Over 25 years ago, the Federal government created a way to ensure that innovative solutions to tough science and technology problems would be developed. And, very cleverly, they did it in way that bolsters the largest job creation sector of our economy – small business. This initiative is called the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program.

Here’s how it works: The largest Federal agencies (those that spend over $100 million annually on outside research and development), must set aside a percentage (currently 2.5%) of their R and D budget for SBIR projects. In 2008 this represented over $2 billion of available funding. These projects are reserved for our domestic for-profit small businesses that are independently owned and operated by individuals (not large entities). The agencies pose problems, usually tough ones that they need solved to help fulfill their missions. The small businesses are invited to submit proposals for solving them, describing how they’re going to do the work and spend the money (up to $850K in two phases – feasibility and prototype development).

A NEW era of encouraging inventions and research results in Nigeria is set to unfold as different government agencies involved in the sector are tidying up plans to jointly work together to ensure maximum results.

Noting that intellectual property had become a critical element in modern strategy for the promotion of innovation, inventiveness, and transfer of technology, the bodies are fashioning out more imaginative patenting strategies to be able to fully and fruitfully arouse innovative and inventive activities.

A new study out by the Center for An Urban Future shows that New York City has great research centers but is terrible turning scientific advances into start-up businesses and economic growth.

“Activity breeds innovation,” Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen of Finland told an eager panel. “New things are not created without taking risks.” And never has there seemed a more urgent need for new ideas than now, with the world’s economies still reverberating from the worst slump in generations and public debts expanding almost beyond control. The key to a sustainable recovery will be entrepreneurship and innovation, he said, and in Finland, “it is in times of crisis when governments have to be particularly active” in promoting them. Finland’s experience, he continued, shows that extraordinary difficulties can be overcome with the right policies and enterprise; so too for the rest of the world, “in the coming years governments will play a bigger role than before.”

Six decades later, nearly half the U.S. economy is driven by industries that depend heavily on intellectual property rights. If we are to jumpstart a second economic renaissance, then we must begin by protecting and stimulating the lifeblood of America’s economy: its ideas.

This week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center —whose mission is to champion IP — is hosting its sixth annual IP Summit. Jobs are the issue of the day as speakers from a wide array of IP-intensive industries, along with members of Congress and senior administration officials, discuss how protecting and promoting strong IP rights in the U.S. can lead to economic transformation.

A SEED capital fund has been launched to support start-up companies in the Heads of Valleys.

Supported by the Welsh Assembly Government’s Heads of the Valleys strategic regeneration programme it is designed to support entrepreneurial activity and meet the demand for early-stage funding for start-ups.

The fund will run until 2013 and have the capacity to support up to 170 businesses, leading to the creation of up to 190 jobs.

FEDERAL TECHNOLOGY WATCH

An imressive collection of top global experts participated in the National Energy Summit and International Dialogue, organized by the Council on Competitiveness (COC), and held Sept.23-24 in Washington DC. Over 350 invited participants took part in the summit, which was also webcast.

Under a theme of Driving Competitiveness Through Sustainable Energy, the event first explored how future US economic prosperity is inextricably tied to the ability to create a sustainable and balanced energy system, and the pivotal role to be played in this transformation by the private sector in terms of speedy action and scale.

Managers wondering how to make their organisations more innovative should look at Davila and company’s fine book, Making Innovation Work, not least because it contains many real-world examples.

As a lifelong fan of the Marx Brothers (I loved them at age eight, and I love them in my forties), I was delighted to read his take on Groucho Marx and in particular his assessment of their act as not being about innate creative talent or effortless idea-generation at all but about hard graft and a willingness to try things out.

The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has taken the next step in setting up the UK Innovation Investment Fund (UK IIF), a venture capital fund of funds to support the UK's technology companies. Capital for Enterprise Ltd. will release the Request for Proposals (RFP) for prospective Fund of Fund managers for the UK UF. The RFP is a key milestone in delivering the fund as it sets out the parameters for the fund and details the information expected from prospective Fund of Fund managers. The RFF will ask potential Fund Managers to target the sectors of the future, such as life sciences. Low carbon, digital and advanced manufacturing. Success in these sectors is key to the UK Government's industrial strategy to create highly skilled jobs as Britain emerges out of the global downturn . The RFP will also ask Fund Managers how they will raise money from private sector investors to create the largest technology Fund in Europe.

China is embarking on a new, parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation. It is the Sputnik of our day. Unfortunately, we’re still not racing.

Most people would assume that 20 years from now when historians look back at 2008-09, they will conclude that the most important thing to happen in this period was the Great Recession. I’d hold off on that. If we can continue stumbling out of this economic crisis, I believe future historians may well conclude that the most important thing to happen in the last 18 months was that Red China decided to become Green China.

Yes, China’s leaders have decided to go green — out of necessity because too many of their people can’t breathe, can’t swim, can’t fish, can’t farm and can’t drink thanks to pollution from its coal- and oil-based manufacturing growth engine. And, therefore, unless China powers its development with cleaner energy systems, and more knowledge-intensive businesses without smokestacks, China will die of its own development.

Dubai, September 27, 2009: TechnoPark, the science and technology facilitator of Economic Zones World has been appointed as an affiliate member of the World Business Angels Association (WBAA), the Brussels based international community of business angel networks and leaders.

The WBAA, launched at the Dubai Institute of Technology SMEs Forum held in Dubai in April this year, was set up for the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship through the financing of high growth start-up companies with the support of Business Angels worldwide.

State and local business organizations have launched a venture-capital "fund of funds" that aims to raise up to $200 million to finance small high-tech Arizona companies that aspire to become the future Microsofts and Googles of the world.

The private fund, which could begin releasing money by mid-2010, will zero in on innovative startup firms in areas such as information technology, life sciences and solar that can create high-paying, high-quality jobs.

India Venture Capital & Private Equity Report – indian.startups.in

India Venture Capital & Private Equity Report – trak.in

Dimensions of Innovation in Entrepreneurship by Chris Evdemon –sgentrepreneurs.com

TC50 DemoPit Startup AskYourTargetMarket Simplifies Market Research –venture.name

Examining the Journal’s Fisker story – thedeal.com

(Cornell Study) What Entrepