, few employees will actually go out of their way to gush about their employers or the brand they work for. What you’ll normally hear from most employees are sob stories and criticisms about how their employer just can’t seem to get anything right, how they are unfair, how they sometimes treat their customers badly and so on.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Google is about to begin designing and building hardware for a quantum computer, a type of machine that can exploit quantum physics to solve problems that would take a conventional computer millions of years.

Since 2009, Google has been working with controversial startup D-Wave Systems, which claims to make “the first commercial quantum computer.” And last year Google purchased one of D-Wave’s machines. But independent tests published earlier this year found no evidence that D-Wave’s computer uses quantum physics to solve problems more efficiently than a conventional machine.

Image: Quantum core: Techniques developed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to build this device, known as a qubit, will be used to try to build a working quantum computer at Google. 

University students around the country are packing up their cars and making the annual pilgrimage to dorm rooms or sparsely-decorated apartments to kick off the school year. They’re pounding the concrete in Ikea for last-minute bathroom accessories, and hugging their parents goodbye until fall break.

The university experience prepares young adults for future careers. It teaches them required skills, and introduces them to peers who may one day become coworkers.

If you haven’t been hiding under a rock, you know the tech industry has a huge gender problem. A recent study shows how difficult it can be for women trying to make it in bro-centric Silicon Valley. Not to mention downright disturbing stories of women who have been put in compromising positions--all because they’re working in a man’s world.

I’m standing inside a dark booth located somewhere in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan, facing a stark array of lights and sensors. It’s a little chilly, which makes sense as I’m not wearing pants or a shirt; both are crumpled on a nearby chair. In the background I can hear voices chatting over an incomprehensible news report on CNN. To my right is a small handle jutting out from wall, featuring a bright red button. I’m supposed to press it.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7298413@N06/4932748746 

It’s not every day that technology for fostering civic engagement gets some love from investors. But today is one of those days, with MindMixer announcing a new funding round.

But tech for municipalities ain’t the only beneficiary of venture funding today. Read on to see what else has scored fresh cash.

Image: The 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coin from the U.S. Mint. Image Credit: U.S. Mint 

Much is being said about Wells Fargo’s (NYSE: WFC) new startup accelerator.

There are only three main aspects about it that everyone should know, and Steve Ellis, Wells Fargo executive vice president and head of wholesale services, took the time to tell Benzinga what those are.

The rise of alternative funding has forever changed the way money is being raised, and Poliwogg is capitalizing on that shift to help life science startups and transform healthcare investing. Poliwogg's unique crowd equity online investment platform enables individual, accredited investors to invest directly in private life science, biotechnology, and healthcare companies. Poliwogg is interested in innovative early stage companies across all areas of healthcare and life sciences seeking to raise between $1m and $10m, including biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, devices, health IT, and big data.

Three Texas universities will share in a $3.75-million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant intended to move academic research into the marketplace.

Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University will join in creating the Southwest Alliance for Entrepreneurial Innovation Node, a function of the NSF's Innovation Corps program, also known as I-Corps.

Image: Participants in the I-Corps node attend training sessions intended to help them move their academic research into the commercial world. http://campustechnology.com

PITTSBURGH, PA – September 2, 2014 – Fourth Economy Consulting is soliciting planning and economic development firms to submit background and targeted information to for use in a directory resource for a client. An RFI for this has been posted as of September 2, 2014 and can be found here. Fourth Economy is working with a Midwestern client to perform a study of successful regional economic and quality of life transformations in US metro areas. The study will be part of a toolkit to inform and equip state and local officials for long-term, coordinated planning aimed at wholesale redevelopment and revitalization.

The consequences of continuing without a long-term science and innovation plan for the economy are beginning to emerge, according to Australia's chief scientist.

It was well known science and innovation were crucial for boosting the country's productivity, creating more jobs and growing Australia's competitiveness and economy, Professor Ian Chubb said.

Image: "Cautiously optimistic": Ian Chubb is calling for a national science strategy. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen 

People often talk about how their friends feel like family. Well, there's some new research out that suggests there's more to that than just a feeling. People appear to be more like their friends genetically than they are to strangers, the research found.

"The striking thing here is that friends are actually significantly more similar to one another than we were expecting," says James Fowler, a professor of political science and medical genetics at the University of California, San Diego, who conducted the study with Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist at Yale University.

Do you ever find yourself attending an event or participating in a project that you don’t really have time for, aren’t interested in, or won’t benefit from in some personal or professional way? It happens to all of us. It can usually be traced back to that moment when you agreed to do the project, or attend the meeting, even though you already knew you didn’t want to. Or maybe you did think you wanted to attend – it seemed like a reasonable thing to do, or you wanted to support the person or group hosting the event, or you just said yes without really thinking too clearly about how you’d feel on a Wednesday night, late in the semester, the week after attending a conference.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

A court has banned Uber from operating in Germany, creating a new hurdle in the company's plan to expand in Europe.

The state court in Frankfurt ruled late last week that the car-sharing company lacks the necessary permits established by German transport laws to operate in the country, slapping it with a temporary injunction that bars Uber from legally operating in Germany pending a full hearing.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

1. If it starts heavily snowing during nighttime, and there will be so much snow that it will cover all the roads so much, you'll have trouble driving through it, you can bet the roads will be cleaned by 8 in the morning. 2. In case of nuclear war the Swiss have bunkers capable of fitting 100% of country's population.

Canberra was chosen to be the capital city of Australia because of bitter rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.

Sydney was the first British colony in Australia. Subsequently it had a big convict presence and became the first metropolitan city of Australia.

Melbourne was founded 47 years after Sydney. Free from any convict settlements and with the benefit of gold discovery, Melbourne quickly surpassed Sydney in both size and wealth.

Image: http://www.quora.com 

Digital health incubator Rock Health is investing in eight new startups and teaming up with three new corporate entities – Blue Shield of California, Deloitte and global healthcare firm Abbott.

The new startups being incubated span the healthcare spectrum, from HIPAA compliance to life sciences and biotech. Among them: – Accountable, an online platform that seeks to guide companies step-by-step through the HIPAA compliance process; – Acumen, a digital video platform that enables physicians to evaluate and manage neurological disorders such as autism; – Aptible, another company, launched last week, seeking to provide efficient HIPAA compliance services for developers; – Benchling, a cloud-based data management platform for life sciences R&D; – Telepharm, a web and mobile app that enables pharmacists and patients to connect anytime. Telepharm also recently raised a series A $2.5 million led by medical venture capitalist John Poppajohn and Iowa state Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter; – and Welkin Health, whose coaches offer daily support to type 2 disabilities patients through smartphone apps.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

I met Kathryn Gould longer ago than either of us want to admit.

Kathryn has been the founding VP of Marketing of Oracle, a successful recruiter, a world class venture capitalist, a co-founder of a venture capital firm, a great board member, one of my mentors and most importantly a wonderful friend.

Image: Kathryn Gould speaking at the 2014 University of Chicago commencement. - http://medcitynews.com

Drawing on an overarching framework of transactional stress theory, this study develops and tests an affect-based model of developmental job experience (DJE) that explicates the affective mechanisms through which DJE is associated with both positive and negative individual outcomes - advancement potential and turnover intention - and the buffering role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the affective processes. In a sample of 214 early-career managers, we found that DJE was related to increased advancement potential by boosting employees' pleasant feelings, but it can also fail to do so by increasing their unpleasant feelings. Moreover, whereas it is not surprising that there was a negative relationship between DJE and turnover intention mediated by pleasant feelings, they also demonstrated a positive relationship via unpleasant feelings, depending on employees' levels of EI. Specifically, the results suggested that DJE was positively related to turnover intention only for low-EI employees, but not for high-EI employees.

Imagine a day at the office. It may not be hard to do, since you’re probably reading this at the office right now. You’re surrounded by the lifeless stone-gray walls of your cubicle, the buzz of the fluorescent lamps above you and the glow of your computer screen in front of you. If you’re lucky you can get out of there at five, sit through an hour of traffic and get home in time to make some dinner, watch some Office reruns and go to sleep so you can do it all over again tomorrow.

My son leaves for college this week, and I’ve realized that it's one of several fresh starts many of us make in life. This adjustment will be followed by new jobs, new relationships, and maybe career changes. In fact, chances are good that my son will have more fresh starts than I did; according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person stays with an employer for 4.6 years, while millennials average just 1.3 years on a job.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Silicon Valley’s hottest tech accelerator, Y Combinator, is about to show off its first class of biotech startups.

The five companies, some of which have already raised significant funding, or controversy—or both—will come under the scrutiny of hundreds of venture capital investors on Tuesday, Aug 19, as the Mountain View, CA-based accelerator holds its Demo Day at the Computer History Museum, also in Mountain View.

Image: http://www.xconomy.com 

In a move to help early-stage companies gain insights about their companies from investors, a group of life science angel investors are hosting a pitching event in Philadelphia next month. The 1st Pitch Life Science event wants to give entrepreneurs a stage to talk about their company and get a sense of what they need to tweak without the risk of losing a potential investor.

A few years ago, if you had asked me about Silicon Valley’s gender imbalance, I would have wondered what planet you were from. I believed it was a perfect meritocracy that was open and diverse. My research had documented that the majority of Silicon Valley’s startups were founded by immigrants and that powerful and inclusive networks gave it a global advantage.

Tomas Gregorio brings years of experience getting technology to improve health care to his new post at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's New Jersey Innovation Institute, launched earlier this year to help spur innovation and economic growth throughout the state.

Gregorio, a former IT chief at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center who has helped New Jersey hospitals and doctors make the switch to electronic health records, was named senior director of Healthcare Systems Innovation at the institute and oversees its “i-Lab,” where NJIT will forge partnerships to create innovative health care products and services.

Image: Tomas Gregorio hopes to combine tech and health care through NJIT's new institute. - (New Jersey Innovation Institute)

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced $2.8 million in Economic Development Administration (EDA) investments to support projects that will foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Louisiana and Massachusetts.

"The Obama Administration and Commerce Department have prioritized supporting American innovation, which is the key driver of U.S. competitiveness, job growth and long-term economic growth," said Secretary Pritzker. "The EDA investments announced today will support critical infrastructure and manufacturing projects that use innovation to help attract investment and create jobs in Louisiana and Massachusetts."

Feed the Future strives to bring critical agricultural technologies and best practices to smallholder farmers around the world. But to scale up these interventions, U.S. Government programs must enlist partners in other countries and sectors to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of these potentially life-changing technologies.

Calm your frenetic TL;DR twitchy-Twitter-brain for five minutes, and let some Chinese philosophy wash over you.

Thirty spokes join in one hub In its emptiness, there is the function of a vehicle

Mix clay to create a container In its emptiness, there is the function of a container

Cut open doors and windows to create a room In its emptiness, there is the function of a room

Therefore, that which exists is used to create benefit That which is empty is used to create functionality

–Lao Tzu, Chapter 11, Tao Te Ching, ~600 BCE, translation by Derek Lin

Image: http://blog.asmartbear.com 

South Africa is getting its own version of the hit reality series Dragons’ Den. Business giants Lebo Gunguluza, Vusi Thembekwayo, Polo Leteka Radebe, Gil Oved and Vinny Lingham will be dragons staring down the hopeful entrepreneurs, all of whom think they have a world-changing idea. Great, you might find yourself thinking, you’ve honed your skills at pitching competition after pitching competition. You could use a little investment and the exposure couldn’t hurt, so why not enter? Well, we’re not saying you shouldn’t, but there are a number of things you should at least consider before rushing off to fill in an entry form.

Image: http://ventureburn.com 

Much of the discussion on big data has focused on claims information from insurers and EHRS from providers, but a collaborative effort underway at Stanford Medical School with SAP is hoping to tap into a different set – genomic data.

The possible benefits of sharing genetic data on a wide scale have great potential for both global population health and for drug makers alike, said Dr. Carlos Bustamante, who heads the Department of Genetics at the Stanford School of Medicine. Benefits range from possibly learning why certain drugs never make it out of clinical trials because of what population they are tested on to a more inclusive global snapshot at differing populations and what drives their health spending, among others.

The mobile revolution was one of the most transformative events in IT. It set IT in a tailspin trying to secure so many different device types connecting to the network and moving outside of the organization. After initial resistance, IT realized that by supporting mobility they were supporting user productivity. And thus an established industry of mobile device management solutions was born, allowing IT to create policies and strike a balance between data security and mobility.

Image: Tim Williams 

A European telecommunications company wanted to lower the cost of its customer service operations but worried about the potential loss of revenue from the cross-selling that its traditional call centers did so well. In investigating its options, the company learned that 70 percent of existing customer-service contacts could be delivered through digital solutions that had proved effective in other industries. By migrating part of its customer-service operations to similar digital-care programs with a smart strategic approach, the company lowered the unit’s costs by as much as 30 percent, with no loss of revenue.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When folks hear the term "start-up," all sorts of images are easily conjured in one's mind. You think of energetic young people in Silicon Valley or maybe Boston or Austin creating new innovative businesses; like Facebook or Twitter — hip tech companies with new ideas that seemingly came out of nowhere and now are integral parts of our lives. The good news is this is only part of the story. As Chairman of the House Small Business Committee, I've learned that start-ups can be found across America, from Boulder, Colo. to my backyard in Kansas City, and the types of companies and problems these companies seek to solve extend far beyond just the high-tech industry.

Image: James Lawler Duggan | Reuters - Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO).

Before the funding rounds and investors come into play, startups don’t usually have access to the same resources established businesses do. Money, business expertise and experience, contacts, well-established brand value, and above all, a loyal customer base, are the foundational elements of keeping a business alive. But what are startups supposed to do to differentiate themselves before they have the resources they need?

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Admit it — no one really enjoys running. Thankfully, some dedicated runners have found a way to make it fun.

By using apps like Nike+ and MapMyRun, which track your path and distance, runners created routes that turn into images on their maps.

Nike+ user Claire Wyckoff documents all of her routes on her Instagram and a blog called Running Drawing. Her most popular route drawings are X-rated (read: lots of penises). She's been a runner on and off for about 10 years, and started the drawings to get some laughs.

Image: CLAIRE WYCKOFF 

We've all been there: Staring at an email inbox stacked with one irritating message after the next. The damage control can seem too overwhelming to tackle, especially at the end of the day when the only ones remaining are the ones you've worked hardest to avoid. Where to begin responding? And what's with all these tone-deaf emailers?

The annoying email doesn't come in just one flavor. Chances are you've encountered at least one of these types of emails in the course of your workday. Here's how to knock them off your plate as gracefully as you can:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Anne Wojcicki bounds into a conference room in Mountain View, California, straight from a five-mile ride from home on an elliptical bike. The 40-year-old cofounder and CEO of the consumer genetic testing firm 23andMe is breathless, and not just because of the workout. On this warm day in mid-June, Wojcicki is “super-excited” about an announcement scheduled for two days hence: the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to review a health-related genetic report the company wants to make available to customers. 

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/ 

With increasing frequency, it seems that virtually any court decision, regulatory proceeding, or legislative proposal dealing with a new digital technology or service is accompanied by a predictable chorus. Chicken Little defenders of innovation argue loudly that regulatory change will have a chilling effect on innovation. Ironically, these loud calls have silenced a rational national conversation about innovation writ large. Innovation thus morphs into a conversation-stopper rather than a conversation-starter, particularly in the popular press and in the offices of policymakers. We need to be aware of this dynamic and begin treating innovation with all the complexity and nuances that this topic deserves.

Image: http://www.brookings.edu 

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several partners today are kicking off the year-long Global City Teams Challenge to help communities around the world work together to address issues ranging from air quality to traffic management to emergency services coordination.

Since the turn of the century, the European Union has striven to improve its decision-making by requesting a detailed impact analysis before taking new major policy initiatives.

Impact assessments (IAs) are now routinely conducted to predict the likely consequence of EU legislation on citizens and the wider economy, in a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When starting out in business, you may be able to fumble your way to short-term success if you have a good product and a measure of business savvy. If you want to experience long-term success, however, there are some core disciplines you learn and execute. At some point (sooner is better than later), you will need to become skilled in the following six areas:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

On July 30, 2014, NIST announced the 2014 competition and call for applications (proposals) for AMTech Planning Awards. The AMTech program only accepts proposals as described within Federal Funding Opportunities. NIST will only accept applications (proposals) to AMTech in response to a Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) published on Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov).  Announcements are also posted on this AMTech web site (http://www.nist.gov/amo).

The BRICS grouping recently signed a cooperation agreement in the field of innovation. Vnesheconombank Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev said the document calls for “financial participation of the development bank in supporting cooperation between our countries in this area.”  This mainly involves support for innovative small and medium-sized businesses. According to Dmitriev, a number of areas have already been identified (including pharmacology and biotechnology), in which it is possible to establish joint ventures with the support of development banks. These companies, in turn, will finance promising innovative projects. The amounts of funding have not been disclosed yet.

Image: Russia and other BRICS countries have much to learn from each other. Source: AP 

Passion is everything. You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself.

In 25 years of studying communication, I’ve never met an inspiring entrepreneur who isn’t freakishly enthusiastic about his or her idea. Steve Jobs, one of the most passionate entrepreneurs in business history, may have offered the best definition of passion in one of his last public presentations, in March 2011 (he died that October).

Image: Ben Stanfield/Flickr

In an SSTI Digest article last month, SSTI detailed the most recent MoneyTree reports from National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Halfway through FY 2014, U.S. venture capital investments reached $22.7 billion, the highest first-half total since 2001. Using halves of fiscal years as the unit of analysis, this Digest article examines each state’s share of venture capital dollars and deals since 2010. Since Q1 2010, nearly $109 billion has been allocated to companies across 17,292 deals.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Awarded to communities or regions with a documented strategy for creating a local prosperity and inclusion using broadband and information technology to attract leading-edge businesses, stimulate job creation, build skills, generate economic growth, and improve the delivery of government services.  Evaluation of nominations is based on ICF's Intelligent Community Indicators, which provide the first conceptual framework for understanding all of the factors that determine a community's competitiveness and point to its success in the Broadband Economy. 

Image: https://www.intelligentcommunity.org

Washington, USA - The US federal government is showcasing four case studies, including one that highlights Intelligent Community Forum strategies, applied through a joint project with the Blandin Foundation.  

Last week, President Obama signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act aimed at creating a more flexible and responsive system of workforce development to meet the needs of employers looking to fill 21st century jobs. Ensuring U.S. workers are able to compete and succeed is a key priority at the U.S. Commerce Department. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker served on a task force with Vice President Biden that recently released a report looking at solutions for making the nation’s workforce and training system more job-driven, integrated and effective.

Centuries of over-exploitation of whales for their meat and blubber has seen populations of most species plummet. But with no small amount of irony, the tables have turned with research discovering that we need whales for a healthy marine ecosystem, or at least their poop.

Image: Whales make more than a splash in the southern ocean. Credit: Micheline Jenner

For a century, the major economies of Western Europe, the United States and Japan have dominated innovation. Today, they have been joined by large emerging economies, spearheaded by China.

We can measure innovation by output indicators, such as patents, that tell us about past success, and input indicators, such as research and development (R&D), which reflect the willingness to invest into the future. In both cases, global innovation is under rapid transformation.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Companies make headlines when they outsource manufacturing or—as is occurring more frequently—when they bring it back home to the U.S., a practice known as reshoring. What generates far less news is the potential impact on American innovation and productivity when companies outsource something as critical as research and development.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Existing laws are supposed to prevent motorists from using smartphone apps while driving. But they aren't working. The number of drivers injured or killed by distraction continues to rise.

I don’t harbor hope that automakers—notoriously bad at digital driver interfaces—will find the best solution. The way forward is more likely to come from a small startup, perhaps a company like Navdy.

100 Ideas that Changed the Web plots the history of the world wide web, from an electronic telescope dreamed of by a Belgian bibliophile in 1934 to Tim Berners-Lee vision of a machine that thinks. Some of the ideas are revolutionary, like the peer-to-peer network. Others are more humble like the GIF. Among them are astounding technological achievements, new economic models, ideas that breakdown national borders, ideas that blur the boundary between generating and exchanging ideas, and ideas that have changed the world. Perhaps most important are the design breakthroughs that opened up the web to a mass audience. Without these, the web would still be the playground of engineers and computer programmers. With these, the web is a place for everyone.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com

While many leaders see staff meetings as vital to the success of their organization, most employees see them as a painful waste of time. As a result, employees arrive or leave whenever they wish; check their emails; doodle; or use the time to make to-do lists of all the things they’re not getting done in your meeting. The outcome is a lethargic downward spiral.

With other types of meetings, leaders can mitigate this effect by keeping the attendee list as narrow as possible, and only calling a meeting when there’s something to discuss. But a staff meeting is a different beast altogether: by definition, it includes the entire team. And it’s usually a monthly or weekly recurring meeting (because scheduling so many people on short notice would be impossible).

I met Kathryn Gould longer ago than either of us want to admit. Kathryn has been the founding VP of Marketing of Oracle, a successful recruiter, a world class Venture Capitalist, a co-founder of a Venture Capital firm, a great board member, one of my mentors and most importantly a wonderful friend. During her career she made a big point of not telling you: she was one of the first women Venture Capitalist's in Silicon Valley (along with M.J. Elmore and Ann Winblad) - "I'm just a VC." Or one of the first women co-founders of a VC firm - "I co-founded a great firm." She was twice as smart and just as tough as the guys. She has been a mentor and role model not just for a generation of women VC's and CEO's but for all VC's and CEO's - and I'm honored to have been one of them.

It is shocking that companies do not seem to recognise the profound influence logos can have.

Airbnb, the home rental service and latest darling of Silicon Valley, launched a new logo in mid-July to much fanfare. As part of a rebranding campaign, the new logo was named Bélo and was said to signify people, places and love. But internet users saw something entirely different.

Image: http://knowledge.insead.edu 

MBA student Erica Swallow thought a summer internship at a well-known venture-capital firm would be a perfect way to determine if this should be her career path.

It turned out to be educational, but not in the way she expected.

Erica Swallow speaking at MIT’s Start6, a bootcamp for entrepreneurs Erica Swallow Ms. Swallow, 28 years old, who is about to start her second year at MIT Sloan School of Management, wrote a post on the school’s student blog last week saying that despite having some positive experiences as a summer intern at Boston-based General Catalyst Partners, she learned that “women — beyond the high-heel-studded secretaries and assistants — don’t exist in venture capital.”

Image: Erica Swallow speaking at MIT’s Start6, a bootcamp for entrepreneurs - Erica Swallow

In the last three to four years, social media marketing has increasingly become popular. Consumer product companies have special budgets for social media, though when it comes to business-to-business companies (especially in India) its marketing benefits are overlooked. Most companies are apprehensive and believe it is not meant for them. “Our customers are not on social media,” is what I often hear.

Image: http://ventureburn.com 

Looking to make a sound investment? Perhaps your advisor should be a woman. Studies show that women have a different approach to investing than men and, thanks to biology and psychology, they’re often more successful.

A woman’s lack of testosterone can make her a more disciplined investor, says LouAnn Lofton, author of Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl--And Why You Should, Too. “Testosterone can help traders take risks and move fast, making loads of money in the meantime,” she writes in her book. “But too much testosterone for too long can encourage too much risk taking. … The way women tend to approach investing is healthier and calmer, and it’s the way we should all approach investing.”

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The rise of social media has given us a gift in the form of crowdfunding. If you’re not familiar with the concept, crowdfunding is the raising of funds from a group of people (the crowd), usually online, to back any imaginable project, product, or cause you can imagine.

It is now the way for businesses to make it big from scratch. In 2013, Forbes estimated that crowdfunding collectively raised $5 billion worldwide. The numbers keep growing yearly, and these are a few of the biggest sites to check out if you want in on the fun.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Video games make us feel like gods, but we’re all just trained pets. A game will hand us a rocket launcher with unlimited ammo (I’m a god!). Then it will literally draw a trail leading us to our next target to shoot. And when we shoot that target, the game gives us a treat to tell us that we're a good boy. Stupidly, we think that treat makes us more godlike. In reality, it's just proof that we're well-behaved.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com 

ONE of the world’s leading advisers on digital strategies and innovation has warned the big four banks to re-engineer their business models and collaborate with start-up companies targeting the payments space to ensure they thrive in a new era of technological change.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – If you ask someone in Birmingham if the half a billion dollars in federal research spent here each year is important to the local economy, most everyone would say it is. But if you ask them how important, that would be hard for anyone to answer.

Steven Ceulemans, vice president of innovation and technology with the Birmingham Business Alliance was recently tasked with answering that question, not only for Birmingham, but for the nation.

A little known fact about innovation is that many breakthroughs have not been the result of genius, but "happy accidents" -- those surprise moments when an answer revealed itself for no particular reason.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Before I tell you what it was like to go a week without my smartphone, I have a confession to make: I cheated. 

Not much, mind you, but when ReadWrite editor-in-chief Owen Thomas asked one of his writers to take a week's vacation from my mobile devices and write about the experience, I volunteered. I thought it would be much easier than it was.

It was painful.

As U.S. high schools beef up math and science requirements for graduation, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that more rigorous academics drive some students to drop out.

The research team reported in the June/July issue of the journal Educational Researcher that policies increasing the number of required high school math and science courses are linked to higher dropout rates.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The business incubator, which is will be known as “Rev Ithaca Startup Works,” will give entrepreneurs a co-working space where they can work to launch their businesses, The Sun previously reported. The space is being opened through a partnership between Cornell, Ithaca College and Tompkins Cortland Community College.

Image: A rendering of the Downtown Ithaca Incubator, known as Rev Ithaca Startup Works, shows the space that will be available to entrepreneurs in the area when it opens later this year. (Rendering courtesy of Cornell University) 

Speed to market, access to the best minds, and the agility to respond rapidly to ever-changing market dynamics are essential to executing innovation and this rarely occurs in isolation. Organizations that excel at transforming ideas into game-changing innovations do so through the power of partnerships.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Who in social media is talking about digital? Join the conversation by using the trend board below.

On July 29, 2014, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Economic Council (NEC) published a Federal Register notice requesting public comments to provide input for an upcoming update of the Strategy for American Innovation. According to the notice, the Strategy "helps to guide the Administration's efforts to promote lasting economic growth and competitiveness through policies that support transformative American innovation in products, processes, and services and spur new fundamental discoveries that in the long run lead to growing economic prosperity and rising living standards." The national priority areas outlined in the 2011 Strategy include nanotechnology. The 2011 Strategy states:

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann announced the launch of the Penn Center for Innovation, a new initiative that will provide the infrastructure, leadership and resources needed to transfer promising Penn inventions and related assets into the marketplace.

What does it really mean to be “educated”?  And what is the role of institutions of higher education?  Are our universities institutions of vocational training, funded to prepare students for jobs?  Or are they institutions whose purpose is something a bit higher than that, perhaps loftier?  Or both?  Or neither?

You can drive a long way without it seeming strange.

When I moved to the US someone suggested a trip to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.  They said to meet them there at 2pm. "Sure", I said.

Then I looked at a map.  It was 80 miles away. 80 Miles!  What kind of lunatic drives 80 miles to go to a park? 

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Portfolia connects sophisticated opinion leaders with extraordinary entrepreneurial companies. You collaborate with others to evaluate innovative products and teams, and invest in those you believe in.

We make start-up investing smart, empowering and enjoyable -- with some investments starting at $1,000. Whether you're an experienced entrepreneurial investor looking for top opportunities or a first-time investor looking to 'learn the ropes,' Portfolia is your community.

We know some of you find being an “internal entrepreneur” disappointingly difficult. You are frustrated by employers who thwart your entrepreneurial efforts on a routine basis. But that’s how it is supposed to be!  Large organizations, with rare exceptions, are created to scale up and master repetition without error or variance. They are professional Predict, Plan & Execute (“PP&E”) machines, and as they have evolved over time, are carefully engineered to stamp out anything that induces uncertainty. The stock market demands this—and the systems, structures, and procedures (including the career path of your boss) support and reward it. For you to expect this situation to change quickly or without some pain is naïve and, quite possibly, mean-spirited. Imagine you are a professional long-distance runner and decide to switch careers and become a professional tennis player. Think it might take a while?  Organizations can take 10 times longer to change.

Over the past decade, the South Dakota communities of Sioux Falls, Brookings and Rapid City have developed business incubators to assist entrepreneurs in successfully launching and growing their businesses. By both directly providing entrepreneurial training and by serving as connectors to other resources and activities, these incubators are helping our state’s entrepreneurs thrive in an ever-changing environment. The direct economic impact of these business incubators is both measureable and significant. Today the companies and graduates of the South Dakota Technology Business Center, located in Sioux Falls, employ 673 people at an average annual salary of more than $60,000. In addition, these same companies achieved combined annual sales exceeding $200 million in 2013.

The rapid success of crowdfunding has shortened the production cycle of amazing devices that would otherwise languish in the development phase. Risk associated with launching a new and untested product now can be transferred to project backers (pledgers), encouraging innovators to push the envelope. With so much to choose from, here’s my pick of top five outstanding up-and-coming gadgets.

Image: Panono 

As individual companies adopt web technologies, they gain the ability to streamline everything from product development and supply-chain management to sales, marketing, and customer interactions. For China’s small enterprises, greater digitization provides an opportunity to boost their labor productivity, collaborate in new ways, and expand their reach via e-commerce. In fact, new applications of the Internet could account for up to 22 percent of China’s labor-productivity growth by 2025.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

No-brainer. When you hear the numbers i just mentioned, what do you think? . the numbers are much worse than when we started. Women were receiving zero to 3% in venture money. There has been a very large improvement in these numbers, which we think will continue. One of the things going on was there were very few women investors. I think it would be hard to point out a percent of the angel investors.

I ignored academics to the point where I almost didn’t graduate from college — and it helped me land my dream job as a result.

My academic awakening — or lack thereof — began three years earlier, as I sat inside a small classroom on our college campus. An editor from the Minneapolis Star Tribune was there to speak to our journalism class on what it took to become a newspaper reporter or editor.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) July 21, 2014 – The formation of new companies accounts for nearly all net new job creation, but state non-compete agreements — if strictly enforced — can make it harder for people to start those companies.

According to a new Entrepreneurship Policy Digest released today by the Kauffman Foundation, state enforcement of non-compete agreements is restricting highly skilled workers from moving in and out of new jobs and/or from starting their own businesses, thus hindering job creation and economic growth.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

And now for a little perspective, just in case business is slow or you haven't gotten the promotion you think you deserved.

Image: http://www.ideachampions.com 

AstraZeneca reported that MedImmune, its global biologics research and development arm, has entered into a clinical trial collaboration with Advaxis, a US-based biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapies. The Phase I/II immunotherapy study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of MedImmune’s investigational anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, MEDI4736, in combination with Advaxis’ cancer immunotherapy vaccine, ADXS-HPV, as a treatment for patients with advanced, recurrent or refractory human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical cancer and HPV-associated head and neck cancer.

For decades, Europe and the United States have led the way when it comes to high-energy particle colliders. But a proposal by China that is quietly gathering momentum has raised the possibility that the country could soon position itself at the forefront of particle physics.

Image: View of the LHC tunnel sector 3-4 Credit: Maximilien Brice (CERN) via Wikimedia Commons 

One of the most telling questions you can ask someone in any kind of leadership role is what motivates them to be a better leader. Some will say it’s to enhance their personal effectiveness, or that leading is an expected part of their professional development. Others may say that they lead because of a sense of leader identity, purpose, or personal obligation to serve their organization and the people with whom they work. Many will proffer a mix of instrumental, external motivations (like pay or career progression) and more intrinsic, internal rationales (like the obligation to serve).  The group with a combination of motives has the most reasons to lead, and so it seems intuitively reasonable to assume that they would be the most committed, high performing leaders. Right?

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Capital efficiency has become a mantra at Atlas, one shared by a number of other early stage biotech investors. It’s a term often repeated in discussions about building young companies, and yet it has become clear that there’s no consistent definition of what the term means.

A common perception is that capital efficiency is synonymous with tightly constrained, small amounts of investor capital – the “small ball” criticism of capital efficiency.  Others think it means only ultra-lean, asset-centric, virtual companies.  There’s also the perception that you can’t build something big if you are capital efficient.

Presenting to venture capitalists or other early stage investors can be challenging. These investors want to know how your company can make them money with explosive growth, why your solution matters to customers, just enough of your technology to get the “secret sauce,” how you protect your IP and why your team is the one to pull this off. Oh—and you might have to do all of that in 15 minutes.

Crowdfunding has opened the virtual gates to capital for start-ups, developers and researchers in nearly all corners of life. But when pitted against a panel of experts in a field, can the crowd show the wisdom needed to pick a winning project?

That’s the question that Wharton management professor Ethan Mollick and Harvard Business School professor Ramana Nanda answer in their working paper, “Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts.”

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

"The day I took on my new role I said that our industry does not respect tradition -- it only respects innovation." -Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

Innovation is not only for the tech industry — it is central to the success of any business and it must be an integral part of a business strategy. Consumers have many choices these days, and brands and retailers need to stand out from the rest.

All industries have to continually innovate, whether its technology or retail. But how?

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. That’s how employment in the U.S. has been devastated – and we are nowhere near reacting at the pace required to recover a semblance of the American dream.

Let’s take two names out of our history as prime examples of the accelerating dynamics of job destruction and job creation. One is a farmer; the other a scientist.

In a field in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1832, 22-year-old Cyrus McCormick attempted to convince a crowd of skeptics that the contraption he had invented could reap a field of wheat by sundown – as fast as six men with scythes.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

It’s just a patent application, filed in 2011, filled with black and white sketches. But iTime is a further glimpse at, not necessarily what the iWatch will look like when it's released later this summer, but their method of exploration into the future of wearables. It's a peek into Apple's creative process--one that seems to be focused, not on inventing the next lustable product, but designing its next product to best express you.

I am not a coder. The closest I’ve come to the world of programming is a computer science class I took in college that killed my GPA (I got a C-minus, and that was a generous mark). It forever turned me off to the world of Boolean theorems and C++. For the rest of college, I kept myself happily occupied with Virginia Woolf and Chaucer, thank you very much.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a popular legal entity for small businesses, since it gives business owners liability protection and pass-through tax status, while keeping the business formalities and paperwork to a minimum. The LLC is a relatively new business structure in the U.S. While each state has its own guidelines for forming and managing an LLC, they all follow the same general principles.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Over the past few years, the prevailing attitude in large swathes of the business world has been to view employee devices as a threat to the company’s IT structure. And while those concerns are valid, it is worth bearing in mind that they can be mitigated and that you can get serious reward by creating a more flexible work environment that accommodates the needs of the employees by treating them as business consumers.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

BEIJING, July 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator (MVA) Fourth Class Demo Day took place in Beijing, with 10 startups in the accelerator class demonstrating their achievements in the past six months to venture capital firms, industry experts, partners and media. Microsoft Venture Accelerator also announced the names of the 19 startups selected for its fifth class as it marked the second anniversary of MVA in China. In addition to continuing its commitment to providing free support for the class members, Microsoft Ventures Accelerator reiterated its commitment to providing comprehensive resources and support to Chinese startups and a growing number of partners in order to build a global startup support ecosystem to help Chinese startups to grow and expand worldwide.

From Richard Branson to Steve Jobs, entrepreneurs might be considered the defining business leaders of this generation. The attraction is clear: especially for many people who may work in large, faceless organizations, the idea of the entrepreneur – who literally creates a concrete business idea out of a vision – serves as a kind of idealized fantasy.

The UAE has been ranked first among the Middle East North Africa countries for their innovation performance.

According to du’s ‘2014 Global Innovation Index’, the Emirates has moved from 38th place last year to 36th in this year’s rankings.

Switzerland remains in top position worldwide in the index, followed by the UK and Sweden, while Sub-Saharan Africa posted significant regional improvement in the annual rankings.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Hospitals and Health Networks released its list of the most wired hospitals as part of an effort to highlight which health systems and facilities are best connecting to patients.

Among those deemed the “Most Wired,” meaning they met a rigorous set of criteria across four operational categories, 67 percent share critical patient information electronically with specialists and other providers, according to the survey, conducted with San Francisco-based McKesson Corp., AT&T, the College of Healthcare Information Management and the American Hospital Association. The hospitals that made the list “have made tremendous gains by using IT to reduce the likelihood of medical errors,” the survey said.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

KITCHENER – Communitech has been chosen to advance in the selection process for the Canada Accelerator and Incubator Program, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday during a visit to Waterloo Region.

Communitech, in collaboration with University of Waterloo Velocity, Laurier LaunchPad and the Waterloo Accelerator Centre, is one of 15 Canadian organizations chosen for the program.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Abu Dhabi: The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) announced the results of the first “Abu Dhabi Innovation Index” on Saturday. The index was prepared in collaboration with INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools. ADDED says the results confirm that Abu Dhabi is now in a position which qualifies it, according to international standards, to gain access to the knowledge necessary for innovation, and to localise and consolidate that knowledge. The results of “Abu Dhabi Innovation Index” show that, when compared to other economies dependent on natural resources, the emirate of Abu Dhabi emerged as highly adept and very efficient in the adoption and positioning of knowledge, new technologies, products and services across its entire economy.

How do you break out of your old mindset, in a way that will fuel innovation?

Try heading to 16th-century Florence, according to Frans Johansson, the best-selling author of The Medici Effect.

Johansson (pictured) notes that the wealthy Medici family corralled a truly diverse set of thinkers, put them in the same place, and watched creativity flourish. And he believes that the 21st century, with easily accessible social media and diverse cities, offers some equally effective forums for collaboration.

Tim Draper, the founding partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) venture capital firm, recently won an award from SVForum for being a Silicon Valley visionary at its annual Visionary Awards. (His father, Bill Draper, by the way, previously won the same honor for being a pioneering Silicon Valley venture capitalist.) Draper used the opportunity to talk about his ballot initiative to divide California into six different states.

Image: Tim Draper of DFJ Image Credit: Dean Takahashi 

Back in the early 2000s, the Maker Movement took hold in California, based on the emergence of such do-it-yourself (DIY) tools as 3-D printers, Google's SketchUp and makerspaces such as TechShop, with all the tools you need to make almost anything. Thus entrepreneurs began building prototypes and designing new products without the traditional huge investment.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/ 

At my daughter’s recent graduation, a commencement speaker kept reiterating, “You can do anything with a degree in philosophy.” To which I thought, you can do anything with the right attitude. For all of you entrepreneurs struggling to make ends meet but committed to seeing your dreams through, this article is for you.

Image: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ 

Bret Unger asks two pint-sized customers what kind of chips they’d like with their hot dog. He stands behind the counter in cargo shorts and an orange and yellow t-shirt banded like candy corn. His black cap is tilted up and to the right so you can’t see the smiling hot dog logo.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

First, you should determine whether you have the right personality to be an entrepreneur. At My Enterprise Finland, you can complete an entrepreneur test, which may help you to make the decision. (Requires logging in with online banking credentials.)

The starting point for entrepreneurship can be, for example, professional expertise, the desire to make independent decisions, or the appearance of a good opportunity.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

A handful of Kentucky farmers are borrowing money through a micro-financing website known as Kiva Zip. Kiva Zip is a pilot program launched in 2011 by Kiva, which describes itself as the world’s first and largest micro-lending site. That site launched in 2005.

Image: Some Kentucky farmers are seeking loans through a microfinancing website that wants to establish a Louisville presence. 

Small business owners know it’s important to have a website. Of course they do – it’s just common sense. So why are so many small business owners still resisting?

A whopping 81% of consumers research online before making a major purchase, so it’s imperative that your company have a solid Web presence. But the shocking news is that, according to a 2013 survey, 55% of small businesses still don’t have a website.

These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done at the home location, by full-time employees. We are in the age of outsourcing, by any of many popular names, including subcontracting, freelancing, and virtual assistants. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a four-year, $3.7 million grant to researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine to develop a personalized medicine program to help doctors diagnose and treat monogenic diabetes – a form of diabetes caused by a mutation in a single gene. The study will evaluate methods to implement this program in various health care settings, with an objective to develop a model that could also be applied to caring for patients with genetic variations of other common diseases.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

There are times when it seems like there is an app for everything and entrepreneurs would have to reach pretty far to keep building new things. But in Africa, there are many things that need to be invented and problems that need to be solved. As an interested party in the African startup and entrepreneur ecosystem, we obviously have a few things we think need to be built on the continent. We decided to put together a list of things we wish African entrepreneurs could get going on. Now, some of these may be in the works already or some version of them might actually be in existence. If so, give us a holla.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Michael Langone, the entrepreneur behind HopBox.co, combined a variety of different skills and interests when launching his home beer brewing business. Langone started brewing while attending college in Syracuse, N.Y.  Back then he was studying to become an architect, and didn’t expect to make brewing into a career.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/ 

MORE OPTIONS MEANS MORE POSSIBILITIES TO BE PERFECTLY CONTENT--RIGHT? HERE'S WHY DECISION FATIGUE IS SAPPING US OF HAPPINESS AND MAKING US REGRET THE CHOICES WE MAKE.

Amazon sells 1,161 kinds of toilet brushes. I know this because I recently spent an evening trying to choose one of them for the bathroom in my new apartment. Nearly an hour later, after having read countless contradictory reviews and pondering far too many choices, I felt grumpy and tired and simply gave up. The next day, I happily bought the only toilet brush the local dollar store offered.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Entrepreneurship is not a job for the Lone Ranger. Every startup requires building and maintaining effective relationships with people, including partners, team members, customers, and investors. That means giving and asking for feedback, and learning from it, especially negative feedback.

“Friction” is feedback mixed with emotion or drama, making it all the more difficult to sort out the value. There should be no immediate assumption that one side is right, and the other is wrong. It may be an indication that one party isn’t giving the feedback well, or the other isn’t taking it well, or both. Both of these modes are wrong, and non-productive.

Joey Ricard is the president of Development Capital Group OTCBB: DLPM, the first publicly traded tech accelerator.

Startups in Silicon Valley are queuing up to gain a place at tech accelerators like Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars; but only accredited investors can get in on the deals.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

PETER PRONOVOST: The biggest misperception is certainty. When you receive a diagnosis from a doctor, we don’t always know for 100% sure if it is correct. In reality, medicine is an inexact science. In 2012, Johns Hopkins researchers, including myself, found that in intensive-care units alone, diagnostic errors may account for as many deaths as breast cancer in the U.S.

Image: http://blogs.wsj.com/ 

May was a very busy month for the African continent. Local and international leaders came together for the World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja and later, the African Development Bank Meetings in Kigali.

All these gatherings rally behind a common goal - poverty reduction and creating employment opportunities while sustaining economic growth on the continent. While six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa, the unemployment figures are startling. According to the World Bank, youth account for 60% of all unemployed Africans, this means the continent will need to create some 95-million new jobs by 2020, and another 160-million by 2030, to absorb all the new entrants to their labour markets.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

UCF is opening a new digital-media incubator in downtown Orlando, where startup companies can develop video games, animated film, simulation, and mobile and web products, officials said Friday.

The incubator will open this fall at UCF's Center for Emerging Media, near the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre.

The Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee voted Thursday to release a bill that would allow private businesses in New Jersey to “crowdfund” through web portals.

The concept, which calls for raising money through small contributions made online by a large number of investors, has been made popular by the website Kickstarter, which since its inception in 2009 has led to roughly $1 billion in funding for some 62,000 total projects.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You know investors seriously love your company when they start throwing billions of dollars at you. Want to know what that feels like? Just ask on-demand private company Uber, which today confirmed that it had raised a massive US$1.2-billion from a group of mutual fund managers and venture investors. The latest round of funding means that the disruptive company is now worth around US$17-billion, a fact that will likely fuel speculation that it’s well on its way to going public.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Just down the road from Google’s main campus here, engineers for the company are accelerating what has become the newest arms race in modern technology: They are making it far more difficult — and far more expensive — for the National Security Agency and the intelligence arms of other governments around the world to pierce their systems.

Image: Google servers in Douglas County, Ga. The company is encrypting more data as it moves between servers. Credit Connie Zhou/Google 

As exits have been flowing nicely again the past few years, many of the entrepreneurs I work with have experienced their first big exit.

I refer to this moment as when you find that you have life changing money in your bank account, which I like to call “fuck you money.” You now can do whatever you want with the rest of your life.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

We’ve all been there – the cold, impersonal, off-putting dinner time sales call. You might even joke about how bad it was with your team at work. The joke however, may be on you because unfortunately, many sales people (some in your business) are repeating blunders on the sale over and over again. You need to root them out of your sales team’s tactics.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The world of crowd funding, the founder and the chief executive of circleup, ryan caldbeck.

Great to have you with us.

How do you describe crowd funding to those that have never visited a site and have no idea what goes on?

Crowd funding means different things.

Essentially, it is a group of people coming together to fund a project or a company.

We allow individual investors to invest in and receive equity in those companies.

Are there any legal restrictions or hurdles that have to be met before you can say, all right, that is a new widget, i want to invest in it?

Image: http://www.bloomberg.com/ 

Competition is fierce in the crowdfunding space and the pressure is on for new campaigns to grab eyeballs and attention. Crowdfunding expert Sally Outlaw explains some of the basics your campaign will need.

Get the media interested. Outlaw suggests identifying specific outlets or reporters who will be interested in your concept, based on researching their work and their publications. Then she says you should craft custom emails to these journalists explaining why your idea is newsworthy.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

WHAT BETTER WAY TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS THAN TO HIRE THEM? INSIDE INGRID VANDERVELDT'S JOB AS DELL'S ENTREPRENEUR-IN-RESIDENCE.

Dell’s history is a textbook success story. The dorm-room startup’s founder, Michael Dell, took his company public just four years after launch at age 23, then wrested back control, taking the company private again in 2013. In looking at the company’s efforts to be the technology provider of choice for the startup community, it would be easy to point to that founder DNA--an entrepreneurial company that has a love of entrepreneurial companies.

True Ventures, one of the young firms leading the way as venture capitalists look to align more closely with entrepreneurs, has closed a fourth fund at $290 million, its founders told Venture Capital Dispatch.

The early-stage firm, which said it set out to raise $225 million for True Ventures IV LP, saw strong support from its limited partners, a reflection of its reputation and an improving fundraising climate for venture capital. True’s prior pool, raised in 2011, was $226 million.

In 2011, when an MIT senior named John Romanishin proposed a new design for modular robots to his robotics professor, Daniela Rus, she said, “That can’t be done.”

Two years later, Rus showed her colleague Hod Lipson, a robotics researcher at Cornell University, a video of prototype robots, based on Romanishin’s design, in action. “That can’t be done,” Lipson said.

Raise your hand if you have ever used a Texas Instruments (TI) graphing calculator.

The mathematic and scientific tool is easily the most popular name in modern calculators. If you scan the list of Amazon's bestselling graphing calculators, you'll see that TI models usually take the top three spots.

It dawned on me two years ago that no digital idea can be truly great without participation. It also dawned on me that there is no real participation without the Big Idea. This set me on a mission to discover how to truly combine “creative” and “digital”.

Most digital agencies classify themselves as digital, but sometimes, all this means is that they are creatively driven and passionate about social ideas. An idea floating around on its own needs a guiding hand to push it into the mainstream with a view to a real audience. The future of digital lies with agencies that produce creative work but are also able to engage viewers and measure engagement. Ultimately this interaction will affect a brand.

Scroll to the bottom of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America’s website, and you’ll see the words “PNAS Online is distributed with the assistance of Stanford University's HighWire Press.” The university will soon be cut from that phrase, as HighWire escapes the confines of institutional budget parameters to become a privately funded company.

After existing as an auxiliary of the Stanford University Libraries since 1995, HighWire on Friday announced it had accepted an investment from the equity firm Accel-KKR. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the firm generally targets companies with revenue between $10 to $75 million, said Thomas J. Rump, the managing director who now becomes CEO of the newly spun-off company.

Policy Exchange is calling on firms to sign up to a 'start-up superstar' scheme as part of its Technology Manifesto, launched today in association with Google and cloud computing giant EMC.

It would see companies and public sector organisations paying at least one graduate recruit a year to set up a business rather than come to work.

Why do certain product and service experiences seem to Undeniable not have that “wow” factor, while others disap- Point customers? Perhaps there’s no better place to turn to than the world of magic. Below, Stefan Thomke and Jason That Randal consider leading magicians are Constantly under pressure to come up with new “effects” that wow audiences. They have to innovate frequently and rely on a systematic way of doing so.

Wireless Telephony: We call that "radio" today. This French system from 1914 had two megaphones for speaking, which were used alternately for brief periods to prevent overheating. Range: about 95 kilometers.

There’s a National Association for just about anything you can think of including The Procrastination Association. As they say on their website: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after. If it weren’t for the last-minute, nothing would ever get done. Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off NOW.” We all seem to have an opinion about procrastination and usually that it’s harmful. The truth is, there are times when procrastinating wreaks havoc in our lives. Then there are other times when delaying some actions and decisions may be appropriate and even beneficial.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

In the pit lane of the Homestead-Miami speedway in Florida, inside a track on which race cars sometimes travel at over 300 kilometers an hour, a small crowd is watching something considerably slower but arguably far more impressive. On a sunny Saturday morning just before Christmas, a robot that roughly resembles a large person is contemplating a makeshift door on the tarmac ahead. It surveys the door using a laser scanner and a pair of cameras in its head; then, after a lengthy pause, the robot extends a gleaming aluminum arm, pushes open the door, and slowly steps through.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

So things didn’t work out with your last job. It happens. But what’s going to happen when that potential new employer calls your old boss?

“Unfortunately bad references are far more common than most people realize,” says Jeff Shane, founder Allison & Taylor, a reference checking and employment verification firm. “About half of the reference checks we perform come back with negative comments.”

Image Courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The U.S. initial public offering market has been good to venture capitalists this year.

So far this year, 55 companies backed by venture-capital firms have gone public on U.S. exchanges, raising $7.5 billion, according to data provider Dealogic. That easily exceeds the 19 venture-capital-backed IPOs that raised $1.9 billion on U.S. exchanges last year and is the highest level of activity since 2000.

Image: http://blogs.wsj.com/ 

According to recent figures, in the United Kingdom paralegals already make up (as a mean average) 44 percent of all fee earners in solicitors firms, and are on track to outnumber solicitors in firms within a decade. In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 16.7 percent growth in paralegal jobs between 2012 and 2022, adding 46,200 positions. Jobs for attorneys are expected to grow only about 10 percent during that period.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com/ 

According to new research published in the June 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal, men create more new proteins as a result of this exercise than women do. The good news, however, is that men and women experienced similar increases in aerobic capacity. This study is the first to directly measure the creation of proteins made to adapt to this mode of exercise. The study also uniquely used methods that measure the cumulative making of proteins during the entire three weeks to account for other daily living factors, effectively ensuring that the study was a measure of real life conditions. 

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

My visit to Colombia last week taught me that Brazil and Chile are no longer the sole players in the region intent upon building an entrepreneurial economy. With Latin American startup ecosystem leaders gathering this week around a workshop for ecosystem professionals in Latin America, we take a look at the host of the conference – the Dominican Republic.

Image: http://entrepreneurship.org/ 

Epidarex’s successful £47.5m ($79.5m) fundraise makes for a prime example of universities putting their money where their mouths are. Formerly known as Rock Spring Ventures, the fund is looking to bridge the funding gap in UK life sciences – with the aim of becoming a “local champion” for the sector.

The fund has attracted four UK universities as limited partners for the fund: King’s College London, Glasgow University, Edinburgh University, and Aberdeen University. While the fund will be looking to invest in UK life science startups in general, the four universities’ spin-outs will automatically be a higher priority target of investment by Epidarex, which is also supported by pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, the European Investment Fund, Scottish Enterprise, and Strathclyde Pension Fund.

Entrepreneurs work hard all year long to ensure their businesses become successful and stay successful, but everyone needs a break to relax and reflect. If you start feeling guilty about heading to the beach this summer don’t.

Here is a list of summer reads that will keep you thinking and inspired -- even from your Adirondack.

When Vanity Fair ran a lengthy profile of President Obama in 2012, one of the most repeated anecdotes was that the president wears only blue or gray suits. As he explained to writer Michael Lewis, “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

In the grasslands and floodplains of southern Africa, conservationists observed a 300-mile (500 kilometers) zebra migration — the longest known trek of any land mammal on the continent.

The discovery provides a surprising glimpse at how wildlife endure even amid declining populations of species around the world, the researchers said.

Image: The migration of Burchell's zebras surpasses the great Serengeti migration. Credit: Robin Naidoo/WWF 

Following a slow 2013, US venture capital firms are aggressively raising money to invest in new startups as the technology industry has heated up.

Spark Capital of Boston, which previously backed Twitter Inc. and virtual reality company Oculus VR, announced this week it had raised $375 million for a new fund, a little more than a year after raising a $450 million fund.

Image Courtesy of nongpimmy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You're young, you're broke and you're looking for a relatively cheap way to cool down this summer. The answer? Ice cold cocktails.

Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, the unofficial start of summer has us dreaming of frosted margaritas and sweet sangrias.

Image: FLICKR, MKORCUSKA 

One black bear in Florida prefers to bring in the weekend not by raging, but instead with a nice, relaxing lounge in a hammock.

Local resident Rafael Torres caught this totally chilled-out bear climbing into a hammock on Thursday night in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Image: RAFAEL TORRES VIA NBC NEWS  

When Stacy Rauen and Amber Wilcox were going through their respective pregnancies, they couldn’t believe there wasn’t an easier way to get their necessary prenatal vitamins. Both women had difficulty with the standard pills due to their size and taste. Those factors, mixed with persistent morning sickness, made getting the necessary vitamins tough.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/ 

Conventional wisdom says this is how to raise money:

1. Develop your pitch 
2. Contact investors 
3. Pitch them 
4. If they’re interested, they’ll offer you their term sheet 
5. Negotiate 
6. Due diligence 
7. Close

Technology giant Google serves billions of people around the world, but its employees don’t mirror the rest of the world very well.

Of the nearly 50,000 Google employees out there, 70 percent are men, and 61 percent are white, according to figures Google released today. Asians represent 30 percent of the company’s employment base, while Hispanics comprise 3 percent.

A new study suggests that how one compares weight-wise with others in his or her community plays a key role in determining how satisfied the person is with his or her life.

“The most interesting finding for us was that, in U.S. counties where obesity is particularly prevalent, being obese has very little negative effect on one’s life satisfaction,” said study co-author Philip M. Pendergast, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “In addition, we found that being ‘normal weight’ has little benefit in counties where obesity is especially common. This illustrates the importance of looking like the people around you when it comes to satisfaction with life.”

Image Courtesy of panuruangjan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

More than 25 years of democracy and political stability have allowed Brazil to make major strides in economic development, including cutting its official poverty rate by half. Yet the forces that provided much of the economy’s momentum during the past decade—an expanding labor force, credit-fueled consumption, and high commodity prices—are beginning to stall.

Image Courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Opportunities are growing for women to sidestep the glass ceiling and steer clear of the glass cliff, that corporate “opportunity” for leadership given to women and minorities when there is high risk of failure due to a crisis created by former leaders or because needed resources aren’t given.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The biopharmaceutical industry has been highly criticized for a number of years with respect to the high costs of medicines, particularly for drugs to treat cancer and rare diseases. Physicians and insurers have challenged the benefit of a new drug that might cost tens of thousands of dollars yet only extends life for a few months. This has led to various ethical debates about the value of life vs. the cost to society as a whole.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

If you think you have no time to squeeze creative work into your daily life, ask yourself: Do I have five minutes to spare? Chances are, you do.

Giving yourself five minutes every day to focus on a creative task--writing, doodling, brainstorming ideas--can have a profound impact over time. Cognitive behavioral therapists call it (appropriately enough) the Five-Minute Rule. Commit to doing something for this short interval of time, they reason, and you'll overcome the psychological barriers of getting started in the first place.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Boston-based VC firm Spark Capital has established a new $375 million growth fund and tapped a former News Corp. executive to run it. In a blog post, Spark's Bijan Sabet said that the firm brought on former News Corp. executive Jeremy Philips as a general partner at Spark to manage the fund.

Image: Courtesy photo/ Spark Capital Spark Capital is looking to raise $375 million with a new growth fund. 

As anticipated, Apple has acquired Beats Electronics for $3 billion, which is less than the $3.2 billion sticker price originally attached to the luxe headphone maker.

The move is widely seen as one purveyor of expensive, glitzy electronics purchasing another purveyor of expensive, glitzy electronics. But Apple is also purchasing the architecture of a budding streaming-music service--Beats Music--which is an area where Cupertino has historically been lackluster. Remember: Apple already has iTunes Radio, which lags behind Pandora in the United States. That said, as a standalone service, Beats Music isn't much of a force in terms of user numbers: Just 250,000 users subscribe to it; Spotify boasts 10 million paying customer, to say nothing of the dozens of millions more who use it for free..

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com/ 

Since the mid-1980s, almost everyone who has worked with a computer has used a Microsoft product. Innovations like Windows, Word, Excel and PowerPoint helped drive core business activity at millions of companies, and cemented Microsoft as one of the founding members of the digital age. Microsoft helped usher-out carbon paper, typewriters, adding machines, overhead projectors and secretarial pools while changing how we write, crunch numbers and make presentations.

For Joanna Griffiths, launching a crowdfunding campaign was about more than raising capital for her startup. Griffiths turned to Indiegogo in 2013 to test the market for Knix Wear, a line of women's underwear made from moisture-wicking, odor-absorbent fabrics. "It was the last test in a series of tests I conducted before launching the business," explains the Toronto-based entrepreneur.

Image: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ - Joanna Griffiths got support for her Knix Wear line. 

“We fought the good fight. It’s pretty emotional.”

That’s Springpad co-founder Jeff Janer talking about shutting down his company after six years and almost $10 million in venture funding.

Charlestown, MA-based Springpad ran out of money while trying to raise a Series B round, Janer says. Its digital-organizer product, which had about 5 million users, will be discontinued on June 25. (The Verge first reported the shutdown, and the Boston Business Journal and others have since covered the news.)

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Crowdfunding has allowed developers and entrepreneurs an easier means of raising money while giving the public the power to influence their success. Great ideas are usually victims of absent capital, are able to germinate and mature while rewarding those who funded those ideas. It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem, and it’s brilliant — but only for good ideas.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

An advertising agency met with a client—who happened to be a U.S. Marine Corps colonel—and the conversation turned to the topic of reliable data. “Look,” said the colonel, “if I’m on a battlefield trying to defend a hill and I get a piece of intelligence, even if I’m not 100 percent sure that it’s accurate, I will make decisions based on that intelligence.” He strongly believed that it’s better to have some information than none—and that you’d be a fool to disregard it just because it falls short of being definitive. One could say that the colonel was a proponent of “little data.”

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

What does it mean to become a digital leader? Companies in every industry are looking for answers to this question. They are exploring new business models, developing new user experiences, and experimenting with new channels and platforms—all with the strategic goal of creating significant value in a digitally powered business environment. To get there, most of these companies are pursuing the same laundry list of initiatives. They are reengineering processes and products, investing in technology platforms, and launching efforts to achieve back-office efficiency. Many are recruiting digitally native talent, setting up internal venture funds, or crowdsourcing new digital business ideas to get a jump start on this transformation.

Image Courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Measuring the success of social media interactions cannot be done using traditional ROI metrics. The nature of the communication channels involved requires a brand new approach.

Last year’s record haze that blanketed Singapore and surrounding countries caused enormous social media chatter. Singaporeans turned to Twitter and Facebook to voice their concerns, fears and complaints about the smog emanating from burning Indonesian farmland across the Malacca Strait in nearby Sumatra. Many were worried that respirator masks were in short supply as citizens descended on pharmacies to stock up.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

When Maya Angelou passed away on Wednesday, the world lost not only a revered author and poet, but a guiding light for humanity.

Angelou's ability to inspire will live on in her prolific thoughts, proverbs and works; her words could be compiled into a guidebook for leading a fulfilling, successful life.

Image: MASHABLE COMPOSITE DOUG MILLS/ASSOCIATED PRESS. 

According to recent research by Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, based on data from more than 2,000 companies, 75% of venture-backed startups fail.

Of course, there are different ways to define failure, but losing all the money you’ve put in – or losing your dream – certainly qualifies. Some might use shorter-term benchmarks, like achieving sales and revenue targets within a given timeframe, in which case an even higher percentage of funded startups would probably wind up sporting a big red F.

Image: http://switchandshift.com 

To continue the blog post series  I’ve been doing (installments one, two, and three) that addresses skepticisms about flipped learning, I wanted to dip into something other than my own comment sections, and go to a general class of skepticisms I’ve heard when I do workshops. Those skepticisms involve technology. Specifically, although I’ve never heard a single formulation of this skepticism, there are two ways it can occur:

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

I can still remember the day the Department of Revenue shut my company down. It seems that we had not done a timely job of remitting the sales tax that we had collected from our customers and this government agency wanted their money.

My bookkeeper had apparently ignored all their warnings by mail. When they arrived, they put a big sticker on our door, telling all our customers and employees that we had to “pay up to open up.”

Image Courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The European Council Tuesday (5 May), approved the roll out of a series of public private partnerships worth up to €22 billion over the next seven years.

The partnerships between the European Union and consortiums of large businesses are targeted at sectors facing “major societal challenges.” They are part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 new €80 billion research and innovation programme for 2014-2020.

It has been more than three months since the comment period on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rules for equity crowdfunding ended, and with no sign of final regulations on the horizon, stakeholders are getting antsy.

The crowdfunding industry’s supporters are wondering when the agency, which was supposed to have those rules in place at the beginning of 2013, will finally let them begin selling stock in start-ups and emerging companies to average Americans. Consumer advocates, meanwhile, are worried that whenever it happens, it will be too soon.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Entrepreneurs are leaders who can see into the future with inspired vision, championing highly competent teams to make the seemingly impossible possible. That is the intent at least. There are times when you may feel overwhelmed, work harder instead of smarter and generally fear that you’re doing it wrong. The truth is, whether you would like to admit it or not, entrepreneurs and executives have blind spots -- everyone has them.

Image Courtesy of posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Patents not only protect inventive ideas, they act as an incentive for innovators. A patented idea is more likely to attract investors and sustain capital. As a result, patents continue to act as a benchmark for innovation. Drawing from the Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index® (DWPI℠) database, the 2014 State of Innovation report illustrates innovation activity across 12 technology sectors as determined by patent volume.

Image: REUTERS/Pichi Chuang 

The greater the potential for innovation in a city the higher the economic output that city is likely to enjoy. Cities that rank high in innovation are better destinations for investments in commercial product, service or social innovation without any specific industry focus.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

San Francisco is set to get a new cellular network later this year, but it won’t help fix the city’s spotty mobile-phone coverage. This wireless network is exclusively for things.

The French company SigFox says it picked the Bay Area to demonstrate a wireless network intended to make it cheap and practical to link anything to the Internet, from smoke detectors to dog collars, bicycle locks, and water pipes.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

TheFamily is a leading accelerator in France with a different approach to nurturing startups. Founded just a year ago, it has quickly grown into an education powerhouse, with strategic investors and mentors on the board. Faithful to its promise of supporting 100 startups per year, TheFamily now strengthens its position further by raising $1 million funding from Index Ventures and a number of angel investors for an open round that may go up to $2 million.

American entrepreneurship is apparently on the decline, according to a recent article from FiveThirtyEight, but small business owners report consistently high levels of satisfaction with their choices despite the financial difficulties that they have faced.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Mr Jim Manzi is the founder and chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies and one of the originators of cloud computing. He is also a well-known libertarian/conservative thinker, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to the National Review.

Between his tech background and politics, he is about the last person you would expect to praise the historic role the government has played in the critical business of innovation — or to call for that role to be stepped up in the here and now.

Every day we all engage in a surprising number of habitual behaviors. Many of them, from brushing our teeth to driving a familiar route, simply allow us to do certain things on autopilot so that our brains are not overtaxed by concentrating on each brushstroke and countless tiny adjustments of the steering wheel. Other habits, such as jogging, may help keep us healthy. Regularly popping treats from the candy dish may not. And habits that wander into the territory of compulsions or addictions, such as overeating or smoking, can threaten our existence.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Maryland is home to the most innovative and fast growing life science companies in the world. Two of these companies have recently made a huge splash – Amplimmune and GlycoMimetics. Hear from the CEOs of each company about why being homegrown and staying in Maryland is a key ingredient to success and what their achievements through IPO and acquisition can mean for your company and our life science community as a whole.

In order to provide the best possible customer service, smart small business owners learn from the big companies’ best practices. One tactic more and more big corporations are using is providing customer service on Twitter.

Image Courtesy of Tanatat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The founding fathers of enterprise lived by a simple maxim: crush the little guy.  Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan and their ilk may have built the modern industrial age but they did it on the carcasses of a million small business owners. Rockefeller is probably the best known for his ruthless assault on entrepreneurs in a campaign that included buying up all the chemicals they needed to refine their oil, buying up all the barrels so they had nowhere to store their oil, and offering his oil to the market at next-to-nothing until he literally bankrupted anyone who stood in his way. 

Image: http://www.forbes.com/ 

J.B. Pritzker, the succesful businessman who has helped ignite Chicago’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, will keynote SSTI’s 2014 Annual Conference, Regional Prosperity Through Innovation, being held in Chicago, September 14-16.

J.B. Pritzker is an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pritzker Group, a private investment firm with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles. Pritzker Group comprises three professional investment teams: middle-market acquisitions, technology venture capital and asset management. Pritzker Group Private Capital acquires middle-market manufactured products, services and health care companies. Pritzker Group Venture Capital, founded in 1996 as New World Ventures, is the largest technology venture investor based in the Midwest. The firm invests nationally in rapidly growing technology companies at all stages of their growth, with a principal focus on enterprise software, ecommerce and managed services. Pritzker Group Asset Management partners with leading investment managers across the global public markets.

Nature has long been known for its relaxing qualities, as a place for humans to find tranquility and healing. Gardening in particular is associated with mental clarity and feelings of reward, and it has many physical benefits as well. Food gardening can particularly be gratifying and an excellent source of fresh produce.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

No matter what happens to Jordan Lloyd Bookey WG’07 and husband Felix Brandon Lloyd on Friday night on Shark Tank, they can at least have the consolation that they didn’t have to wait in endless lines to audition for ABC’s hit TV reality show. Although they nearly did.

Felix, a former teacher and entrepreneur, had been a fan of ABC’s hit TV reality show Shark Tank since its first season. So when he heard that its producers were holding auditions in Philadelphia last summer, he wanted to make the trek northbound from Washington, D.C.

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu 

Philadelphia, PA - May 19, 2014

As the University City Science Center's QED proof-of-concept program launches its seventh round, one of its newest academic partners, The Pennsylvania State University, has expanded its involvement from the Medical College at Hershey to include its main campus at University Park. University Park hosts hundreds of life science researchers in colleges including the Eberly College of Science, the College of Engineering and the College of Health and Human Development, along with inter-disciplinary centers, including the Huck Life Sciences Institutes. An RFP seeking proposals to QED for technologies ripe for commercialization was issued by the Science Center to 21 participating institutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware on May 12, 2014.

QED, the first multi-institutional proof-of-concept program for the life sciences and health IT, brings together academic invention, market insight, and commercial guidance as researchers are paired with Business Advisors to perform technical proof-of-concept validation for life science, healthcare and health IT technologies with high commercial potential.

There is no doubt that the Tampa Bay region is eager to establish itself as a key player in the national startup scene. 

That was the ultimate takeaway from 83 Degrees Media's latest community conversation in the "Not Your Average Speakers'' series, "How Do We Grow From Here? Nurturing The Tampa Bay Startup Culture.''.

Image: http://www.83degreesmedia.com/ - ASHOK KARTHUM SPEAKS ABOUT NURTURING THE STARTUP CULTURE IN TAMPA BAY. 

Paul Walker and Sarah Coulter presented on behalf of the Clorox Global Strategic Sourcing (GSS) Organization at the 99th annual ISM conference in Las Vegas about innovation in sourcing practices. Clorox has developed a unique approach to growing the business through innovative partnerships and has learned a few things along the way. These learnings were shared at the ISM conference last week, and there were four key messages I took away from the presentation that led to the success of this initiative.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Entrepreneurs go through rejections on a daily basis – right from investors to customers to employees. Handling rejections is not easy.

Mobile ad company InMobi was valued at nearly $1 bn in 2012 when it raised $200 mn from Softbank. Naveen Tewari, its co-founder, is one of the entrepreneurs we now look up to.

Image: http://www.nextbigwhat.com - Naveen Tewari

The bones of seven huge dinosaurs that each weighed more than a dozen elephants and had femurs bigger than a human adult have been discovered in Argentina, scientists announced.

The plant-eating beasts plodded across South America 95 million years ago, during the Mesozoic Era, and they may represent a new species. The creatures may even be the biggest dinosaurs known, outshining their long-tailed, long-necked titanosaur cousins like Argentinosaurus, said the paleontologists who excavated the bones.

Image: The sauropod's femur next to researcher Pablo Puerta. Credit: Jose Maria Farfagli 

The board of a large European insurer was pressing management for answers. A company known mostly for its online channel had begun to undercut premiums in a number of markets and was doing so without agents, building on its dazzling brand reputation online and using new technologies to engage buyers. Some of the insurer’s senior managers were sure the threat would abate. Others pointed to serious downtrends in policy renewals among younger customers avidly using new web-based price-comparison tools. The board decided that the company needed to quicken its digital pace.

http://www.mckinsey.com

Incumbent companies face critical decisions when it comes to addressing digitization. In this video interview, McKinsey  irector Paul Willmott argues the first decision is fundamental: whether a company is even in the right industry. That’s because digitization is blurring the lines between sectors, placing fresh demands on both leadership and organizational strategy. This interview was conducted by McKinsey’s Bill McIntosh, and an edited transcript of Willmott’s remarks follows.

http://www.mckinsey.com

There has been an increase in startup quality due to the now-legendary improvements in process espoused by Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder, and their lean startup principles.

Yet legions of angel and seed investors have not upgraded their knowledge and kept pace with these massive shifts. Investors need to change their investing practices and incorporate the lean startup paradigm. Here’s why:

As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story last year "Real Entrepreneurs Don't Write Business Plans," or even my own article a while back, "10 Reasons Not To Write A Business Plan First."

Let me be clear - business plans are never "required," they should never be written "just for investors," and if you sold your last startup for $800 million, most investors will not expect a plan document. On the other hand, if you are a first-time entrepreneur, the discipline of building a business plan will dramatically improve your success odds, and your odds of finding an investor.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The availability of online learning is doing some really strange things to California’s community college students: It’s dramatically increasing their persistence to a degree, but it’s lowering how often they finish each course with a passing grade.

Image: http://venturebeat.com/ 

What is an hour of your time worth as an entrepreneur or small business owner? An even better question might be:  How do you gain back hours of your valuable time that may be spent on administrative activities that don’t add directly to your top line or bottom line?

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The National Institutes of Health announced on Wednesday a new policy requiring that both sexes be represented among the subjects of preclinical biomedical research it finances involving animal and cell models.

More than two decades after requiring gender balance among human beings in the trials themselves, NIH leaders said they now realize that the same step should be applied to the laboratory experiments that inform those trials.

Running a small business as an entrepreneur is a never-ending challenge of new products, customers, competitors, and an unpredictable economy. This week is National Small Business Week in the US, so it’s a good time to celebrate your successes, and allow the rest of us to acknowledge your dedication and innovations.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com 

The term 'entrepreneur' often conjures up an image of a young and dynamic individual (such as Mark Zuckerberg), however, while it is vital that South Africa continues to promote entrepreneurship among the youth, there is also a rising need for a focus on promoting entrepreneurship among older generations, such as retirees.

This is according Christo Botes, Executive Director of Business Partners Limited, a specialist risk finance company for formal small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa, who says that older individuals often have the advantage of identifying different business opportunities, based on past experience and acquired knowledge.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

No one likes picking up someone else’s slack. But when a colleague leaves early, misses deadlines, and doesn’t give 100% to a project, it can be difficult to determine the best course of action. Should you confront them about their behavior? Speak to your boss? Or mind your own business?

What the experts say

We’ve all worked with someone who doesn’t pull his own weight — a colleague who checks Facebook all day, takes two-hour lunch breaks, and never meets a deadline. But as irritating as it can be, you shouldn’t become the behavior police unless their slacking is materially affecting your work. “You don’t want to have the reputation of an oversensitive alarm detector,” says Allan R. Cohen, a professor of management at Babson College and author of Influence Without Authority.

Who are the most influential spreaders of information on a network? That’s a question that marketers, bloggers, news services and even governments would like answered. Not least because the answer could provide ways to promote products quickly, to boost the popularity of political parties above their rivals and to seed the rapid spread of news and opinions.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

There is a real trend developing right now of large corporations becoming crucibles of innovation and entrepreneurship in a systematic way. In this post, I will discuss four specific sub-categories of this trend that we’re seeing, and for all practical purposes, participating in.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners today.

Small Business Week

• Here are the Small Business Administration’s 53 small-business people of the year.

• The Hartford sends hundreds of employees to patronize dozens of small businesses in 14 cities.

• The number of consumers willing to go out of their way to shop at a small business, even if it costs more, has increase

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) Janssen arm is planning to open another biotech incubator, this time setting its sights on South San Francisco in hopes of finding a few promising drug developers.

The new operation, dubbed Janssen Labs @South San Francisco, will be a 30,000-square-foot mix of lab and office space with room for up to 50 startups, J&J said. Mirroring Janssen's flagship San Diego incubator, the new facility will be staffed by some of J&J's biotech brains and provide operational support, education and business services to its guest companies. 

Image: South San Francisco--Courtesy of BART 

How medicine, sports and society are trying to heal and protect the brains of millions amidst the growing awareness of the long-lasting effects of traumatic head injury

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com 

What is the Open Innovation Challenge?

The Nokia Open Innovation Challenge is an opportunity to collaborate with us on game changing innovation - the kind of ideas which will shape the future of the telecommunications industry. It is an opportunity for you to work with the best to transform your ideas into real solutions and real solutions into business. We'll look for innovative ideas, technologies, or business models addressing two of the most disruptive opportunities for service providers today - Big Colossal data analytics and Telco Cloud. Read more about the challenge.

The National Venture Capital Association today presented Mark Heesen, former president of NVCA, with its Lifetime Achievement Award at NVCA's annual meeting, VentureScape 2014, in San Francisco.

When the Affordable Care Act took shape last year, a trio of New York entrepreneurs saw a big opportunity: 40 million people on the brink of choosing their own health insurance — one of the most confusing processes known to man. Anyone who could make that process simple and easy stood to win huge. So they launched Oscar Health to do just that.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The past several years have seen bitcoin and other cryptocurriences become a multibillion dollar ecosystem, attracting hundreds of startup companies and over $100 million in venture capital investments.

Cryptocurrencies are undoubtedtly innovative in the context of payments. But they also provide some broader lessons with relevance far beyond the financial world. Here are five things that the growth of cryptocurrencies can teach us about the future of innovation:

A hybrid remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dubbed Nereus was lost while diving 6.2 miles (10 km) beneath the sea surface in a deep trench northeast of New Zealand on Saturday (May 10), representatives for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have confirmed.

Part of the ROV, diving in the Kermadec Trench, may have imploded under pressures reaching a seam-bursting 16,000 lbs. per square inch (psi). (On Earth, humans are exposed to pressures of nearly 15 psi.)

Image: The hybrid remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Nereus (shown here) has been tasked with exploring the deepest parts of the Earth's ocean where pressure can be as great as 16,000 pounds per square inch. It has explored the world's deepest trench, the Marianas Trench, and the second-deepest trench, the Kermadec Trench. Credit: Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 

DreamIt Health Philadelphia is a four-month startup accelerator located in the heart of Philadelphia; a microcosm of the national health care industry. The intense 16-week cycle is designed to give nascent health IT ventures unfair advantages in the market. DreamIt Health provides access to critical health care-specific resources and beta customers; up to $50,000 in seed funding; bespoke mentorship; collaborative office space; world class coaching and networking with industry thought leaders; and the opportunity to present to a room full of investors on Demo Day. Companies participating in the program benefit from the unique collaboration of the region's dominant health care payor (Independence Blue Cross) and provider (Penn Medicine) joining forces to speed innovations to market. 

With investors enthusiastic about hot technology start-ups, a major venture capital firm has raised $1.2 billion for its new fund.

The Silicon Valley firm Norwest Venture Partners said on Tuesday that it planned to invest the money in companies across different sectors and at varying stages of growth. With the fresh capital, Norwest said it had roughly $5 billion under management.

Image: http://dealbook.nytimes.com - Gary Wagner Matthew Howard, a managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, in 2006. 

Like many people who become entrepreneurs, Matthew Slutsky did it because he had a great idea and craved the independence of running his own business.

But instead of relying on outside investment to support and build his real estate listing website, BuzzBuzzHome, Mr. Slutsky and his co-founder Cliff Peskin chose to fund it themselves.

Image: http://www.theglobeandmail.com 

I’m about to graduate from one of the best schools in the world, with the smartest people I’ve ever met. Along the way, I became a social entrepreneur, something I never expected. This is how that happened.

I always knew that I had a natural calling for doing good for others. Growing up in China, I served as a volunteer teacher of English, did fundraising for a girl with heart problems, and advocated for environmental protection in school. Here in the US, I was exposed to all sorts of thought-provoking ideas and practices of social justice and social innovation.

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu 

You already know the basics: Salary? You better be negotiating. Vacation? Also on the table. In fact, here are five things beyond your paycheck you can negotiate on the job, at pretty much any level.

Since most of us spend more time at work than we do at home or with friends and family, asking for what you deserve is important.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29080217@N05/3340589299 

We live in the age of the startup. It’s never been easier to build a product and start a company. And, thanks to the boom in angel investing and crowdfunding, it’s never been easier for startups to raise money. The analytics firm CB Insights logged more than seventeen hundred seed-investment deals in the U.S. tech industry in 2012, more than three times the number from three years earlier. But there’s a catch: starting a company may be easier, but making it a success isn’t. Competition is fierce, profits are scarce, and venture capitalists aren’t generous when it comes to later stages of funding. As Gideon Lewis-Kraus shows in “No Exit,” a new Kindle Single about startup culture, the life of a new company is often brutish and short. Though we may be seeing a “Cambrian explosion” of new companies, as The Economist recently put it, there’s a mass extinction going on, too.

Image: http://www.newyorker.com 

IBM Corp. which has been struggling to turn its Watson supercomputer into a viable business model, is taking a new tack. It has already tried price-cutting, making Watson more accessible at a smaller fraction of the previous cost. Now Watson is headed to Washington: IBM is aggressively marketing the technology to the federal government, in addition to hospitals, retailers and other potential customers, The Washington Post reported.

FRAMINGHAM - Gov. Deval Patrick and his secretary of housing and economic development on Thursday touted their new jobs bill that, among other things, will create an entrepreneur-in-residence program to help foreign students stay in the state if their budding companies are on track to create jobs.

Image: http://www.milforddailynews.com 

After working largely in the background for CDMN over the last five years, I had the opportunity this week to participate in one of the semi-annual Hub meetings, where representatives from 28 network partners gather to share insights and best practices with one another. Over the course of two days in Sault Ste. Marie, network members shared strategies for accelerating the growth of Canada’s early-stage companies, through programs like Innovation Factory’s LiFT, Traction at Accelerate Okanagan, and Next Level from the Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre.

Image: http://www.cdmn.ca/gold-medal-team-adds-shine-to-cdmn-hub-gathering/ 

Actors want to direct. Directors want to produce. And consultants want to be kick ass speakers. And why not? The pay is good. It doesn't take much time.

And it's a lot less heavy lifting than most consulting gigs. Easier said that done, however. Delivering a kick ass keynote is not as easy as it looks. If you want to get into the game, begin by reviewing the following guidelines to see if you have what it takes.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

According to the Brookings Institution, the data show that the U.S. is losing its entrepreneurial spirit--and has been for decades.

Ever feel that being an entrepreneur is like having a membership at a big club? Heads up: The roster is getting smaller. According to a new Brookings Institution study, entrepreneurship has reached at least a three-decade low across virtually all of the country.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

If humanity is going to survive and thrive in the future, it's going to need strong cities. Two-thirds of people are set to live in urban areas by 2050 (according to U.N. estimates), putting great pressure on city planners to cope.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Baremetrics has grown faster than anything I've ever built before, both from a user/usage standpoint and (most importantly) from a revenue stand point.

I was able to go from initial idea to over $5,000/month in recurring revenue in exactly 5 months. So, for both posterity and usefulness sake, I'll walk you through a few things I learned through that process.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

In this special guest column, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, calls on ‘citizen scientists’ to take measurements of their local water, to help create the biggest data set in marine research to ever be taken on one single day.

Image: Máire Geoghegan-Quinn on creating an ‘Innovation Union’ for our oceansMáire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science. Image via European Parliament 

The quintessential venture capital (VC) paradigm has been to grow a business from a technology that incubated for a couple of decades in federal, university and corporate labs.  There’s a lot of R&D investment that has gone into university and federal labs, roughly $100 billion annually.  Many of those research projects do have a chance of maturing into consumer markets with the right mix of investment and business direction.

The UpTake: Emily Reichert of Greentown Labs says her incubator isn't just another co-working space. Its cleantech entrepreneurs are a community who are passionate about making a difference in addition to being passionate about making money.

Image: Greentown Labs, based in the Boston suburb of Somerville, boasts of having 33,000 square feet of prototyping lab and co-located office and event space; a shared machine shop and electronics shop; immersion in a community of energy and clean technology entrepreneurs; and on-site events and programs designed to enable startups to rapidly grow their networks and their companies.   

COLUMBIA – In its inaugural round of innovation-related grants, the S.C. Department of Commerce is awarding $2.4 million in grant funds to 14 organizations across the state to further high-tech and entrepreneurial economic development.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Mr. Frost, my superb economics teacher in England, once shared the story of two people talking about a lecture given by the late Milton Friedman, the father of Monetarism. The first said, “Twenty years ago, I went to the worst lecture I’ve ever heard! Friedman gave it and I still remember how he just muttered on and on and all I could make out was the word ‘money.’” The second man responded, “If you can remember what the key message was some twenty years later, I think it might be the best lecture you ever heard!”

In 2012, Kaufman Foundation's "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY... AND HE IS US" reported:

Venture capital (VC) has delivered poor returns for more than a decade. Speculation among industry insiders is that the VC model is broken, despite occasional high-profile successes in recent years.

Conversation about less-than-expected performance with venture capital and private equity funds continues to grow. Consider the following recent conversations:

Image: http://sxc.com 

Despite all the headlines about billion-dollar exits and IPOs, growing too quickly or too much is not always the most desirable outcome for a startup.

Fifteen entrepreneurs, members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), offer their perspective on why, in some cases, smaller means mightier.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Is stress impairing your performance at work and compromising your relationships? Changing the way you think about stress can help you turn stress into an ally and use it to improve mental agility and work performance; a report in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that physiological and cognitive benefits result from thinking of stress as “functional and adaptive” rather than a signifier of “threat.”

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

There are a ton of people who read self-improvement blogs and books, but never put them into action.

They engage in what’s sometimes called “self-improvement porn”.

I’ve done this myself in the past--it was a form of fantasizing about how I was going to make my life better, get my shit together.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

We’re on the cusp of a real turning point for big data. Its applications are becoming clearer, its tools are getting easier and its architectures are maturing in a hurry. It’s no longer just about log files, clickstreams and tweets. It’s not just about Hadoop and what’s possible (or not) with MapReduce.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The Intelligent Community Forum today named Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind, as the 2014 Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year.

Mr. Tuli was cited for the development of the Aakash II/UbiSlate tablets, which the Intelligent Community Forum believes will revolutionize access to knowledge for billions of people and stabilize communities in the process. The tablet is the world’s cheapest computer, according to Forbes Magazine. 

Innovation has become a buzzword in Pakistan, especially among the politicians who inaugurate new conferences with gusto — the word is used to imply a great present and an even brighter future. Innovation is something this business-friendly government believes in we are told time and again. All of that may be true, but it may be worthwhile to take stock of where we are on the global innovation index and if we are not where we think we should be, what can we do to fix that.

Image: http://tribune.com.pk - The writer is associate professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Boston University  

A rare, deep-sea "goblin shark" caught by Florida shrimp fishermen is only the second of these creatures ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say.

The prehistoric-looking beast, whose pink color and daggerlike teeth earn the shark its name, is usually seen in deep waters off the coast of Japan. 

Image: Carl Moore accidently caught this fierce-looking goblin shark on April 19. He later released it back into the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: Carl Moore 

Rodents are the workhorses of biomedical labs. So it’s important to know if they’re stressed out, which could affect results. Now we know that lab rodents may be regularly exposed to a big stressor: men.

Researchers noticed that mice showed a lower pain response—a sign of stress—when a human was present. So they put mice and rats into clear cubicles, where their faces were visible, and injected them with an irritant. The rodents expressed pain through grimacing when no humans were nearby. But when confronted with a male researcher, or even just his odoriferous T-shirt, the animals grimaced less.

The Washington region has gotten plenty of support from politicians and venture capitalists, but now an unlikely source is considering getting into the action.

Boston Properties President Douglas Linde said he believes there's room for D.C. to compete on a level with Silicon Valley, Cambridge and New York and that his publicly traded real estate investment trust could play a role in that emergence. The region is already home to federal drivers in the field, including the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Cyber Command, but Linde said the question will be whether those agencies can help drive the tech sector in the District itself.

Image: Courtesy Boston Properties Boston Properties President Douglas Linde said he believes there is potential for D.C. to establish itself as a tech hub. 

Historically in the U.S., about one new business has been formed every minute, while another shutters its doors every 80 seconds. This life cycle of birth and death – referred to as business dynamism – is a key driver of innovation and to overall economic growth, giving rise to the great “gales of creative destruction” that the economist Joseph Schumpeter identified as the motor of force of capitalism.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

A friend recently asked me to look over his cover letter for a job he really hoped to get. When I looked it over, the letter was professional and grammatically clean — and totally, utterly boring.

My friend began by introducing himself the same way everyone introduces themselves in a cover letter. He then went through his experience the same way everyone goes through their experience. In summary, his cover letter was exactly like everyone else’s.

Image: FLICKR, THOMAS LEUTHARD 

Until recently, Kunming, capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province, was known mostly for its palm trees, its blue skies, its laid-back vibe, and a steady stream of foreign backpackers bound for nearby mountains and scenic gorges. But Kunming’s reputation as a provincial backwater is rapidly changing. On a plot of land on the outskirts of the city—wilderness 10 years ago, and today home to a genomic research facility—scientists have performed a provocative experiment. They have created a pair of macaque monkeys with precise genetic mutations.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

You may or may not have heard of the term “customer advocacy.” This is defined as a specialized form of customer service where companies focus on “what is best for their customers.” It seems like to should always be that way, right? Unfortunately, all too often that is not the way customer service is performed but rather the company’s own interests are priority over the customer.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com 

WASHINGTON, 5 May 2014. NASA officials have selected 383 research and technology proposals, from 257 U.S. small businesses and 29 research institutions, for negotiations that could lead to contracts worth a combined $47.6 million under NASA's Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program.

"SBIR and STTR projects are at the foundation of America's future in space and aeronautics," says Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Innovative ideas explored by our partners in industry and the broader U.S. research community help NASA execute our missions and bring new American products and services to the global technology marketplace. These job-creating NASA investments fuel the innovation engine these small businesses provide to our economy."

Image: nasa.gov

The winning entry in the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas, a competition that challenges undergrads and high schoolers to build fuel-efficient vehicles, got an amazing 2,884 mpg.

If you're feeling down about the state of the environment, there are few things more heartening than to check out the winners of the annualShell Eco-Marathon Americas. The competition challenges teams of high school and college students to build incredibly energy-efficient vehicles that are powered by everything from gasoline and fuel cells to electricity and solar power.

Image: SHELL ECO-MARATHON / FLICKR 

In the TV series Star Trek, Captain Kirk has a handheld device called a tricorder that can immediately assess a patient's condition and diagnose disease. This is 300 years in the future.

In real life, technology is advancing so rapidly that within a decade, Kirk's tricorder will look primitive. Just as our bathroom scales give us instant readings of our weight, our smartphone tricorders will monitor our health and warn us when we are about to get sick. Our doctors—or their artificial intelligence replacements—will prescribe medicines or lifestyle changes based on our full medical history and genetic composition.

Coral reefs that may be resistant to climate change (via CORDIS): Coral reef ecosystems, some of the most valuable ecosystems on the planet, are often considered highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. However the seemingly delicate beauty of corals may be misleading - a new study recently published in Science magazine has identified coral populations that may be resistant to climate change. Researchers focused on a population of the table-top coral Acropora hyacinthus in American Samoa. Quality validation date: 2014-04-30 (T:@innovationunion)

Mark your calendars: the high-profile tech incubator Y Combinator holds its Demo Day in August. Even though its alumni include runaway tech successes AirBnB and Dropbox, much of the scrutiny will land on the handful of biotechnology companies that, for the first time, Y Combinator is admitting to its program for the upcoming summer session.

Atoms of a new super-heavy element — the as-yet-unnamed element 117 — have reportedly been created by scientists in Germany, moving it closer to being officially recognized as part of the standard periodic table.   Researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, an accelerator laboratory located in Darmstadt, Germany, say they have created and observed several atoms of element 117, which is temporarily named ununseptium.

Image: Element 117, first discovered by Lawrence Livermore researchers and Russian collaborators, has been reproduced by an international consortium. (Image: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) 

It may happen in careful, tiptoeing steps, but a local equity crowdfunding platform is maturing.

On Wednesday, New York-based Return on Change revealed that a cleantech startup, Geostellar, used its website to close a $1 million round. It is the first company using Return on Change to break seven figures in one campaign, giving some credence, Return on Change CEO and founder Sang Lee says, to equity crowdfunding as a way for sophisticated startups and investors to do deals.

Image: http://www.xconomy.com 

Once your new business is established, it's time to start marketing your services to potential clients. After all, if your consulting service has no clients, then you have no business. But you must remember that selling your consulting services isn't the same as selling a car or a house -- your job is harder because you're marketing your services to people who may not even be aware they need those services.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Most startups are happy to find any customer, and will hang on for dear life to every one. Only later do they realize that some of these cost more than they are worth, or lead into commitments they can’t sustain, but no business wants to violate the golden rule that every customer needs to be treated as if they were the only customer.

China’s advancing economy is changing global trade flows in Asia and beyond. In this interview with McKinsey’s Rik Kirkland, Ray Bingham explains the implications, drawing on his experience as chairman of Flextronics International, advisory director of private-equity firm General Atlantic, and board member of companies including Oracle and Cadence Design Systems. An edited transcript of Bingham’s remarks follows.

The sensor that lets your phone know which way the screen is oriented also—thanks to minute manufacturing variations—emits a unique data “fingerprint” that could allow your phone to be tracked, even if all other privacy settings are locked down, researchers say.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com - Unique imperfections: A micrograph of a MEMS accelerometer. 

Ocean acidification — a phenomenon in which the world's oceans have become more acidic as they absorb higher levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — is eating away at tiny marine snails, causing the shells of these so-called pteropods to dissolve, according to a new study.

Image: This marine snail's shell is showing signs of damage. Credit: NOAA 

Cisco thinks that as many as 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

To put that in perspective, that’s nine devices for every one of the eight billion people expected to be on the planet. Your phone, the fitness device on your wrist, your doorbell, the thermostat in your hallway, the smart TV in your living room, the car in the driveway, the Amazon package at your doorstep, and even your family pet — all connected to the world and beaming data home.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Not sure why, but over the last few years, quite a few people I know took on EIR roles at various VC firms in both the East Coast and in Silicon Valley.  Overall, there are positives and negatives to being an EIR.  The positives are kind of obvious:

• A reasonable paycheck to work off of while you think through your next company 
• Exposure to a large data set of portfolio companies and companies that a VC reviews 
• Expansion of one’s network through the network of the VC 
• Usually few official “strings” attached to the VC aside from an implicit or explicit expectation that the firm get a “first look” at a company that is started during this time. 
• Exposure to the venture capital process and a behind-the-scenes look to how VC’s work and evaluate deals

Image: http://robgo.org 

Last year investments in big data dominated health IT deals as 112 deals attracted $712 million in investments, according to a new report by StartUp Health assessing digital health investment trends in 2013 and the start of this year. But in a trend that’s likely to continue this year, sectors that saw the most growth tended to fall into one of two areas. Patient engagement had a 410 percent boost in deal flow, followed by sensors and vital-sign monitoring which showed a 243 percent rise.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Bangalore-based healthcare-focused incubator InnAccel is floating a venture capital fund to provide early-stage capital to startups operating in the medical technology space, a top executive of InnAccel told Techcirle.in.

InnAccel, which will incubate five-six startups in this year, is looking to raise the fund by mid-2015.

Within fast growing companies like tech startups, the need for additional manpower can arise at a moment’s notice. This makes the traditional interview process somewhat challenging, and many innovative companies opt for a style of interviewing that enables them to quickly assess whether there is a mutual fit — a practice that is valuable for both the company and the candidate in the long-run.

Image Courtesy of khunaspix / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

During the years that billionaire Michael Bloomberg served as New York's mayor, tech companies were sure they had a friend in City Hall.

The aggressively pro-business entrepreneur-turned-politician came into office shortly after the dotcom collapse of the 1990s and served as mayor from 2002 to 2013--which, as it happens, are the years New York City became (distant) second only to the Bay Area in terms of tech innovation. Bloomberg built a city office dedicated to growing the tech industry and gladly served as cheerleader for the city's tech sector.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

“Innovation” is one of those words that, through casual overuse, has come to signify a wide array of distinct concepts – in some sense, the word is literally losing definition, like an out-of-focus photograph that manages to become blurrier every time you look at it. These days, anytime anyone does something vaguely new, or a new feature gets added to some gadget or other, the innovation word gets flung about. Indeed, the word is used with the same reckless abandon as those other favourites of jargon-loving MBA types, “solutions” and “disruption”, rendering it increasingly meaningless.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly eight in ten executives in the global innovation sector plan to grow their workforce in 2014, and more than nine in 10 say it is a challenge to find the talent they need to do so, according to a study released today by Silicon Valley Bank, the premier financial partner to technology, life science and cleantech companies and their investors worldwide.

These findings, highlighted in the 2014 Innovation Economy Outlook study, are based on Silicon Valley Bank's annual survey of more than 1,200 executives from software, hardware, cleantech and life science/healthcare companies in startup and growth stages of business in the US, UK and other global innovation hubs. In addition to the high rate of anticipated job creation, the study also reveals pervasive optimism, intent to access international markets for sales, and a struggle to obtain equity capital by some of the most innovative, high-growth companies in the world.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Every year tornadoes rip through the U.S. Midwest, leaving death, injury and billions of dollars of damage in their wake. Where do these twisters come from, and just how nasty can they get? Scientific American editor Mark Fischetti reports.

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com 

The Center for Innovative Technology GAP Funds cemented its mantle as one of the region’s most active early-stage investment groups earlier this month when the number of companies in its portfolio surpassed 100.

That marks a rapid pace of investment for any organization that’s not even a decade old, but it’s particularly notable since a majority of those deals have come in just the past four years.

Image: Jeffrey MacMillan/Jeffrey MacMillan - Center for Innovative Technology Managing Director Tom Weithman, third from right, with his staff at the center’s GAP Funds, which invests in early-stage companies in Virginia. 

A British exit from the European Union could wreck London's position as the only financial centre to rival New York and isolate the country's economy, research ordered by a lobby group for banks and money managers showed.

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership and hold an "in-out" referendum by the end of 2017 if his Conservatives win a 2015 national election.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The process for fostering entrepreneurship has been sought after for decades, if not millenniums. Entrepreneurship has sprouted, seemingly randomly, in communities all over the world and brought with it strong economic growth that is long lasting. So it is logical that many leaders in governments, institutions, universities, and even entrepreneurship are trying to model that success by setting up programs that were thought to lead to mass entrepreneurial success…yet their level of success rarely replicates the former. So then what is the answer and why has it been so difficult to replicate?

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Germany is renowned for its economic prowess and its resilient Mittelstand amidst the instability of post-recession Europe. But while the country has a relatively low overall unemployment rate at 5.5%, the number goes up to 7.7% for those under the age of 25.

Image: https://www.edsurge.com 

The Business Acceleration Program (BAP) includes a suite of programs and services designed to strengthen and accelerate the growth of Ontario’s high-potential technology companies and entrepreneurs. Delivered through a network of Regional Innovation Centre (RIC) partners in the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE), BAP equips Ontario’s innovation entrepreneurs with the skills they need to move successfully into the global marketplace through programs and services such as:

HOUSTON – (April 14, 2014) – The 2014 Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) awarded nearly $2.9 million in cash and prizes in a record number of prizes this weekend at Rice University. Medical Adhesive Revolution of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, who developed a high-strength biodegradable surgical adhesive that can be used inside the human body to seal wounds within seconds, emerged as the top startup company winning $507,500 in the world's richest and largest student startup competition held April 10-12. This is the first time an international team has won the completion and the first time two international teams finished in the top six.

BetaGlide, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagur, India was awarded $1 million investment prize from the Mercury Fund. The announcement was a surprise for the team and the 800 attendees at the banquet. BetaGlide developed a one-stop destination for mobile app developers to create better and efficient apps in an intelligent way.

After a teenage stowaway flew from California to Hawaii hidden in the wheel well of an airplane this week, investigators immediately began to wonder how he had survived the freezing temperatures and low-oxygen conditions of the unpressurized compartment.

The latest theory is that he fell into a state of hibernation – an entirely plausible scenario, if you ask me.

Image: The fat-tailed dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus medius) is the only known primate hibernator and can only be found on the island of Madagascar (Credit: David Haring, Duke Lemur Center) 

It's easy to look at kids in school today and think they have it easier than we did.

They get to use iPads instead of three-ring binders, Wikipedia instead of a dusty encyclopedia CD-ROMs and their classrooms are more connected than ours ever were. But while new tech makes learning a more enriching experience, it also makes it a lot harder to slack off.

Image: An eighth-grader in Georgia uses an iPad to complete work in her Spanish class on May 9, 2013.IMAGE: JOHN BAZEMORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Philadelphia-based  RJMetrics, an eCommerce analytics company, released a report Wednesday ranking the top startup cities.

Philadelphia did not particularly impress. It ranked 21st in a list of 30 cities in the United States. The analysis was based on meetup group activity.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com 

Researchers have demonstrated a new way to restore lost hearing: with a cochlear implant that helps the auditory nerve regenerate by delivering gene therapy.

The researchers behind the work are investigating whether electrode-triggered gene therapy could improve other machine-body connections—for example, the deep-brain stimulation probes that are used to treat Parkinson’s disease, or retinal prosthetics.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com - Growth factor: The cochlear nerve regenerates after gene therapy (top) versus the untreated cochlea from the same animal (bottom). 

Mutual fund funds are backing Silicon Valley startups at a record clip, and while investors in these funds should be alert to the risks, this is a development that the venture industry looked to encourage five years ago.

Four mutual-fund firms alone — BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Janus Capital Group and T. Rowe Price Group —  have backed 13 private companies so far this year after doing 16 such deals last year, The Wall Street Journal reports. They did nine in 2012 and six in 2011, WSJ said, citing data from CB Insights, which tracks venture capital investments.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

We all know the story of mobility’s meteoric rise in the last several years. From flip-phones to smartphones to an expanding galaxy of different connected screens and devices, we can safely say that access to the world’s information on-demand will be part of our lives now, and for the foreseeable future. We’re at the end of the beginning.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

In order to expose more students to computer science, 17 states have passed legislation to create basic math and science requirements in the curriculum, rather than count as electives. But lawmakers in Texas have made computer programming count toward a foreign language requirement, with Kentucky and New Mexico gearing up to follow suit.

Image: http://www.fastcolabs.com 

Bitcoin, virtual currency, has awesome potential. It’s used by people to buy and sell all over the world. It’s great, however, it’s fraught with problems. One of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges Mt. Gox, shut down, and U.S. regulators are still figuring out how to deal with Bitcoin. I could go on but my advice for small business owners is not to jump on every wagon that comes by, filled with new technology that’s not matured and that hasn’t been proven by the market – especially if you have a lot to lose. Brent Leary spoke about this on an episode of The 3TechGuys Show.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/ 

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- As the billion-dollar education technology industry holds what has become its primary gathering here this week, the onus is on vendors to show they can produce not only profits, but also improved outcomes. The rise of the Education Innovation Summit, organized by Arizona State University and the investment firm GSV Advisors, has in some ways mirrored the ed-tech boom of the last few years. When the conference was established in 2009, it drew about 300 entrepreneurs and investors, but the event soon outgrew ASU’s Scottsdale Innovation Center.

Image: http://www.insidehighered.com 

GE (NYSE:GE) and partners today announced the winners of two global open innovation challenges, the Industrial Internet Flight Quest 2 and 3D Printing Production Quest. Through open innovation leaders Kaggle and NineSigma, the Quests challenged data scientists, academia, start-ups and established businesses worldwide to use analytics and advanced manufacturing processes to find ways to increase efficiency for airlines and healthcare customers.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Akamai released data Wednesday detailing a plethora of attacks against its clients as well as the increase in broadband speeds seen around the world. Its quarterly State of the Internet report for the fourth quarter of 2013 is chock-full of data about broadband speeds, IPv6 deployment and new types of website attacks.

According to the report, the fourth quarter of 2013 saw a rise in the number of denial of service attacks. Akamai also drew attention to an attack seen in early January. It gave a detailed explanation of a type of attack where hackers used vulnerability scanners that are normally used by site owners to scan for problems in their sites, to probe for weaknesses in websites ahead of a suspected attack.

Image: http://gigaom.com  - Akamai

Researchers have found structural changes in the brains of marijuana smokers ages 18 to 25. The severity of the changes is linked with the amount of drug use, but even casual pot smokers experienced some effect. The changes, scientists believe, lead to enhanced sensations of pleasure and reward from the effect of the drug.

http://www.livescience.com

KUALA LUMPUR: The government through the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creative Centre (MaGIC) has created nine programmes to brush up the entrepreneurial skills among youth, said Finance Ministry Secretary-General Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah.

He said these programmes were aimed at creating the culture of entrepreneurship among the group since they are young until they grow up and develop matured companies.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The computer is one of the most complex machines ever devised and most of us only ever interact with its simplest features. For each keystroke and web-click, thousands of instructions must be communicated in diverse machine languages and millions of calculations computed.

Mark Hill knows more about the inner workings of computer hardware than most. As Amdahl Professor of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin, he studies the way computers transform 0s and 1s into social networks or eBay purchases, following the chain reaction from personal computer to processor to network hub to cloud and back again.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Dear sales managers,

It’s time to face the music. Your business development reps (BDRs) / sales reps may respect you, they may work hard for you, but they also likely have a couple questions for you that they are never going to verbalize. These are your ‘blind spots’, and trust me — you do have them.

Image: http://blog.openviewpartners.com/ 

Quality Score is a metric Google uses to determine your page ranking and how much you pay per click in a particular Google AdWords campaign.

Quality Scores are essentially a measure of relevance; more relevant ads, campaigns, and landing pages have higher clickthrough rates (CTRs), which raises your Quality Score.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

CrowdFund Productions, a Colorado based crowdfunding and event management company, recently completed its research titled “Crowdfunding for Wearable Technology.”

The industry, which includes activity tracking, health monitoring devices, smart textile, virtual reality hardware, wearable computers and hands-free communicators, already has reached billions of dollars in sales and continues to rapidly grow.

Creating a technology startup can be an epic journey, much like that of a boy yearning to play baseball in the World Series, at least according to Bryan Clayton, CEO of GreenPal.

The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce launched its private placement investing portal this week, which allows accredited investors to look for investing opportunities within the state.

The private placement investing portal is aimed at connecting accredited investors to business projects from entrepreneurs, small business and nonprofits that are seeking investors, private loans and other forms of capital.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Human adults attribute character traits to faces readily and with high consensus. In two experiments investigating the development of face-to-trait inference, adults and children ages 3 through 10 attributed trustworthiness, dominance, and competence to pairs of faces. In Experiment 1, the attributions of 3- to 4-year-olds converged with those of adults, and 5- to 6-year-olds’ attributions were at adult levels of consistency. Children ages 3 and above consistently attributed the basic mean/nice evaluation not only to faces varying in trustworthiness (Experiment 1) but also to faces varying in dominance and competence (Experiment 2). This research suggests that the predisposition to judge others using scant facial information appears in adultlike forms early in childhood and does not require prolonged social experience.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

What if Obama paid for your Elsevier subscription? Or rather—what if the federal government covered the expense? Package it as a STEM or innovation initiative– something along those lines.

This is a hypothetical question, but obviously the free thinking from last week has carried over.

Image: http://chronicle.com/ 

"HOMING FROM WORK", OR TAKING CARE OF PERSONAL NEEDS DURING THE WORKDAY, CONTRIBUTES TO AN IMPROVED WORK-LIFE BALANCE FOR MANY BUSY PROFESSIONALS. SO, IS IT TIME FOR YOU TO START LEAVING WORK TO RUN ERRANDS?

BY RACHEL GILLETT

We’ve all heard about the advantages of working from home, from being the boss of your schedule to taking the time to run personal errands. But what if you were able to achieve this while working in an office environment?

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com 

From typos to grammatical errors, coffee stains and outdated material, resume blunders are a common occurrence, says career coach Ford Myers. But some can be deadly.

“If you hope to compete in today’s job market your resume can’t be good, it needs to be exceptional,” says Myers, author of Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring (Wiley, 2009).

The world’s 100 most endangered and unique birds have been ranked in a newly published study, and the list includes a corpse-eater with legendary skills of decapitation, a shameless self-inflator, and the world’s heftiest parrot. Conducted by a team from Yale University, Simon Fraser University, and the Zoological Society of London, the study analyses where the 9,993 recognised species of birds in the world live; how many relatives they have (very few means better evolutionary distinctness); and how at risk they are in their environment.

Image: Left: New Caledonian owlet-nightjar Right: Giant ibis. Credit: L: Joseph Smit R: Henrik Grönvold 

You can frequently make groundbreaking innovations simply by dividing a product into “chunks” to create many smaller versions of it. These smaller versions still function like the original product, but their reduced size delivers benefits that users wouldn’t get with the larger, “parent” product. This is one of three approaches of the Division Technique called “Preserving Division.”

Image: http://www.innovationinpractice.com 

SAN MATEO, Calif. — Entrepreneurs and investors say Silicon Valley’s fast-growing financial ties with Russia’s tech sector are being slowed down by current political tensions between the White House and the Kremlin.

“It’s safe to say a lot of investors here are taking a step back to see how the situation will unfold,” said Alexandra Johnson, who manages a $100 million venture fund called DFJ VTP Aurora, a Menlo Park, Calif., branch of Russian bank VTB.

Image Courtesy of James Barker / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Frost & Sullivan ICT Consultant Lawrence Lundy comments on Samsung’s latest flagship Galaxy smartphone and their struggle to differentiate in the market.

Galaxy 5

While the Galaxy S5 is an evolutionary product, there is not enough in there to make people upgrade from the 4. It doesn't push the envelope in any real way; we are in a sort of statis now when it comes to smartphone innovation. We are going to see sustaining improvements as the market reaches maturity. That is not to say that smartphone innovation is finished, but much of the innovation is going to come from the introduction of sensors into the phone, and the improvements in software, and how the phone will interact with the range of wearable devices.

There's probably no other country as innovative as the United States. At least that's the trope. But recent statistics from the U.S. Patent Office and new independent surveys suggest much of America's innovation is not home-grown: Many of the country's best and brightest ideas come from non-citizens.

"There's the idea of the American melting pot, everything and everyone comes here," says Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur and researcher of public policy at Stanford Law School. "When we combine this with entrepreneurship and the American Dream, world-changing ideas come from America."

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

President Park Geun-hye says Korea's science and technology sector should play an essential role in realizing her vision for a creative economy. The president told her science and technology advisers on Thursday that she hopes government-funded research institutes will work side-by-side with the country's small- and mid-sized venture firms to better commercialize their joint technology.

Image: http://www.arirang.co.kr 

Solar power for mobile devices is the wave of the future, but many of the small portable solar chargers on the market aren’t big enough to efficiently power tablets and other gadgets that have a larger battery capacity, and they don’t often include an onboard battery pack for charging devices after the sun goes down.

Image: http://ecopreneurist.com 

Grand Challenges Canada, funded by the Government of Canada, today announced $100,000 seed grants to enable seven innovators from Peru to pursue promising bold ideas to help address pressing health issues in Peru. Announced during the State Visit to Canada of His Excellency Ollanta Humala Tasso, President of the Republic of Peru, the projects involve innovative approaches to maternal, newborn and child health-related issues - a major global priority of the Government of Canada - such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, sanitation and food security, as well as HIV and diabetes. The projects will create:

Business practitioners study them, students debate them and companies examine them. The most-popular case studies of the last 40 years show some timeless business challenges and how to overcome them.

As in novels and thrillers, so in case studies – each have their best-sellers. In the past 40 years, six of the top ten most-read cases were written by INSEAD professors, according to The Case Centre. The examples of the business dilemmas within transcend the tests of time. In February, INSEAD assembled a panel of the authors of four of these most-read cases, to discuss what makes a great case that is still relevant and important in the early 21st century:

Image: http://knowledge.insead.edu 

Whenever I meet a startup, I always ask what subjects they studied in school. The range is as wide as the roles in our tech sector, but one subject dominates: math.

Given the weakness in the school curriculum on computing and coding, it’s not surprising that so many of our young tech entrepreneurs did programming as a hobby but had a strong tendency towards math in school.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

A bill intended to take a bite out of what some call frivolous patent lawsuits is currently tied up in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now, reported friction at the bargaining table—and the rise of new opposition—could stop it entirely.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Nathaniel Bagnell, 25, ditched a solid, high-paying job as a computer programmer last year to co-found a business analytics company. A few floors down, in a Toronto startup building humming with activity, Klever Freire, 30, has also quit his day job, at Bombardier Aerospace, in favour of launching his own company that makes flying robots.

Image: http://www.theglobeandmail.com 

These days, technology start-ups want more than just a check from venture capital backers and other investors. They are increasingly looking for operational help and industry expertise as well, a recent survey of Wharton alumni in the San Francisco area shows.

In a marked departure from the dot-com era of the 1990s, these companies also put more value on market know-how and connections over snagging a high valuation or a venture capitalist with a marquee name, according to a November 2013 survey of 126 mostly senior tech executives or managers who work at young companies.

Anthony Falco of Roberta’s in Bushwick, Brooklyn, shows Sam Sifton how to make restaurant-style pizza dough at home.

Image Courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When your home computer is hacked, the things at risk are your identity, finances and other digital assets. A cyber attack that can take control of your car—especially while you’re driving—raises the stakes considerably. As carmakers transform their vehicles into networked computers on wheels, concern has grown about hacker attacks on automobile systems and the seriousness of the threat.

Image: At this week’s Symposium on Security for Asia Network (SyScan) in Singapore, security engineers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek will highlight how fellow car hackers can research automotive electronic control units (ECUs) without needing to buy and dismantle a car. The researchers have even rigged a go-cart rigged with ECUs for testing purposes. The vehicle pictured has rearview camera, satellite radio, Bluetooth, GPS navigation and power steering. Image courtesy of Charlie Miller. 

Creativity and innovation are not sufficiently integrated in either the business world or academic research, according to a new study by Rice University, the University of Edinburgh and Brunel University.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

As March Madness wraps up, here's a guide what science says about basketball from bracket choices to injury prevention

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com 

You see your dream job posted on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, it’s located halfway around the world and it’s just not the right time to make a big move.

You have all the right skills for a challenging opportunity, but it’s in an industry you have little knowledge of which makes you nervous about applying.

A role opens up at your current workplace in a different department – you’re really interested but you just don’t have time to speak to HR.

Image: http://blog.linkedin.com 

Upon beginning in business, we are told, “You have to follow this system, or you will not be successful.” The larger picture certainly needs to be understood in order to successfully move forward from your starting point. But, it is when we are able to craft that process into almost an art form that recognition and reward come our way.

Image Courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In a two-story building in an industrial district of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ara Knaian shows off prototypes of what could be the industry’s first completely modular smartphone.

On workbenches sit prototypes of memory modules, battery modules, and processor modules, all designed to slide easily in and out of an aluminum smartphone “endoskeleton.” A prototype infrared imaging lens module for night photography would protrude about a half-inch from the device. Another module would let you read your blood oxygen levels with a swipe of your finger.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com 

A less-invasive brain diagnostic test, a surface so slippery bacteria can’t stick to it, and a low-cost mylar wrap to help warm babies’ heads after surgery were three of the projects on display at Boston Children’s Hospital’s first-ever Innovators Showcase Friday.

The event is part of a larger push by Chief Innovation Officer Naomi Fried’s office to seek out innovators across the organization, support them with advice and sometimes money, and help guide them towards commercialization.

Image: http://betaboston.com 

Unless you’ve got one of those BMW scooters from a few years back, chances are the closest you’re going to come to a windscreen while traveling on two wheels is your helmet.

As long as the safety of the rider isn’t compromised, it’s also the most natural place to put any serious motorbike tech. Thankfully, the people trying to cram as much tech as possible into helmets seem to have figured this out.

Image: http://motorburn.com 

To Neil H. Shubin’s long résumé — paleontologist, molecular biologist, dean and professor of anatomy at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, best-selling author — can now be added “television host.” Dr. Shubin, 53, who helped discover the 375-million-year-old fish called Tiktaalik, hailed as a missing link between sea and land animals, will preside over “Your Inner Fish,” a three-part series on evolution (based on his book of the same title) that makes its debut Wednesday on PBS.

Image: Neil H. Shubin next to a model of Tiktaalik, a 375-million-year-old fish that was hailed as a missing link between sea and land animals. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times 

A team of scientists have unmasked the intricacies of how sharks hunt prey — from the first whiff to the final chomp —in a new study about shark senses that was supported by the National Science Foundation and published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.

The study, led by scientists from the University of South Florida, Mote Marine Laboratory and Boston University, is the first to show how vision, touch, smell and other senses combine to guide a detailed series of animal behaviors from start to finish. Results show that sharks with different lifestyles may favor different senses, and they can sometimes switch when their preferred senses are blocked. That’s hopeful news for sharks trying to find food in changing and sometimes degraded environments.

Reference calls. We all have to make them. Whether you’re considering hiring a new employee or as an investor whether you’re looking to do a background check on the founders of a company.

Here are some pointers that I’ve learned over the years:

1. Ask for at least 5 references

As your candidate for at least 5 references. You specifically want to ask for people who have directly worked with the person before. I like to get a mix of people who have reported to the candidate, whom the candidate has reported to (2x) and peers.

When manufacturers of cardboard boxes, wire bagel baskets and other products said they needed workers with technological expertise and strong social skills, Maryland officials agreed to set up manufacturing boot camps for recruits.

The eight-week sessions will train and test potential workers in financial literacy and anger management as well as in computer-assisted design and robotics. In the past, Maryland’s job training programs prepared participants for broad categories of jobs, with limited success. Now the state is bringing together business and industry, colleges and local and state agencies in partnerships to create training programs for skills that employers actually need.

Image: Unemployed electrician Stan Osnowitz, 67, sits in his Baltimore living room. Faced with shrinking labor force participation rates, Maryland and at least 16 other states are implementing new job training measures this year. (AP) 

Today, I wanted to write about something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, but haven’t had a chance to discuss with anybody outside of my “inner circle.”

I want to talk to you about how I’ve learned to balance the increasing demands of my career — writing, consulting, building products, flying places, etc — with the real life responsibilities involved in maintaining a happy long-term romantic relationship.

Image: http://under30ceo.com 

Businesses often prefer using the services of independent contractors (sometimes also called “subcontractors” or “freelancers”) rather than employees.

Independent contractors are usually a better deal for businesses.  With independent contractors, businesses do not have to pay the required employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare, the burden of which is shifted to the independent contractor through the so-called “self-employment” tax.  Businesses also do not have to worry about tax withholdings—that is the independent contractor’s responsibility too.  By using independent contractors instead of employees, businesses can often avoid workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance requirements for those individuals, as well other labor law requirements such as mandatory lunch breaks.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The first edition of tech festival Techsylvania will be held from May 31 to June 2 in Cluj-Napoca, a city which is quickly gaining a reputation of being one of the most dynamic IT ecosystems in Europe.

Organizers say they’ve invited central and eastern foremost creative minds, technologists and innovators.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

As a freelance writer, I spend the majority of my working time in my home office. While zero commuting hours, the ability to work in my pajamas, and flexibility over my schedule sound like a dream; working from home also has its challenges.

Topping the list are distractions of home life and limited social interactions. With a third of full-time workers blending their home and work life, I conducted my own informal survey of home office workers to find out what they do to make working from home successful. Here are some of their best tips:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

This summer, thousands of students and young professionals will be on the lookout for a coveted summer internship. In today’s cutthroat job market, internships are the new way to land a job and secure an entry-level position before the competition.

While you may be part of the 97% of employers who plan to hire interns this year, I implore you to seriously consider everything that goes into a valuable internship program.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Over the last three years, an anonymous artist has wandered around the streets of New York finding random pieces of trash and turning them into something useful. A scrap of wood, tucked into the curve of a U-shaped bike rack, became a temporary folding chair. Bottle holders from abandoned bikes, attached to the sides of a trashcan, transformed into mini-recycling bins. An old ball tied to a signpost became a game. In total, the artist has created 23 of these interventions so far in a project called Rotten Apple.

Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com 

Health technology is advancing so rapidly that within a decade the small handheld medical reader used by Dr. Leonard McCoy in Star Trek — the tricorder — will look primitive.

We are moving into an era of data-driven, crowdsourced, participatory, genomics-based medicine. Just as our bathroom scales give us instant readings of our weight, wearable devices will monitor our health and warn us when we are about to get sick. Our doctors — or their artificial intelligence replacements — will prescribe medicines or lifestyle changes based on our full medical history, holistic self, and genetic composition.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Creating a pitch deck is hard, especially when you’ve never done it before. If you’re a first-time entrepreneur like I was when we raised our series $15 million first round for Bigcommerce back in 2011, then you’re probably excited, nervous, and anxious about raising your first round of financing.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When we think of leadership, we often focus on the what: external characteristics, practices, behavior, and actions that exemplary leaders demonstrate as they take on complex and unprecedented challenges. While this line of thinking is a great place to start, we won’t reach our potential as leaders by looking only at what is visible. We need to see what’s underneath to understand how remarkable leaders lead—and that begins with mind-sets.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

From Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record, by Errol Fuller. Princeton University Press, 2014. Copyright 2013 © Errol Fuller

We tend to think of extinction as a silent process, occurring somewhere far, far away and long, long ago, but the unfocused, unstructured, sepia and black-and-white photographs collected in Lost Animals force us to acknowledge the loss. These animals survived for thousands of years, long enough to enter the photographic age and to be captured on film. The photos bring these lost species close enough to touch—almost, but not quite!

New York- Thirty-six venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) raised $3.3 billion during the first quarter of 2014, a 50 percent increase, by number of new listings, compared to the previous quarter, according to the Exit Poll report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). This quarter, which marks the fourth consecutive quarter to see 20 or more venture-backed IPOs, is the strongest three-month period for new listings since the third quarter of 2000. For the first quarter of 2014, 105 venture-backed M&A deals were reported, 29 of which had an aggregate deal value of $7.5 billion. This represents a 12 percent increase in disclosed value from the fourth quarter of last year and marks the strongest quarter for M&A disclosed value since the third quarter of 2012. Average deal size during the first quarter totaled $259.2 million, the highest average deal size since the first quarter of 2004.

Disruptive ideas don't always have to come from top-secret Pentagon research labs or fashionable Silicon Valley start-ups. Everyday, people from all walks of life possessed of unique skills just waiting to emerge are ready and willing to step outside of their routine and contribute to the betterment of humanity. That's what incentivized prize competitions are all about – democratizing innovation in America, drawing on the talent and ingenuity that the more traditional levers of Washington contracts and even venture capital networks can't tap, simply because they don't know it's there.

Image: http://inthecapital.streetwise.co 

“Criticism may be based on opinion, but that’s what makes it valuable. It gives us a taste of why people will eventually love or hate our work.”

This is Katie Dill, Airbnb's Head of Experience Design. Previously, she helped founders shape products and UX at Greenstart, and ascended from analyst to creative director at Frog Design. She also teaches graduate industrial design classes at CCA. Needless to say, she’s been on the giving and receiving end of design and product feedback countless times — but she thinks the process could almost always be much better.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The ability to innovate is a driver of productivity, competitiveness and prosperity. Innovation requires entrepreneurs to rethink and adopt new approaches to their businesses, and embracing new technologies and manufacturing opportunities can distinguish you from your competitors.

But what are some powerful tech trends that can drive company success? What should you pay attention to?

Every entrepreneur and business leader waits too long before really working on the legacy that he wants to leave to society and his family. They realize too late that they don’t really want to be remembered for how many hours they spent on airplanes, how many emails they produced, or even how much money they made for the business.

If you disappeared today, what would your legacy show? What have you done for others? If you are not thinking in these terms, you may be making a mistake as a leader. Bill Gates will probably be more remembered in fifty years for the his efforts and Foundation to save lives in developing countries, than Steve Jobs for his “insanely great” consumer technology advances.

Image: Wikipedia 

After serving as a magnet in Kendall Square for hundreds of tech upstarts and Web giants such as Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., the Cambridge Innovation Center is opening a major outpost in Boston’s Financial District with enough space for about 300 startups.

The center, which gives young companies access to amenities such as copiers, kitchens, and conference rooms, has signed a lease to take over five floors at 50 Milk St., a part of town that has traditionally hosted lawyers, bankers, and investment managers, but has recently seen an influx of tech newcomers such as PayPal and Isobar , a digital advertising company.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Speaking at the HIMSS14 Annual Conference & Exhibition this Wednesday evening, Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not disappoint.    Addressing a packed crowd of thousands of health IT professionals, Clinton underscored the importance of electronic health records, IT infrastructure and why the industry needs to ditch ideologies at the door for the sake of patient care.

A revolutionary digital hearing aid, designed to fit invisibly in the ear, is being launched at an affordable price through a crowdfunding campaign that has a social component to it.

With millions of people around the world suffering from hearing loss, a surprisingly low number of them turn to using a hearing aid, which can successfully treat many hearing issues. Some of the reasons that consumers eschew hearing aids are the bulky size of the units, or their high cost (sometimes as much as $1000), or even the inconvenience of having to go to see a specialist to get evaluated and fitted for the devices.

Image: http://ecopreneurist.com 

The IPO wave kept rolling for venture-capital-backed biotech as two life science companies held their first trading day Friday, while another estimated a price range for its public debut and a fourth publicly filed its paperwork.

Reuters Shares of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. rose 8.6%, while Recro Pharma Inc.‘s stock rose 3.8%.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. In this episode, Jason talks to Edwin from MeetingKing.

Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Of the nearly 4,000 delegates from 153 nations signed up for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) next week in Moscow, a large number are traveling from Latin America. The region’s startup ecosystems are now firmly part of the global entrepreneurship grid and with such strong delegations expected from cities like Medellín, Santiago and Buenos Aires, it is clear they don’t want there to be any doubt around the world about it. 

Image: http://entrepreneurship.org 

Speaking at the HIMSS14 Annual Conference & Exhibition this Wednesday evening, Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not disappoint.    Addressing a packed crowd of thousands of health IT professionals, Clinton underscored the importance of electronic health records, IT infrastructure and why the industry needs to ditch ideologies at the door for the sake of patient care.

How could this be: A 100-year-old government consulting firm that's always taken its marching orders from Uncle Sam, investing its own money in the big ideas of the underfunded?

It actually makes perfect sense, said Karen Dahut, Booz Allen's executive vice president who leads the company's strategic innovation group. And it's just one possibility that might come of the company's partnership with downtown technology startup hub 1776 announced Monday.

Image: Brett Wilhelm - Karen Dahut, Booz Allen Hamilton's executive vice president for the strategic innovation group, speaking during the company's Ideas Festival that rewards innovative ideas from the staff. The company announced a partnership with 1776 Monday, to tap the innovation coming from the D.C. startup community. 

Referred to as “mentor financing”, business angels continue to make great contributions to startups. Last week, I talked with some of them in Washington, DC, about the latest trends in angel investor pools outside the United States. Encouraged by improving policy frameworks, I found that they are now spreading their wisdom and seed capital to new parts of the world.

I was the final speaker at the closing lunch for the world's largest gathering of angel investors for the 2014 Angel Capital Association Summit in Washington, DC. This offered me the chance to have the last word before the group spread their wings and went back to work. Participating in the Summit also offered me the chance to learn about the changing environment for this sector, as well as angel investors’ power to rapidly boost entrepreneurship ecosystems in two vital ways – funding and mentorship.

Image: http://entrepreneurship.org 

Last year the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) put out a report on healthcare accelerator programs that we covered at the time. It is still the best summary of the health accelerator space. CHCF also created an infographic on how healthcare accelerators can maximize their value. The report focused on Rock Health, Startup Health, Blueprint Health, HealthBox, StartX Med, and TigerLabs.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

With graduation right around the corner — and the continued popularity of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Lean In – many young women are trying to figure out the right career path.

I asked five of the smartest and most successful women I know what they wished someone had whispered in their ear at graduation. Here are the top themes that emerged:

Image: UniversityParent.com CEO and founder Sarah Schupp started her business to provide better access to information for college parents. Courtesy of UniversityParent 

From the beginning of my journey with Men’s Style Lab, I knew I would need to raise money to make my dream happen. While a lot goes into growing a startup, there is no denying that the art of pitching plays a critical role in getting funded.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

For my first real job after graduate school, I earned $26,000 a year as a full-time reporter. It wasn’t a handsome salary — in fact, I could barely live on it — but I was getting paid to write. That’s more than I can say about how I spend much of my time these days. For the launch of my first book, Reinventing You, I spent six months writing scores of articles and blog posts for various outlets, and giving talks at universities, bookstores, and businesses — a great deal of it for free.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

SPECIAL REPORT / Video streaming devices, apps and infrastructure featured high in this year's edition of the Mobile World Congress as the sector is expected to exceed 80% of global internet traffic in the next few years. EurActiv reports from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.   The European Commission reckons that video streaming accounts for around half of the volume of data transfers across the Web, as the surging number of internet users access movies, music and TV online.

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In 2000, a World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, set six development goals to be realised by 2015, some more specific than others. These included:

Expanding and improving childcare and education; providing free, high quality and compulsory primary school education for all; ensuring equitable access to learning and life skills for children and young adults; a 50% improvement in adult literacy, especially for women; eliminating gender disparities in education by 2005 and achieving gender equality; by 2015;

A look at the drugs — some used by astronauts — that can relieve car, sea and space nausea.

Image: http://www.nytimes.com 

Simple step trackers are going the way of the dinosaur, as a new generation of fitness devices cram more sensors and smarts into smaller and smaller shapes. This next wave will track our movements in three dimensions—and that’s a crucial difference.

Why? Because the kind of vigorous exercise that really advances our health is multidimensional, too. 

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Igor Spetic’s hand was in a fist when it was severed by a forging hammer three years ago as he made an aluminum jet part at his job. For months afterward, he felt a phantom limb still clenched and throbbing with pain. “Some days it felt just like it did when it got injured,” he recalls. 

In his first major appearance since Facebook's stunning $16 billion acquisition of mobile messaging company WhatsApp last week, Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the Mobile World Congress on Monday to explain his plan for the company's future in mobile: "We want to create a dial tone for the Internet."

Early in the address, Zuckerberg focused his attention on Internet.org, explaining some thought behind why he wants to bring cheap or free Internet to most of the world.

Image: http://mashable.com 

Imagine people in developing countries thinking Facebook is the gateway to the Internet. They would log into Facebook to access email, Wikipedia pages, weather information, and food prices. If they wanted additional services like the ability to stream video, they can buy it with a simple click—through Facebook.

That’s Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for Internet.org. 

At the Mobile World Congress on Monday, Zuckerberg delineated some of his plans for moving forward with Internet.org, the initiative led by Facebook to bring Internet connectivity to poor countries around the world. 

Vigilance and Equanimity are the Needs of the Hour Executive Summary Key Trends in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry The challenges posed by reducing margins, expiring patents, increasing compliance costs, and regulatory thrusts because of delayed approvals are forcing participants in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to restructure and streamline strategies to cease the diminishing profitability and increase the returns from research and development (R&D). Though the returns from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology (pharma and biotech) industry have been on the decline compared to previous years, they are better compared to the performance of other industries. Key Trends- Global decline in private equity and venture capital (PEVC) deals in healthcare (HC) is reflected in the decline of PEVC deals in the pharma and biotech industry.- Venture capital (VC) deals in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors witnessed a decline in average deal value over the years, with an increase in rounds of investment.- The deal value analysis showed a preference for mid-sized deals in both private equity (PE) and VC investment.- Geographic analysis revealed the United States represents the largest share of deals, and the sectorial preference of investors varied across geographies.- The strong comeback of initial public offering (IPO) in 2013 sends a positive outlook for investment in the pharma and biotech industry.

I am more bullish about the future of the news industry over the next 20 years than almost anyone I know. You are going to see it grow 10X to 100X from where it is today. That is my starting point for any discussion about the future of journalism. Here’s why I believe it, and how we will get there.

Journalism has changed

There has been a fascinating change in the traditional journalistic press over the last several years. Take corrections as an example. It used to be that corrections to printed news stories were a really big deal. There was a high bar to get a correction accepted in a newspaper or magazine. The story as printed was the permanent record.

CommerceLab.ca, a new initiative supported by the Canadian Digital Media Network through the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization  nd Research (CECR) program, is bringing together a number of business and academic advisors to tackle Canada's innovation deficit. Serving as advisory board members to CommerceLab, the team will focus on accelerating the adoption of Canadian digital media research and innovation in three fast-growing fields: gamification, user experience (UX) design, and interactive display technology.

And according to Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit," these habits comprise 40 percent or more of the daily decisions we make.

Here are seven things entrepreneurs can do to stay on top of their business AND their health.

1. Learn something new every day.

Healthy entrepreneurs are lifelong dreamers. They work hard, play hard, and think harder. They love to read, listen to audio books and absorb as much knowledge as they possibly can. Not only do they educate themselves about topics relevant to growing their business, they also seek knowledge about what it takes to be healthy. They know healthy behaviors have a direct impact on their business.

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If you Google the phrase "faith-based businesses," the results point to companies that pursue a religious agenda. But there's another kind of faith in business: the belief that a product or service can radically remake an industry, change consumer habits, challenge economic assumptions. Proof for such innovative leaps is thin, payoffs are long in coming (if they come at all), and doubting Thomases abound. Today, pundits fret about an innovation bubble. Some overvalued companies and overhyped inventions will eventually tumble and money will be lost. Yet breakthrough progress often requires wide-eyed hope.

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Tech accelerator DreamIt Ventures, best known for housing startups such as SeatGeek and LevelUp, today announced major leadership changes in New York.

Mark Wachen, the founding managing director of DreamIt Ventures New York since 2011, has been replaced by Andrew Ackerman, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. With this change, Wachen will take on the title of managing director emeritus and will shift his focus towards mentoring DreamIt’s portfolio companies.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

To accomplish a big goal, such as launching a new business, writing a novel or starting an exercise regime, productivity experts will often suggest getting up early. You can get a lot done in a quiet house with no distractions or interruptions. While this is sound advice, it’s easier said than done.

“You might think getting up earlier is just a matter of discipline, but it actually takes much more than that,” says Julie Morgenstern, time management expert and author of Never Check Email in the Morning (Touchstone; 2005). “The truth is, your entire ecosystem has been built around sleeping later.”

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Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Sequoia Capital, the only venture investor in WhatsApp Inc., stands to make about $3.5 billion on its investment in the mobile messaging service that Facebook Inc. agreed to buy for as much as $19 billion in the biggest Internet deal in more than a decade.

Despite its “miniature” size, Louis C. Gerken’s The Little Book of Venture Capital Investing: Empowering Economic Growth and Investment Portfolios (Wiley, 2014) covers a lot of ground.

Gerken opens with a brief but scathing critique of the Occupy Wall Street movement, arguing that “if it wasn’t for capitalism,” and venture capitalists in particular, “none of the resources they had relied on to fuel their righteous indignation would even exist.” (p. xiii) In fact, as he contends later, “Venture capital investment has been almost singlehandedly responsible for delivering huge productivity gains to the U.S. economy by way of financing new information, communication technologies, and innovations.” (p. 52)

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As we heard at our big MoCo Forecast event this morning in Bethesda, growing jobs there will require wooing those you already have. (If you have leftover Valentine's chocolate, put it to work.)

Image: http://www.bisnow.com 

A team of Bio-X researchers at Stanford has developed mice whose sensitivity to pain can be dialed up or down simply by shining light on their paws.

The research could help scientists understand and eventually treat chronic pain in humans.

The mice in Scott Delp’s lab, unlike their human counterparts, can get pain relief  from the glow of a yellow light.

Image: Light-sensitive proteins, or opsins, are used in a Stanford study on pain control through optogenetics (credit: Stanford University) 

Investment in medical devices fell last year, but medtech companies continued to do deals amongst themselves at a steady pace.

In an analysis of last year’s medtech M&A transactions, analysts at New York’s Walden Group Inc., a strategic healthcare investment banking and consulting firm, identified 10 major forces that are shaping medtech:

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Everyone can relate to a day at work that just starts off on the wrong foot.  Perhaps you have just had an argument with a spouse or loved one, or you’re late for an appointment even though you had a million reminders in your schedule, or your inbox contains e-mail after e-mail with what seem like impossible demands.  These days can feel really long, and before you know it, the smile is wiped off your face, and you dread your next customer or colleague-facing interaction.  In fact, you become filled with anxiety at the thought of your next appointment, and you realize that you have to get your act together.

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Today Google announced it has launched Google Capital, another investment arm, to provide equity to technology companies as they enter into their growth stages. The company noted this would be different from its Google Venture operations, which seeks to provide seed capital to start-ups and companies as they begin their initial functionality.

Suppose your company has 8 million shares outstanding and you’re fortunate enough to be able to raise $4 million at an $8 million pre-money valuation in your Series A. That’s a $12 million post-money valuation and each share is valued at $1.00. You continue to own 8 million shares after the financing, but you issue 4 million new shares to the investors, thus you now own 8M/12M or 67 percent of your company and you have $4 million in the bank.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

What’s cooler than the stuff you can 3D print today? The things that 3D printers are almost, but not quite yet, capable of printing someday soon.

See also: 10 Crazy Things 3D Printers Can Make Today 3D Printing has come a long way since inventor Charles Hull first prototyped it more than 30 years ago. One of Hull’s first ever builds was a shot-glass sized plastic cup, and even that took days to design and print. Today, scientists and researchers are dwarfing early models both in the sheer size and wealth of materials that they’re prototyping for future prints.

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Entrepreneurs really do love to pay it forward and support each other—usually. And what better way to show your support then to financially help out with a friend's new venture?

But beware—just because someone is a good friend doesn't make them a great businessperson. Financial commitments to friends can quickly go south and ruin both relationships.

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Many companies aren’t ready for growth: They haven’t clearly articulated the specific strategies they need to compete and win in the market, channeled their resources to bolster their differentiating capabilities (the few things they do better than anyone else), or aligned their organization to execute their plans. Meanwhile, years of across-the-board cost cuts have enabled them to meet short-term profitability pressures—but only at the expense of long-term priorities. And they haven’t gained or sustained a competitive advantage. These organizations have become bloated bureaucracies that are really just doing one thing: preventing substantive change.

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A couple recent Brainzooming articles highlighted strategic thinking exercises comparing online and offline situations to help better understand, explain, and develop social media strategy.

One article focused on how using a network TV model helps create fantastic content on an ongoing basis. The other article used models for various social networks as a way to understand how and why you approach each of them differently.

Image: http://brainzooming.com 

Bangalore: In heartening news for science researchers, an exclusive bio-science incubator is all set to be launched in Bangalore. It is a high-end expensive equipment, but needed for a capital intensive sector like research in biotechnology, be it making medicines, medical equipment or new techniques for agriculture. The bio-science lab run by the Karnataka government will open in a few months, giving 400-plus start-ups the chance to use this equipment for a nominal fee.

 Image Courtesy of ddpavumba / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jugglers rely on repetitive rhythmic motions to keep multiple balls aloft. Similar forms of rhythmic movement are also common in the animal world, where effective locomotion is equally important to a swift-moving gazelle and to the cheetah that’s chasing it, say researchers.

“It turns out that the art of juggling provides an interesting window into many of the same questions that you try to answer when you study forms of locomotion, such as walking or running,” says Noah Cowan, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University who supervised a recent study published Journal of Neurophysiology.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Google Glass shares much of its electronics and software with the smartphone, but it’s a very different machine.

You hold a smartphone in your hand. And we do—at restaurants, at the movies, walking across the street, and even in bed. We use smartphones to check our mail, update Facebook, get driving directions, search the Internet to settle bets, and, sometimes, even to make calls. But Glass you wear on your face, and that fundamentally transforms all these human-computer interactions, making them more intimate. Because you don’t use your hands, and because it projects an image onto a transparent screen suspended in front of your eye and uses a vibration to stimulate your inner ear, using Glass is like being naked with the machine: synapses and wires united.

PALO ALTO, Calif. - The most striking thing about visiting Silicon Valley these days is how many creative ideas you can hear in 48 hours.

Jeff Weiner, the chief executive of LinkedIn, explains how his company aims to build an economic graph that will link together the whole global workforce with every job being offered in the world, full-time and temporary, for-profit and volunteer, the skills needed for each job, and a presence for every higher education institution everywhere offering a way to acquire those skills.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Companies get better results from innovation by targeting initiatives at the right places. Here are six areas to focus on:

1. Your Value Drivers:  What activities across your business model create the most value? Is it operational or commercial? Who is involved and what departments make it happen? Use a systematic innovation method like S.I.T. to reinvent the value driver as well as the resources that deliver it.

SensoryEffects, a food and beverage ingredient manufacturer, delivers customized products that help food companies compete in a more diverse market. It is moving away from commodity production and focusing on its potential in downstream emulsification powders – where the value lies.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Search online for any list of history’s greatest scientists and you’ll find the same names: Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Sigmund Freud, Louis Pasteur, and so on. The order may change, but the name on top will almost invariably be that of Isaac Newton.

We can argue over such lists – they’re mostly harmless fun – but we can agree that Newton earned his place there. He quantified the laws of motion that govern our lives, and almost 350 years after he did his work, it is still useful.

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Obesity is a disease in both diet and lifestyle. People who are overweight tend to forget that eating the right amount of food and the right kind of food is crucial to preventing obesity as well as cure it. Obese people often think that in order to be healthy they need to eat more but our body does not work that way. Eating too much is unhealthy. This is why we exercise when we eat a lot in order to burn the calories that we have ingested. So, if you are one of those potato couches who are lazy in doing exercises then it is time that you should begin eating the right kinds of food.

Image Courtesy of Bill Longshaw / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Creative work takes time. It's prone to blockages, inconsistent results, and a long gestation period that can feel like navel gazing. When the work becomes challenging or feels stagnant, it's tempting to simply abandon it.

Years ago, in one of my first creative writing workshops, I hit a roadblock in a story I was working on and naively felt that my writing had screeched to a standstill. My instructor at the time said something I've since reminded myself of often. "What is the thing you most fear--the thing you want to run from?" she asked me. "Write about that."

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"It is not uncommon for me to get 100 applications for one spot, so I'm constantly looking for reasons not to advance a candidate to the interview round," writes Slate editor Katherine Goldstein. "Writing a good cover letter is your best shot at getting noticed. If I hate a cover letter, I won’t even look at the résumé."

That noticeability, Goldstein says, depends on demonstrating that you know the organization and that you are the perfect fit and then distilling that detailed argument into a cordial few words.

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Kickstarter, the fundraising platform used by millions of people to raise capital for creative projects and businesses, said on Saturday that hackers had gained access to some of its customers' data earlier this week but that the breach had been repaired.

"No credit card data of any kind was accessed by hackers. There is no evidence of unauthorized activity of any kind on all but two Kickstarter user accounts," Kickstarter Chief Executive Officer Yancey Strickler said in a blog post on the website. It noted that it does not store credit card data.

ROCKVILLE, MD. — The Tech Council of Maryland (TCM), Maryland’s largest technology trade association with more than 400 life science and technology members employing over 200,000 in the region, today announced that individuals from Hewlett-Packard Co., Johns Hopkins University, MedImmune, RCM&D and SoBran Inc. were named to the association’s board of directors.

“We are excited to have this impressive group of individuals on the TCM board,” said Phil Schiff, TCM’s CEO. “Their individual and collective expertise will be invaluable as the association evolves to address the changing needs of our membership.”

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

From Executive Summary:

The EU is facing increasing world competition, in particular at the higher end of global value chains. In 2011, more than 70 % of the world’s knowledge production was taking place outside the EU, and half of the world’s scientists and engineers lived outside the triad1. Since 2008, developed Asian countries have gained increasing shares of global value chain income including income from medium-high and high-tech products.

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Katia Verresen's new client had a big problem: He needed to find 3 to 4 extra hours in his day. This, of course, seemed like an impossible feat for an oversubscribed startup founder, but his ability to fundraise and recruit the best talent depended on it. By the time he met Verresen, executive coach to many such founders, he was drained, pessimistic, dreading every week before it started.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Over the last decade, as DNA-sequencing technology has grown ever faster and cheaper, our understanding of the human genome has increased accordingly. Yet scientists have until recently remained largely ham-fisted when they’ve tried to directly modify genes in a living cell. Take sickle-cell anemia, for example. A debilitating and often deadly disease, it is caused by a mutation in just one of a patient’s three billion DNA base pairs. Even though this genetic error is simple and well studied, researchers are helpless to correct it and halt its devastating effects.

You don’t need to be a Harvard University student to take a massive open online course from Harvard—throwing open the gates to all comers is the idea, after all. But being a Harvard graduate still has its perks, even within the democratized landscape of MOOCs.

The university plans to make some MOOC materials available exclusively to alumni, in an effort to help Harvard graduates reconnect with the university and one another. The program, called HarvardX for Alumni and first reported in The Harvard Crimson, might also include opportunities to interact directly with professors, a rare privilege in an open online course.

Last year, I went to the Career Services Startup Fair. I was only a freshman, but I knew that I wanted an internship at a startup that summer. And I got one.

It wasn’t an easy process. As a freshman without any working experience, I received countless rejections. I suspect that many companies didn’t even bother to read my resume. I almost booked flight tickets back home to China (Thanks StudentUniverse.com! It was too expensive.) Heavily disappointed, I decided to take another approach.

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu 

In the next four months Bangalore will have yet another first to its name: a bioscience and medical technology incubation facility. This first of a kind initiative in India will be established at the Bangalore Helix park, in Electronics City.

With an aim to mentor and incubate startups in the biotechnology sector, this government-backed incubator will also act as an accelerator and help biotech companies take their products to market.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Last week marked the deadline for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to accept public comments on proposed regulations to permit companies to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding. In submitted comments, John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute argued that the proposed rules could result in “costly, paternalistic requirements on crowdfunding that have the effect of keeping the status quo and locking ordinary investors out of startup capital.”

Declines in budgets across the public health community were just one reason the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began looking at innovative approaches for employees and partners to collaborate online.

With the agency’s health informatics partners stretching to state and local public health departments, academics, educational institutions, standards organizations, as well as other countries, CDC in 2009 began examining how it could develop a more cost-effective and efficient way for these key stakeholders to meet, collaborate and advance new ideas.

Image: David Goldman/AP 

Interest in unlisted start-up firms among Japanese venture investors is increasing following the revival of the country’s stock markets and the economic recovery.

Moves to launch funds are gaining momentum among venture capital firms, while the government-backed Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) is stepping up its investment activities.

Some major information technology companies have established their own funds to invest in new technologies.

BLOCK 71 HAS long been slated for demolition. A look at the tenant list for the seven-storey industrial building on Singapore’s Ayer Rajah Crescent helps explain why it is still standing: nearly 100 startups live there officially and perhaps as many again informally. Their often strange monikers are interspersed with the more conventional names of venture-capital firms, accelerators and the like.

Image: http://www.economist.com - Matt Herring 

Ever misplace your keys, forget someone’s name, or lose your train of thought? Of course you have. Everyone struggles with their memory from time to time.

While they can be frustrating, these little slips are common and normal, says Gary Small, MD, director of the UCLA Longevity Center and author of The Memory Bible.

“We become more forgetful as we age, and by 45 the average person has a measurable decline in their memory ability, but we have more control than we think,” says Small. “The MacArthur Study of Successful Aging found that genetics only accounts for a third of memory success. The rest is our cognitive and physical health.”

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One major hurdle that many entrepreneurs face is the fear of failure. Will my product sell? Will I be able to pay my investors? Will I be a good leader? If you are an entrepreneur, I’m sure these are just a few of the many questions that have come to mind while running your business.

That fear of failure is often what makes aspiring young entrepreneurs head back to their warm and cozy corporate jobs. So, how do we push past this fear?

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Five years ago, Dr. Ivan Castro of Winter Park was miserable with the way medicine was going.

"I was constantly running behind to see the next patient and had to focus more on paperwork than on patient care," recalls Castro, 52.

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With a premier B-school degree behind them and usually a plum job in hand, these youngsters are planning to do something different.

Following a growing trend over the past few years, the IIMs have been seeing a few graduates opt out of the placement rat race. They chose, instead, to set out on their own, diving into the sea of destiny with their own start-ups and innovative business ideas.

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With an economy based on knowledge workers, estimates suggest that a full 50% of professionals in the United States have jobs that can be performed from home. In fact, according to the most recent Census findings, the number of people who work out of their houses increased from 9.5 million in 1999 to 13.4 million in 2010, indicating that many more companies are now offering remote jobs.

To determine which companies are likely hiring telecommuters in 2014, FlexJobs, the leading site for job searchers seeking ideal work-life balance, has named the top 100 companies that allow or encourage employees to work from home.

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Do you want job security? Become a wedding planner.

That's the advice from Glassdoor, the jobs and career community site. Automation may claim as many as 47% of current jobs by 2033, according to a recent Oxford University study. If you're planning a career that spans beyond the next decade, you may want to strike the following off the list. Why?

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What is the most important quality of an entrepreneur? Many would argue it is passion — an overwhelming love of what one is doing, and the drive and determination to see one's dreams realized. Others might say leadership — the ability to bring a team of people together and guide them toward a common goal. But some believe that creativity — a boundless imagination that is constantly innovating and seeing the world through a different lens — is the ultimate key to business success.

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Xavier Damman is a technology entrepreneur and the founder of Storify, a journalistic web tool that is used by media organisations such as The New York Times and Al Jazeera to tell rolling stories using social media content. He spoke to EurActiv’s Laurens Cerulus.

Like many entrepreneurs in the technology sector, you moved to the US to start your company. How come you didn’t start in Europe?

People often ask me if I could have developed Storify in Europe. And the answer is: No. This couldn’t have worked here. I was trying to find money in Belgium at first, but it was close to impossible.

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The Bangles may have sung of “Manic Mondays,” but Tuesday is really the day when stuff gets done.

According to a recent survey by the staffing company Accountemps on employee productivity, 39% of HR managers said that Tuesday was generally the best day for their employees. That beat Monday (24%), Wednesday (14%) and Thursdays and Fridays (a paltry 3% apiece).

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Ohad Frankfurt is the cofounder and CEO of Swayy, a personalized content curation and management platform.

About a year and a half ago, we got accepted to the Elevator accelerator program in Tel Aviv, Israel. At the time, we started working on a product called Summer, a browser extension which lets you get more information about people you read about online (think of it as “Rapportive” for the entire Web).

From the first day at the Gener8tor accelerator in Madison, Wis., we have been pitching our fashion tech startup nonstop to mentors, investors and entrepreneurs in preparation to raise money for our seed round of funding.

Now, as we attend a New York City trade show, hoping to interact with brands we will carry when we officially launch later this year, I can’t help but notice the similarity between the accelerator conversations and those with wholesalers at trade shows.

The growing acidity of the world's oceans is a worrying threat to coral reefs, which support an amazing array of marine life, and are generally harmed as ocean acidity rises. But a vibrant reef in the western Pacific Ocean is bucking this trend: Researchers have found that the coral there thrives, rather than suffers, in locally acidic conditions.

Coral reefs grow by extracting calcium and carbonate ions from seawater and combining them to form calcium carbonate, the same hard mineral found in clam and snail shells. Both calcium and carbonate are generally abundant in seawater; however, as water becomes more acidic, carbonate levels drop and organisms struggle to gather enough to form their outer skeletons.

Image: Despite living in waters that are more acidic than average seawater, the corals living in the bays around Palau’s Rock Islands are unexpectedly diverse and healthy. Credit: Palau International Coral Reef Center 

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (“Emergent”) EBS -1.88% announced today the pricing of its offering of $215 million aggregate principal amount of 2.875% Convertible Senior Notes due 2021 (the “Notes”) in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), which was upsized from the previously announced $200 million offering. Emergent also granted the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to an additional $35 million aggregate principal amount of the Notes.

Global Innovation Summit is a living "design laboratory" to create real solutions for real-world problems in real time.  It's more than a conference; it's an experience.  Attendees will learn how to create and prototype solutions by applying design thinking to the hardest systemic challenges.  Bring your own personal challenges to work on. Register here!

Not too long ago, no one knew what Google was. It was a small company that did one thing very well, but its future as the world’s most pervasive brand was far from cemented. History shows Google owes much of its early growth to channel partnerships. Ironically, these partners included better-known sites AOL and Yahoo, which it would go on to dwarf — and now it makes billions as a channel partner for thousands of smaller brands. When it comes to leveraging partnerships for revenue and exposure, Google is the ultimate success story.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I am clearly on a digital health kick, blog-wise, as I look back on my last few posts. Having spent time at both CES and the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, where digital health was a hot topic, it seems that the subsector is definitely having its day in the sun. I was particularly honored to be named among the 2013 “Top 50 in Digital Health” by a group comprised of Rock Health, Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, and Fenwick & West. There are some pretty smart people on the list with me and it is very gratifying to be in such great company (nice article about the list by Wade Roush at Xconomy can be read HERE).

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

The tech sector is booming. If you've used a smartphone or logged on to a computer at least once in the last few years, you've probably noticed this.

As a result, coding skills are in high demand, with programming jobs paying significantly more than the average position. Even beyond the tech world, an understanding of at least one programming language makes an impressive addition to any resumé.

Image: http://mashable.com 

Ever wanted to surf without the fear of sharks? While there was not much you could do before, Joel Centeio is hoping to change that with his special shark repelling device.

The tiny box on the Velcro strap is called the Electronic Shark Defense System or ESDS.

Wilson Vinano created the lightweight machine. He said it emits an electric pulse that repels sharks by affecting the gel in a shark’s nose.

Image: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/images/sharks.jpg 

In this in-depth article we present how Open innovation meshes with crowd sourcing, drawing on ideation, market needs and opportunities, to fuel a balanced portfolio with actionable innovation challenges, or « the right things to do », and converges these with a need driven approach to source the ways of « doing things right ». We will illustrate this innovation continuity with a number of examples and a focus onto the food and drink industry.

Image Courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“WHEN an American asks me this question, it’s like a wall of ice crashing down between us.”

The question my Moscow-born friend Galina was referring to had nothing to do with Putin, or Pussy Riot, or the culinary ethics of adding ketchup to your pirogi. And yet, it is the back across which Russian-American relations are broken.

The question in question is, “How are you?”

http://www.nytimes.com

The industrial revolution brought efficiency but led to the decline of human creation by hand. We stopped tinkering and started operating machines, becoming inherently less ingenious.

Over the past century, new product developed hinged on access to expensive machines out of reach for the individual. Thus, new production development and innovation became the domain of companies with the cutting edge equipment.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Everyone has an innate ability to become a leader. There are a number of reasons why many do not become leaders or do not even see themselves as leaders with their own company. The greatest of these is possibly that they have not understood their own unique value. What they are passionate about and the exact reason they exist — the way in which they (uniquely) can change the world. Many refer to it as ‘purpose’ but I’d like to venture that purpose is merely being your authentic self — how you are when you are your best self. Not through the eyes of an envisioned visage of a perfect future you who will never exist, but the you that you are right now. The ability to recognise that inbuilt capability you execute with little effort, unending passion but has widespread impact. Giving yourself permission to be your authentic self is what ‘living your purpose’ is.

Image: http://ventureburn.com 

We’re only a few weeks into 2014 and already there is a great deal of talk about a tech bubble and the odds of it imploding this year.

A recent New York Times article observed that there are now more startups with billion-dollar valuations than at any other time in history. In the three years from 2011 through 2013, there were at least 34 venture-backed startups valued at $1 billion or above, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, compared with just 16 during the helium-filled dot-com era of 1998 to 2000.

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A recent CEB survey of C-suite executives indicates that organizations will require significantly higher performance—23% improvement, on average, in performance ratings— from their executive-level direct reports in the new year. How well are executives prepared to rise to that challenge?  Less than 20% of C-suite leaders had confidence their executives could stand the test.

A large part of the problem, our research suggests, has to do with the high failure rate of outside hires. Intuitively, people know it takes longer for outside hires to come up to speed than internal candidates. But our research shows just how dramatic the problem really is.

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There is a clearly established link between SMEs' rate of adoption of high technology and growth. Europe's companies need to stay ahead of the game, and can club together to help each other, writes Per Werngren.

Per Werngren is owner and CEO of Idenet AB, a private cloud hosting provider based in Sweden

Policy-makers and avid newspaper readers looking for solid proof of economic recovery often rely on news coming from Fortune 500 companies to take the pulse of the economy. The truth is that Europe’s economic comeback depends much more on its army of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) than on corporate elites.

Image: http://www.euractiv.com 

On 25 November the European Union and the Russian Federation will officially launch the EU-Russia year of science 2014 in Moscow. The current state of the research cooperation infrastructure needs uplifting to deliver effective results, writes Denis Maksimov.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Small business owners have a tendency to want to do it all. They jam-pack their schedules and overload their to-do lists, pausing only to sleep — if they're lucky. With so many things on their plates, entrepreneurs rarely feel like they're able to take the time to refresh and recharge. The problem is, constantly running around and stressing about your business means you're probably not at your peak performance levels.

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Every successful entrepreneur I know is also an avid reader. Most are regulars in business aisle at their local bookstore and are devoted readers of Forbes and other business publications. Successful entrepreneurs are typically hungry for knowledge and there is a wealth of it to tap into. With the start of a new year, here are some great books that will either inspire, instruct or maybe do a little of both. So if you’re looking for a book to read on an upcoming business trip, or are looking for a little extra motivation for 2014, here are some books that I found helpful recently, especially when I’ve faced business challenges.

 Image: http://flickr.com

“Curated food” startup DineInFresh Inc., better known as Plated, has raised $5 million in a Series A round led by ff Venture Capital, co-Chief Executive Nick Taranto told VentureWire. The round was joined by investors including Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective and Great Oaks Venture Capital. New York-based Plated assembles and delivers meal “boxes” to its customers that contain all the ingredients and instructions they need to cook a tasty, healthy meal at home from locally sourced ingredients.

Image: Art by Mike Lucas 

Richard Bendis Nominated Again!

Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five speakers within ten popular topic areas. Excellence in speaking is based on: expertise, professionalism, innovation within the topic area, client testimonials & references, presentation skills, original contribution to the field and votes. The only substantive requirement is that the candidates' keynote presentation fee must be under $30,000USD. 

NOTE: clicking on the VOTE button above will navigate you to the page to vote for Rich.  Instructions on how to vote are found there.  Merely clicking on the VOTE button above will NOT register a vote.  We appreciate your support!

The last days of 2013 have come and it’s time to look back in order to decide who really had a huge impact on people’s lives. We think that the best entrepreneur is the one who has innovated most through the year. Our ideal entrepreneur isn’t someone who has mixed a couple of ideas in order to build a product, the ideal entrepreneur is the one who really thinks ahead without caring about what the others are thinking or even doing. No matter what Google or Apple are releasing, the innovator is looking at his/her own path, which doesn’t cross any of these two companies.

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Rewind the clock one year, to December 2012, and the city of Boston didn't seem like a very obvious place to try to build a startup.

There were only a handful of places you could go to find a half-dozen or more startups clustered in the same spot. One was the MassChallenge entrepreneurship competition on Fan Pier, which was taking advantage of free rent in a mostly-empty tower. Another was Workbar Boston, a shared office space across from South Station where entrepreneurs and consultants could rent desks and conference rooms on a short-term basis. Space with a Soul brought together non-profits and mission-driven startups on Summer Street in Fort Point Channel, and Headquarters Boston offered a home for small manufacturing firms and artists.

Image: http://www.boston.com 

My mother was always lavish with advice, little of it original — she was hardly the first to caution against horizontal stripes for anyone broader than Barbie — but much of it unimpeachable. As 2013 draws to a close and I think about the fever pitch and jagged edges of so much of its discourse, I find myself flashing back on one of her caveats in particular.

Image: Earl Wilson/The New York Times 

During a meal, the stomach of a starfish comes out of its mouth and grabs hold of what it is eating. Figuring out what controls this process could mean good news for the coral that starfish feed on.  

There’s plenty of lip service in Washington about creating a better climate for startups and small businesses. So it’s disappointing to hear that a law designed to do just that is stalled indefinitely thanks to political posturing. But that’s exactly what seems to be happening with the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act H.R. 1105.

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Common sense is no replacement for science; plenty of "everyone knows" knowledge has had its legs cut out from under it by a well-designed study. Nevertheless, some research turns up results that don't exactly shock and awe.

Such no-duh research usually has a serious underlying purpose, from the study of why people cheat to the roots of racism. Researchers have to understand the basics of everyday phenomena in order to understand them, after all.

Image: Peter Turvey

It started with a gap in the market. 

Technology writing comes in many forms. It can be long and lyrical a la The New Yorker. And it can be bite-size — just enough news to grab and go. What we spotted was a lack of tactical storytelling, a need for compelling, long-form writing that would equip readers with tools and hacks they can deploy immediately to build better businesses. Our response is First Round Review.

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THE LONG-TERM future of congressional support for research and development is being shaped right now, and the stakes are high. Those of us who see firsthand the power of scientific research can offer a simple message for America’s policy makers: To help close the budget deficit, close the innovation deficit.

Image: http://www.bostonglobe.com 

The crowdfunding movement continued to grow in 2013, with the sector projected to have generated $5.1 billion globally worldwide over the past year. As crowdfunding has become more popular, the ambition of projects raising money on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo has also grown.

Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com 

My personal experience, confirmed by numerous studies, is:

• It’s faster to process email in batches rather than checking in 30 times/day. 
• Humans cannot multi-task, they just complete both tasks slower, and with lower quality. (Texting and driving, meetings and email) 
• The best ideas, new ideas, come in a flash when you’re not working.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jess Jacobs and Donna Cryer are experts on the healthcare system — professionally and personally.

Jacobs has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and describes it best in her own words:

I have an idiopathic condition. It lies somewhere between the heart, autonomic nervous system, and mind. It’s a veritable no-mans land of drugs and specialists where there’s no cure and very little understanding.

 

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Happy New Year from the Innovation America team!

If you want a flavor for what is at the core of Switch and Shift’s thought leadership, this is the post for you. Below, in descending order, are the twelve most-shared posts of 2013 from the heart and soul of this site, our League of Extraordinary Thinkers.

What amazes us is the diversity of this group. In the collection below, you’ll find top authors and sought-out consultants, inspirational speakers and CEOs, a social media power influencer and even a general still serving active duty in Afghanistan!

 Image: http://switchandshift.com

I’ve written before about the merits of convertible equity for the startup. Recently, I heard about companies that took convertible notes as bridge loans, so I thought it useful to again highlight the potential pitfalls. As you know, a convertible note is a form of a loan. Typically it is converted into stock of the company at a future round of financing. But if there is no future round of financing, the lender (investor) can call the note and demand repayment. In the stories I just heard, when the companies couldn’t repay the notes, the lenders (the investors) foreclosed.

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In what could possibly be the best publicity stunt for an upcoming company ever conceived, the Holderness family has put together the best video Christmas card ever. Uploaded a week ago the video is at just over seven million views and going strong.

Image: http://memeburn.com 

Since its inception in 2007, Otis College of Art and Design’s Annual Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region (Otis Report) has been an invaluable tool to assess the tremendous impact and influence of the area’s creative sector on the economy.

This year, the California Arts Council awarded Otis funds to expand the report to include analysis of the entire state of California, showing how the state’s economy is impacted by jobs in the arts, design, education, entertainment, nonprofits, and independent creative professions. The report will also provide a forecast for 2016. The California Arts Council’s commitment underscores the belief that creativity is essential to California’s successful workforce investment and economic development strategies.

Rockville, Md. – From Sept. 15-25, Montgomery County executive Ike Leggett led a trip for four cities in China: Shanghai, Xi’an, Benxi, and the Gu’an County right outside of Beijing. The trip included over 80 business, education, and government leaders from Montgomery County and the DC metropolitan area including Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) superintendent Joshua Starr, county council member Hans Riemer, and Michael Goldman of the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA).

Image: http://www.asianfortunenews.com 

It's a good question that was raised in Silicon Valley two years ago when Angela Benton met legendary investor Mitch Kapor and founded NewMe, the first accelerator in Silicon Valley focused on black startup founders. Soledad O'Brien's "Black in America" series catalyzed a national debate when it spotlighted the NewMe Accelerator and the controversy over a dearth of black tech talent in Silicon Valley. Earlier this year, Chad Womack, Ph.D., National Director of STEM Education at the UNCF (United Negro College Fund), made it his personal quest to address the question. And that was the genesis of the idea to produce an unprecedented gathering of HBCU leadership in Silicon Valley.

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Dubai-based investors Arya Bolurfrushan and Paul Kenny today announced the launch of their new venture capital firm, Emerge Ventures, focused on high-impact early stage investments in Middle East technology companies. Emerge Ventures aims to give international and regional investors access to the budding tech start-up market in the Middle East, with a particular bias towards infrastructural e-commerce.  

Image: http://www.cpifinancial.net 

New surfaces make water bounce, faster.

On the face of it, the value of a marine reserve — the equivalent of a national park or wildlife preserve on land — seems obvious. The oceans are in trouble, and setting aside regions of biodiversity, where fishing is strictly limited, if not prohibited, is one of the few effective means of protecting many species at once. But politically, there is nothing simple about creating marine reserves in international waters. Recently, China and Russia succeeded in blocking, yet again, the creation of a large marine reserve in Antarctica.

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SMS turns 21 today, which means your texts are about to get totally wasted.

On Dec. 3, 1992, a software architect in the U.K. sent the world's first text message. In the 21 years since its invention, texting has emerged as an integral part of our connected lives. We text happy moments, sad moments and, most importantly, drunk moments.

Image: http://mashable.com 

Many successful creative people have the same personality trait in common: they are open to new experiences.

Psychologist Art Markman defines "openness to experience" as "the degree to which a person is willing to consider new ideas and opportunities." This runs along a spectrum: on one end, you have people who love novelty and dig the idea of doing new things and entertaining new ideas; on the other, there are those who like to stay with familiar ideas and tried-and-true activities.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com 

Many of us work in an endless stream of tasks, browser tabs, social media, emails, meetings, rushing from one thing to another, never pausing, and never ending.

Then the day is over, and we are exhausted, and we often have very little to show for it. And we start the next day, ready for a mindless stream of tasks and distractions.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com 

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced funding opportunities in its 2014 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs that will be of interest to the LED-centric industry. The agency will consider proposals that range from enabling component and electronics development to system-level technologies including adaptive controls that can enable more-efficient solid-state lighting (SSL).

In the four years since the U.S. government created data.gov, the first national repository for open data, more than 400,000 datasets have become available online from 175 agencies like the USDA, the Department of Energy, and the EPA. Governments all over the world have taken steps to make their data more transparent and available to the public. But in practice, much of that data--accessible as spreadsheets through sites like data.gov--is incomprehensible to the average person, who might not know how to wrangle huge data sets. Never-ending tables mean next to nothing to me, even if I know that they might be hiding some interesting relationship within their numbers, like how income stacks up with happiness.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com 

Something happened to our phones, and it’s not just a change in size and functionality. It’s a complete transformation in everyday life — and certainly in how we identify ourselves.

To say that most of us are attached to our phones is like saying we think oxygen is a handy substance to have around. Most of us couldn’t get by without our phones; we have them on all the time, never share them, and don’t even turn them off when we go to bed. You can measure our dependence by the feeling of panic when we think we’ve lost it somewhere.

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For killer whales, silence is golden as they hunt in complete darkness, listening for sounds of their marine mammal prey, and then rushing in for the kill, new research suggests.

"The mammal hunters are very, very silent," said study co-author Volker Deecke, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Cumbria in England. "Most of the time you don't hear any calls or clicks and it's only after a kill that they become vocal."

Image Credit: David Ellifrit Centre for Whale Research 

European Young Innovators Forum's president Kumardev Chatterjee contributed to the New York Time's State of the (European) Union debate with opinion article "Embrace Entrepreneurship" on finding sustainable solutions to the European economic crisis.

Written by Kumardev CHATTERJEE for the World Economic Forum (WEF), on invitation in the frame of the WEF’s European Entrepreneurship Initiative, where EYIF is a core partner, co-leading the Promotion of Entrepreneurship activity. This post is reblogged from the WEF’s original post, bit.ly/WEFblog, for the EYIF community.

Image Courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Google already runs much of the digital lives of consumers through email, Internet searches and YouTube videos. Now it wants the corporations, too.

More Tech Coverage News from the technology industry, including start-ups, the Internet, enterprise and gadgets. On Twitter: @nytimesbits. The search giant has for years been evasive about its plans for a so-called public cloud of computers and data storage that is rented to individuals and businesses. On Tuesday, however, it will announce pricing, features and performance guarantees aimed at companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals.

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Yogurt eaters already know that not all bacteria are bad for you. They may not realize that some bacteria are so important that one day people may fight off disease with pills filled with bacteria instead of drugs.

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My affection for entrepreneurs is matched only by my obsession for comedy and French things. Over the past decade I’ve been related to them, elevated them, dated them…and at times, even hated them.

A former colleague of mine and I spent years launching tech startups in the U.S. market. Along the way, we encountered hundreds of entrepreneurs, guided them through tough decisions, and often talked them off cliffs -- acting more as psychologists than communications professionals.

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Kenya is in the middle of a technology revolution. It is bustling with innovations driven by the strong entrepreneurial spirit of people hoping to replicate the successes of the revolutionary M-Pesa service or Ushahidi technology company.

As a result, the country has attracted its fair share of investors looking to harness the wealth of potential on display. From one incubation hub to the next, entrepreneurs are proving to be bursting with creativity and mind-boggling ideas.

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@WSJSTARTUP: In this video chat from Monday, Dec., 2, experts discuss what it takes to become an angel investor. Click the “play” button below to hear from Brian Cohen, chairman of New York Angels and author of “What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know”; Marianne Hudson, executive director of the Angel Capital Association; and Dave Berkus, president of Berkus Technology Ventures. For more, read “What You Need to Know to Become an Angel Investor.”

Image: http://blogs.wsj.com 

Figuring out what to get that special entrepreneur on your list? Here’s our annual entrepreneur’s gift guide, compiled by the folks at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Experts, professors, investors, and veteran entrepreneurs weighed in on the best things to buy your favorite budding business owner. Also included are the top wish-list items from some entrepreneurs we’ve spoken with in the past year.

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A lot of things about Christmas change as you move from childhood into an adult.

The endless expanse of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve seems to shrink, presents become a responsibility instead of magically appearing under your tree, and the Christmas movies you've loved forever just don't feel the same.

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It was a hot summer day in Spain. I had been riding my motorcycle along the beautiful, sun-drenched streets of a University campus I was visiting in Barcelona when I looked over to the right to read a street sign. Just then, a little red Smart car in front of me slammed on the brakes. I braced for impact, and then seemed to watch in slow motion as I smashed into the back of the car, totaling my bike. (As a side note, Smart cars are a lot more solid than they look.) I escaped with only minor injuries, but something deep in my psyche had been triggered.

Image: medcitynews.com

The current US model for technology transfer isn’t working. Rather than depending on out-licensing to the highest bidder, universities should support researchers to turn entrepreneur and nurture their own start-ups, says Walter Valdivia

Image: http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net

It’s been a relatively quiet year for facility investment projects from Merck KGaA, the life sciences and chemical firm that employs more than 38,000 around the world and reported 2012 revenues of more than US$15 billion. But the past fortnight has been something else entirely.

On Nov. 15, Merck announced an €80-million (US$108.3-million) investment in a new pharmaceutical manufacturing facility to be located in the Nantong Economical Technological Development Area (NETDA) in the Greater Shanghai region (Yangtze River Delta area).

Image: http://siteselection.com/ 

Heart attacks, anaphylactic shock and clinical decision support for healthcare workers in rural clinics in developing countries. Those are the targets of a group of mobile health apps that could help decide the future of mhealth technology commercialization at the university. It’s part of a new program at  the University of Pennsylvania.

Six apps were chosen by development firms who will produce prototypes for the Center for Technology Transfer. The first three were conceived by faculty from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and qualify for UpStart’s incubator program. A drug verifier app, developed by a Wharton business school student, will get advice from UpStart’s new student entrepreneur adviser program. Aside from Resuscor, each of them fit the description for the Noble Mobile category — an app to improve society.

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Before 1960, the only way to treat cardiac arrest involved opening up the chest cavity and applying manual cardiac massage. The surgeon would take the heart in his hands and squeeze it ever so cautiously to a distinct rhythm in order to help pump blood to the brain and other important organs, giving the patient a chance at life once again. While a bold method, it was rarely attempted and more often than not didn't prove successful.

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From the glasses of wine with Thanksgiving dinner to the champagne toast on New Year's, alcohol is often a familiar sight at holiday celebrations.

But if you're taking one or more medications a day — whether they're over-the-counter or prescription — is it safe to raise a glass or two, or should you avoid drinking altogether?

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Several pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Merck (NYSE: MRK) , and Bayer (NYSE: have been taking steps to infuse their pipelines with new drug drugs by developing incubators  to identify life science innovations that fit in with their longterm goals. Now Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG)  is collaborating with a biotech incubator backed by early stage life science and healthcare investor Versant Ventures, according to a company statement.

The Toronto-based incubator, Blueline Bioscience, works with academic and medical research centers in Canada to fund and develop early-stage biotechnology companies. The collaboration will give a Celgene affiliate certain option rights for research in areas of joint strategic interest such as oncology and inflammation.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dmitry Grishin spent years building Internet companies in Russia, first with Molotok.ru, an eBay copycat he founded in 2000, and then as a cofounder and CEO of Mail.ru Group, a Russian Internet conglomerate that is essentially that country’s version of Yahoo. But lately he’s been hoping to translate his success online to the world of personal robotics—a lifelong love—with the launch last year of venture firm Grishin Robotics, which has so far made five investments in companies ranging from hardware accelerator Bolt to on-demand, inexpensive satellite provider NanoSatisfi. This year, the 34-year-old was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35.

Image: www.technologyreview.com

The Hamburg startup Secucloud has broken the record: no other business in Europe in the seed phase has ever reached a financing amount of 500,000 euros faster via crowdfunding. The investors on the Seedmatch platform have raised this amount in just one day, ten hours and four minutes. “We are incredibly happy about the successful financing and are very thankful to the investors for their trust,” says Secucloud founder and CEO Dennis Monner. “The quick financing shows that our product meets a large demand. A simple and cost-effective solution for the IT security of private individuals and small businesses is a hot topic.” Together with an additional funding campaign on the American platform Kickstarter, which will launch shortly, all of Secucloud's capital requirements can be covered by crowdfunding. The SecuBox+ and complementary security apps are now being developed at great speed.

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"I realized recently that one of the things I love about short deadlines," illustrator Christoph Niemann tells 99u, "is that people think straight."

How so? Imagine the world of Christoph Niemann. He works with major clients like the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. He's a badass illustrator of whimsy and precision: consider, for instance, the brilliance of his Let It Dough photo essay, now seasonally appropriate. The creative commonality: the best work comes from close-cropped, anxiety-inducing deadlines, Niemann says.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Given the level of excitement the concept of Open Innovation has caused in the media in recent years, one would assume that this approach has become a common tool used by organizations to achieve their innovation goals.

Indeed, this year’s study by Henry Chesbrough and Sabine Brunswicker shows that large companies in Europe and the U.S. are increasingly using open innovation in their business practices. However, when asked which specific open innovation tools they employ the most, the respondent chose customer co-creation, informal networking and university grants. At the same time, crowdsourcing and working with open innovation services providers (OISP) were rated lowest in importance.

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When you're in the kitchen, you have a choice between cooking everything from scratch or using pre-mixed ingredients to make the process quicker and easier. Starting a business isn't all that different. The decision on which incubator, if any, you should join boils down to how much of your entrepreneurial sauce you can, want and should try to make on your own.

Entrepreneurs have limited time, knowledge and resources. Therefore they need to focus on what matters most to them and what they need to do better than their competitors. But the rest still needs to get done and that’s where incubators can be of great help. Bt because incubator services come at a price -- cash, equity or opportunity costs -- this is a serious business decision to be carefully evaluated.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since the general solicitation ban had been lifted and additional requirements had been added in The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act or JOBS Act, The Wall Street Journal revealed that over 320 small businesses had informed the US Securities and Exchange Commission that they would seize the opportunities of the new marketing freedoms provided in the statute. The projection by The Journal was deduced via an analysis of securities filings conducted by the news agency. Of the lot, a handful of them were able to raise capital via the new marketing freedoms, said The Journal.

Image Courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) today announced the launch of a major new partnership focused on entrepreneurship on the UW-Madison campus, building on a long legacy of collaboration to move scientific innovation to the marketplace.

What is it about the “impossible” that seems to inspire, to call us to extraordinary effort, and almost by magic compel us to attempt what might seem unreasonable, unlikely or irrational?

We are wired to achieve, it seems, and calling out to that inner drive is what may distinguish the innovative, dynamic organization from the staid, somber one.  Goethe famously said:  “There is genius in bold action.”  Genius, yes, and much more besides.  Inside of bold action you may very well find the magic formula for innovative behavior and values.  

A mysterious disease that has turned hundreds of starfish into limp lumps of goo along both the East and West coasts in recent months could potentially induce a cascade of other ecological effects in tidal systems, researchers say.

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It is now well known that successful companies often have an annoying habit of missing the next big thing. Harvard’s Clayton Christensen coined it the innovator’s dilemma. He also produced advice on how to avoid the fate.

Image: Achmand Ibrahim/AP

Serial entrepreneur Steve Teig explains why he only starts a company once he is sure he can deliver on the top-level technology questions.

By sequencing the genomes of 100,000 patients and integrating the resulting data into medical care, the U.K. could become the first country to introduce genome sequencing into its mainstream health system. The U.K. government hopes that the investment will improve patient outcomes while also building a genomic medicine industry. But the project will test the practical challenges of integrating and safeguarding genomic data within an expansive health service.

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Greenwood Racing Inc. leaders on Wednesday pledged to pump more money into the local economy and generate more jobs than either of their competitors bidding for the one and only casino license up for grabs in Prince George’s County. Tony Ricci, CEO of Greenwood Racing, estimated its Parx Casino proposal could create about 5,700 permanent jobs and create $1 billion in economic impact when it is up and running. That includes, he said, more slot machines at its selected 26-acre site in Fort Washington than competitors Penn National Gaming Inc. and MGM Resorts International have proposed at either Rosecroft Raceway or National Harbor, respectively.

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I posed that question this week to my friend Dr. Phil Windley, an expert technologist, Executive Producer of IT Conversations and a serial entrepreneur. He and co-founder Stephen Fulling have launched multiple ventures together beginning with iMALL Inc., which they sold to Excite@home in 1999. Disclosure: I have no current business relationship with Windley and Fulling but provided PR counsel to their company Kynetx in 2009-2010.

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AstraZeneca and Taiwan’s National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals (NRPB) today announced a collaborative program to support academic research proposals using open innovation as a catalyst for drug discovery. The program will connect expert physicians and scientists with a wide range of high-quality, small molecule compounds and biologics developed by AstraZeneca.

The number of female entrepreneurs is growing slowly in Canada, but still accounts for just a small proportion of all small-business owners and remains an “untapped resource.”

A new study by Royal Bank of Canada economist Laura Cooper shows women were majority owners of only 15.6 per cent of all small and medium-sized businesses in Canada as of 2011, an increase from 14.9 per cent in 2007 and 13.7 per cent in 2004.

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Mary Jo White said it. It’s on C-SPAN. Crowdfunding rules could finally be released this fall. I don’t really like writing news about no news, but given the keen interest in the marketplace to learn something, here is a quick update.

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Kayaker Steve Fisher knows a thing or two about doing the impossible.

Fisher, who was named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2013, paddled the Congo River’s notorious Inga Rapids. The last attempt of its kind ended in tragedy when seven French explorers lost their lives on the same journey in 1985.

Image: Steve Fisher Courtesy of fastcompany.com

NYSERDA is considering a new program to fund venture accelerators that will nurture new clean energy startups and position them for investment and rapid growth. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority expects to fund at least two such accelerators at locations within New York State, through a public competitive solicitation. One of these may focus on hardware-based technologies.

In 1905, at the astoundingly young age of 26, Albert Einstein came up with the quantum theory of light, proved the existence of atoms, and created the theory of special relativity. If you're wondering how so much genius could possibly be jam-packed into one head, a new study just published in the journal Brain, provides a clue.

Biocrossroads, which provides money and support to Indiana’s life sciences industry, announced the seven finalists who stand to gain startup funding in its annual New Venture Competition. Six have biotech or healthcare in their sights. On Oct. 21, five of these companies will compete for $25,000 and access to the Indiana Seed II Fund‘s staff and network for early-stage business support at the Indiana Life Sciences Summit. Second and third place in this competition will rake in $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.

When Europe took its first, tentative steps towards creating a common market in 1951, it was all about coal and steel. A continent facing the challenge of rebuilding after World War Two felt the need to pool its resources to feed its machines and build up its industry. But what if today's challenge to build digital infrastructure were just as important? What if technological innovation were just as important to Europe's future today as traditional industries had been in the 1950s?

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Think back to your first childhood beach vacation. Can you recall the color of your bathing suit, the softness of the sand, or the excitement of your first swim in the ocean? Early memories such as this often arise as faded snapshots, remarkably distinct from newer memories that can feel as real as the present moment. With time, memories not only lose their rich vividness, but they can also become distorted, as our true experiences tango with a fictional past.

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Bill Gates in his forward to Edison and the Rise of Innovation writes:

“Edison consciously built on ideas from predecessors as well as contemporaries. And just as important, he assembled a team of people--engineers, chemists, mathematicians, and machinists--that he trusted and empowered to carry out his ideas. Names like Batchelor and Kruesi may not be famous today, but without their contributions, Edison might not be either.”

With so much content available to you online, it’s hard to filter out and decipher what the best sources of information are. This is especially true when it comes to health and medicine, as so many people are either looking for advice on the subject or dishing it out. With so many so-called experts on the matter, it’s important to stick to the people who have credibility behind their name and you can trust.

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Social media is an important way in which your business should be communicating with the world. If your social media has become ineffective, the results can be detrimental to your brand and eventually to your bottom line.

Fortunately, there are some easy fixes to a broken down social media campaign. Social media expert Lisa Barone suggests some of the top options for bringing your social media campaign back to life.

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When it comes to life science investors looking at deals in the booming field of health IT, some are sticking with the old line, “It’s not you; it’s me.”

Certainly many life science investors are making bets in health IT, but many others have shied away, even as the market matures and exits pick up. According to panelists at Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Innovation Summit, the hesitancy is not necessarily because investors aren’t convinced of the value of these companies.

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Apple has hired Angela Ahrendts, chief executive of traditional fashion retailer Burberry, as the new head of its online and retail stores.

Ahrendts will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Ahrendts will oversee the strategic direction, expansion, and operation of both Apple retail and online stores, which have drawn hundreds of millions of consumers from around the globe. You can bet that this means that Apple plans to shake up its retail presence and stay on the cutting edge of selling.

The vast majority of organizations are surprisingly slow to reshuffle their resources. When we conducted a large-scale analysis of the reallocation patterns of multibusiness companies, for instance, we found that most of them awarded each business in their portfolio an unchanging percentage of total corporate capital year after year between 1990 and 2005. Yet the returns were higher and the volatility lower at organizations that reallocated more actively.

It seems obvious that entrepreneurs must be able to talk well to sell their products. After all, you have to be a salesman to convince your customer to choose your technology over others.

But here’s the thing that some entrepreneurs tend to forget: You also need to listen well. Before you pitch your product to customers, let the customers do the talking.

I feel for the journalist, because I see in them the same geekery that inhabits my fellow software developers.

They’re different in detail but identical in kind.

They work in packs, but the individual has something to prove. They labor in parallel, joining together just before release. They enjoy the artful skill of their fellow producers, and genuinely want success for the person sitting to their left, but secretly want to demonstrate their own superiority, and find more fulfillment in the achievement of that respect than that of their readership.

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LEE NEWMAN: One innovation of great importance would be the use of technology to facilitate feedback. The research findings are unequivocal: Immediate and specific feedback is among the most critical ingredients in the learning process—and yet this type of feedback is still so rare, even in top educational institutions. The economics of education exerts a quite visible hand on both the number of students per teacher as well as how much teachers are paid. Ultimately, these two economic forces limit both the quantity and quality of feedback that students receive. This needs to change, and technology holds great promise for making this change happen.

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It’s beginning to look as if the future of healthcare is here. Well, almost. In the healthcare industry, technology and legislation are poised to collide. Legislation, such as the Affordable Care Act, is changing the way providers treat their patients. Meanwhile, technology including mobile devices, social software and big data-driven apps that revolutionize business and consumer lifestyles are now filtering into healthcare.

Question: What’s the best way to balance having kids while also running a startup?

1. Schedule, Schedule, Schedule

“As an entrepreneur who is also a mom to a 19-month old, I understand balancing work and kids while running a business. The key is to schedule out as much as you can, but maintain some flexibility. I have a set work day but I also know that if I wake up and my daughter is sick, it’s going to mean shifting things around. Most days though, I work my full day and then leave to be with her 100 percent.”

- Erin Blaskie | CEO, Erin Blaskie, Digital Strategist 

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Opposites, as you may know, attract.

But they also do something else: Pairing up with someone who provides complementary contrast may actually make the both of you more productive.

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The day's purportedly most important meal is more than meets the eye: science shows that the when and what of your breakfast transforms how your mind works the rest of the day.

How so? As a new paper published in the Frontiers of Human Neuroscience argues, breaking your fast is a many-faceted thing. Authors Tanya and Eugene Zilberter scoop up platefuls of research on meals and contend that breakfast in many ways shapes who you are--whether you can handle glucose or not, how old you are, and other factors--and what you're eating has different outcomes for your mental life.

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In case we needed another reason to close the 15 extra browser tabs we have open, Clifford Nass, a communication professor at Stanford, has provided major motivation for monotasking: according to his research, the more you multitask, the less you're able to learn, concentrate, or be nice to people.

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“This has been an amazing experience,” observed Victoria Kisyombe, an entrepreneur who founded a leasing company in Tanzania to help other entrepreneurs gain access to the coolers and freezers, sewing machines, baking ovens, gravel-making machines, or tractors and trucks they needed to pursue their dreams. “It is a business that allows me to give to others, but has simultaneously contributed so much to my own personal development.” Victoria’s experience is both unique and commonplace throughout the emerging economies and developing countries. Myriad women entrepreneurs have launched a business, some in response to a perceived opportunity, many out of necessity given a lack of viable alternatives.

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Here’s what we know about the Affordable Care Act: 32 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured will now have coverage. What you might not know is that Obamacare could also boost entrepreneurship by decoupling healthcare from employment.

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You know the old adage, "Don't shoot the messenger." Well, it's wrong. If you're a leader and you're message isn't getting heard, chances are the problem isn't the message itself. It's the way you're presenting it.

This is the fifth in a multi-part series on how to communicate as a leader. You can check out my previous columns on how different approaches (analytical, structural, social, and conceptual) will help you get through to your team more effectively. Here I'll cover the importance of how you express yourself--and how to harness the full spectrum of expressiveness as a leader to be clearer, more trustworthy, as well as inspiring.

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Every year IBM puts together SmartCamp sessions that showcase some of the world’s most promising startups. This year, the pitching sessions for the Africa leg of SmartCamp took place at the Tech4Africa conference. “IBM SmartCamps judge the best startup companies in different cities around the globe, rewarding the winners with mentoring, services, access to industry experts and deeper partnership opportunities from IBM, venture capital firms and industry partners, says Paul Brunet, Vice President of ISVs, Startups and Academic Programmes for IBM.

The European Comission 2010a file says that before the experts talked of smart specialization, most regional authorities applied their policies without taking into account the plurality and diversity of their contexts. And so there was a need for reassessment, in order to make way for strategies to improve competitiveness through a productive transformation of the economy based on diversification.

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Open innovation is for many a new scary, but hopefully exciting paradigm within the weird and wonderful world of innovation, data, insight, brainstorming and co-creation.

It comes with a sack full of new (or newly defined) buzzwords. It embraces and converges often with a other connected and similarly fascinating new(ish) approaches to working, such as collaboration and social. But does it work?

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. – Steve Jobs

When you were growing up, were the conversations at your house centered on concepts about business, or more along the line of "go get a job?"  Entrepreneurship is not a subject that is discussed regularly around the dinner table in African-American homes. There’s a lack of business traditions among African Americans and a paltry record of entrepreneurial successes.  Smaller probabilities of having self-employed parents, demographic trends and discrimination are primary reasons for the limited level of entrepreneurship in contemporary African-American communities.

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At the annual Black Hat security conference this summer, researchers demonstrated how it would be possible to add malware to an iPhone by connecting it to a modified charger. Now a mobile security startup is attempting to do the opposite, by selling a charger that can scan your smartphone for malware—and repair it, if necessary—while powering it up.

Lei Jun, a successful angel investor, is the founder and CEO of smartphone maker Xiaomi. He is also the chairman of Hong Kong-listed Kingsoft,Stefen Chow for The Wall Street Journal

DES MOINES | Cedar Falls entrepreneur, real estate developer and IT consultant Mark Kittrell has made a career out of starting up businesses.

Now, he is taking that expertise to a statewide level as the new president of the Des Moines-based Iowa Innovation Corp.

Image: Brandon Pollock

The NYeC Digital Health Conference 2013 has been awarded a maximum of 9.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™!

The Digital Health Conference brings together a diverse group of professionals for two days of lively intellectual exchange.

Entrepreneurship education in higher education is exploding right now: 5,000 colleges and universities offered entrepreneurship courses in 2013.

Kauffman Foundation also reports that more than 500 universities have instituted majors, minors or certificates in entrepreneurship. “The Benefits of Entrepreneurship Education” podcast explores entrepreneurship in higher education with four guests very familiar with the topic: Deborah Hoover, Burton D. Morgan Foundation; Peter Abramo, College of Wooster; Julie Messing, Kent State University; and MBA student/entrepreneur JeShaune Jackson.

The UK launch of the European Union's new programme for research and innovation, the Horizon 2020 programme, is imminent. The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN) is helping to promote this €70 billion programme to tackle societal challenges by helping to bridge the gap between research and commercial organisations.

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Australia has missed out on a top ten ranking for information technology factors and related areas, according to a global innovation index that looked at 84 different indicators in 142 economies to determine which was the most innovative.

South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and United Kingdom took the top five spots in the GIobal Innovation Index 2013 information and communication technologies ratings, followed by the United States, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Israel.

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The National Creativity Network announces the release of AMERICA’S CREATIVE ECONOMY: A STUDY OF RECENT CONCEPTIONS, DEFINITIONS, AND APPROACHES TO MEASUREMENT ACROSS THE USA. The 141-page free report is the most comprehensive study to date on creative economies across America – especially focused on how regions and organizations conceptualize and track that segment of their local economy that fosters and taps imagination, creativity, and innovation to create and deliver goods, products, and services.

A total of 27 reports published between 2002 – 2012 were analyzed by the research team as a project of the Creative Economy Coalition (CEC), a working group of the National Creativity Network, and informed by the CEC National Research Advisory Council. Reports and interviews from medium and large cities and their surrounding environs, entire states, and regional studies covering many states were gathered and analyzed. Over half of the states in America are represented in the report, a testament to the widespread interest of communities to better understand, measure, and grow their creative economies. These developments are consistent with worldwide interest in creative economies ranging from longstanding creative economy efforts in the United Kingdom, many Commonwealth countries, other nations and regions in Europe, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and recent and growing interest in South America, Africa, and Asia.

Every entrepreneur tries to maximize his startup growth by building and selling more product and services for the widest geographic area that he can support. This strategy is called “organic growth,” yet it alone may yield only a fraction of the potential you could achieve, unless you add the additional strategies of partnerships and M&A (mergers and acquisitions).

Many entrepreneurs are paranoid about the partnership approach, and think that M&A is only an alternative for large companies who are flush with cash. Both of these qualms are wrong and shortsighted. Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell explain why in their book, “Build, Borrow, or Buy: Solving the Growth Dilemma.”

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It’s that time of the year: Cast your vote for the FedScoop 50 Awards, which honor 50 of the best and the brightest in the federal IT sector.

The pace of mergers and acquisitions of venture-backed companies is running behind last year despite an IPO market that promises to rival 2007.

Robert Galbraith/Reuters The logo of Twitter Inc., one of a dozen venture-backed companies filing IPO paperwork publicly during the third quarter. There were 310 M&A deals through the first nine months of 2013, a 12% drop from the same period last year, when there were 353 transactions, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

The value of this year’s activity fell 31%, to $24.69 billion from $35.74 billion a year ago.

There’s been lots of speculation as to what the government shutdown means for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — including various reports that our food isn’t getting inspected.

Just over half of the FDA staff members are still working. Those not furloughed are those who perform vital roles around the safety of human life, high-risk recalls, civil and criminal investigations, or certain activities authorized to be funded by carried-over industry user fees.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startup, or JOBS, Act of 2012 will make it possible for companies to raise up to $1 million by tapping individuals through online portals, just as soon as the Securities and Exchange Commission has written the rules for these investments. Some observers claim that equity crowdfunding – these efforts to raise small amounts of equity from many people to finance a business – will "spell trouble for the guys on Sand Hill Road" and "quickly push aside more traditional capital providers like bad VCs."

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It has long been apparent that the logistics industry tends to be a leading indicator for the overall economy. During the early stages of an economic upswing, customers begin to ship more goods in anticipation of stronger business conditions. Conversely, a decrease in logistics demand may signal the beginning of an economic slump.

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Ahh, open enrollment season. It’s the time human resources and benefits professionals spend much of the year preparing for, even though many American workers don’t think twice about their health benefits from one year to the next.

However, this year, open enrollment should be given a second thought … and maybe third and fourth thoughts, too.

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Taxes aren’t usually the stuff of high drama. But a story that began last year when a California state appeals court unexpectedly struck down an old tax incentive for small-business investors—and that unfolded, in part, here in the pages of Xconomy—has, after numerous twists and turns, reached its end. On Friday California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill quashing the state tax board’s move to levy up to $120 million in back taxes and penalties on entrepreneurs who’d taken advantage of the investment incentive in past tax years.

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How can leaders spark and sustain change in themselves and their organizations?

I devoted my doctoral research to this question and came up with an unconventional answer:  metaphors. My co-author Richard Badham and I wrote about four of them in this HBR article:  fire (representing ambition), snowball (accountability), movie (reflection) and mask (authenticity). Others include:  master chef (use of tools and frameworks), coach (internal and external support) and Russian dolls (organizational context), which I covered in this blog post.

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Over all, community colleges deliver a negative return on investment to taxpayers, and 15 percent of them produce graduates who earn less than if they had never enrolled, according to a controversial report being released on Thursday.

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The moon jellyfish is slow, but there's a reason for that. Its undulating pace allows it to swim more efficiently than just about anything in the ocean.

On todays show David talks about both good and bad habits and how you can replace the bad ones, with good ones.

What you will learn on todays show:

• The difference between breaking, and replacing a bad habit 
• The role stress or boredom plays in creating bad habits 
• Why a substitute habit is important 
• Why cutting out triggers works 
• The importance of a wingman or woman 
• Using the word ‘however’ and managing negative self talk

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Flowering trees, a spa and 6-foot-tall perimeter wall await Facebook employees moving into the company's planned housing complex.

Planning documents obtained by Valleywag outline the $120 million complex's amenities.

Staffers can look forward to the building's rooftop terrace, quad featuring "flowering canopy trees" and fountain, and a backyard recreation area that includes a pool, spa and bocce-ball court. There's alsoa dog park, bike parking and an entertainment courtyard with synthetic turf.

It what looks like something out of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory — or maybe Minority Report but with teeny tiny people — Fox News unveiled on Monday what it believes to be the future of the newsroom.

In a video posted to Fox News this morning (embedded below), anchor Shepard Smith debuted the Fox News Deck, where journalists will be on camera as they sift through posts on Twitter and Facebook to keep track of emerging news. But staffers will be using large 55-inch Microsoft touchscreens in the background of the broadcast.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 8 (Bernama) -- In conjunction with the upcoming edition of the three-day Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Kuala Lumpur starting this Friday, Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd and Angels Den have commenced a business matching event themed "Ideas To Invest" (i2i).

The nine-day programme, from Oct 4 to 12 at TM Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur brings together ICT product developers and entrepreneurs in a competition that could take their ideas and concept to greater heights.

Image: Foto Bernama

I am so very tired of MBO-based bonuses in startups. I knew the concept of MBOs pre-dated my time in business school, but I couldn’t remember where they came from. Wikipedia reminded me – it’s another Peter Drucker creation from The Practice of Management.

I’ve only worked in what could be considered a “big” company for 18 months (1993 – 1995) and that was the company (AmeriData) that bought my first company (Feld Technologies). When they acquired us, they weren’t  big (probably 200 people) and when I left they still weren’t really big (2,000 people) but were “big enough.” So the joy, and experience, of working in a 50,000 or even 100,000 person company eludes me.

DC Entreneurship week kicks off today in our nation's capital, with the goal of bringing together "entrepreneurial communities to provide resources, knowledge and connections for businesses to succeed." Hosted by dcew.org, this week is chock full of great events covering topics ranging from the state of the D.C. startup community, how to pitch to an investor and more. Be sure to check out their website for a complete schedule of events and speakers for the upcoming week. 

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Jena (Germany) Entrepreneurship plays an important role for the prosperity of today's modern societies. Those who want to found a company under their own steam and who want to make it an economic success, need more than a good idea and the necessary expertise. Business founders usually are characterized by a quite specific entrepreneurial personality structure. Great companies with long traditions are proof of this, as well as numerous scientific studies. "People with an entrepreneurial personality structure are more open to new experience, more extravert and conscientious. Moreover, they are less anxious and don't tend to avoid conflicts with others," Dr. Martin Obschonka of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) explains. Such a personality structure doesn't come from nowhere. According to the psychologist it is much rather a result of genetic factors and also of experience.

A total of 284 researchers are to receive up to €3.5 million each for basic research, while 33 top-up grants will test the commercial potential of leading ideas.

Researchers across Europe have won grants from the European Research Council (ERC) for projects including exploring the limits of life on Mars and considering the inequalities in capitalist societies, as well as closer-to-market activities such as the development of a tablet PC-based application for detecting consciousness after coma in real-time and creating a web-based tool to make digital mapping more accessible to non-expert users.

Nothing says you've got a few pounds to lose like looking in the mirror. Here, an artist holds up a mirror to America's expanding waist line.

The obesity crisis is hard to visualize. There are maps, sure, and lots of statistics. But what does it really mean when we say that the average middle-aged man in the U.S. has a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 29, while in Japan, a 23.7?

No great strategy was born without careful thought. That’s why the process of planning a strategy itself is an important vehicle for setting priorities, making investment decisions, and laying out growth plans. But for many companies, the activity has devolved into either an overexplained budget or just bad amateur theater – lots of costumes in the form of analysis, charts, and presentations – but with very little meaningful substance that can be translated into action. As a result, many strategic plans end up as shelf decorations or hard-to-find files in crowded hard drives.

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By the middle of the 19th century, rapid urban growth spurred by the industrial revolution had created urgent social and environmental problems. Cities responded by building centralized networks to deliver clean water, energy and safe food; to enable commerce, facilitate transportation and maintain order; and to provide access to health care and energy. Today these century-plus-old solutions are increasingly inadequate. Many of our cities are jammed with traffic. Our political institutions are deadlocked. In addition, we face a host of new challenges—most notably, feeding and housing a population set to grow by two billion people while simultaneously preventing the worst impacts of global warming.

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This morning my partners at Foundry Group and I announced that we are going to make 50 seed investments of $50,000 each on AngelList between now and the end of 2014. We’ll be doing this via AngelList’s new Syndicate approach through an entity called FG Angel where we will create a syndicate of up to $500,000, allowing others to invest $450,000 alongside anything we do. For now, we are using my AngelList account (bfeld) which I’ve renamed Brad Feld (FG Angel). We are working with Naval and team at AngelList to get this set up correctly so that a firm (e.g. Foundry Group) can create the syndicate in the future, at which point we’ll move the activity over to there.

In 2017, as many as six communication satellites could begin transmitting weather data to Earth, vastly improving storm warning systems across the globe. The first of the state-of-the-art hyperspectral atmospheric sensors to collect that data was developed by the Utah State University Advanced Weather Systems Laboratory and funded by the Utah Science, Technology and Research initiative.

75 billion.

That's the holy-@$#! number of devices that Morgan Stanley has extrapolated from a Cisco report that details how many devices will be connected to the Internet of Things by 2020. That's 9.4 devices for every one of the 8 billion people that's expected to be around in seven years.

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CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Cydan, LLC, an orphan drug accelerator that identifies and de-risks programs with therapeutic and commercial potential, today announced that the company has expanded its initial round of financing, bringing its total financing raised to $26 million. Cydan launched in April 2013 with a $16 million financing from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Pfizer Venture Investments and Alexandria Venture Investments. New investors Lundbeckfond Ventures and Bay City Capital led the $10 million expansion of this round of financing and were joined by Cydan’s previous investors NEA and Alexandria Venture Investments. In conjunction with this investment, Lundbeckfond Ventures Managing Partner Mette Kirstine Agger, MBA and Bay City Capital Investment Partner and Managing Director Carl Goldfischer, M.D., are joining Cydan’s Board of Directors.

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"Midwest is best," as the bumper sticker will tell you, and now many of the winning staffs in the 2013 Best Hospital IT Departments program have an additional reason to boast: The majority reside in Midwestern states. View this interactive map to learn more about the geographical distribution of this year's top departments.

Click the markers to see information about each hospital. To move the map, click and hold the map and drag it in any direction.

If you think success is hard, how about taking a step back and seeing what looking at yourself in the mirror 20 years from now will feel like if you choose to fail. Yep, I said choose. And this doesn’t just happen on January 1st of each year with another resolution. The choice to succeed in life and business is one I make daily. Here are 6 things that I have incorporated into my daily dose to become my best CEO.

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On July 31, 2013, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis released, for the first time, GDP figures categorizing research and development as fixed investment. It joined software in a new category called intellectual-property products.

In our knowledge-based economy, this is a sensible move that brings GDP accounting closer to economic reality. And while that may seem like an arcane shift relevant only to a small number of economists, the need for the change reflects a broader mismatch between our digital economy and the way we account for it. This problem has serious top-management implications.

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As the German Center for Research and Innovation (GCRI) approaches its fourth anniversary, its mission remains focused on strengthening transatlantic collaboration in science and technology.

NEW YORK (October 1, 2013) – The German Center for Research and Innovation (GCRI) is proud to announce the release of its third Annual Report. Since its launch in 2010, GCRI has created and cultivated a multidisciplinary ecosystem conducive to the cross-fertilization of ideas. In 2012, GCRI events continued to attract a diverse audience from academia, industry, and government, making the Center a nucleus for creative individuals interested in sharing new ideas and developing international collaborations.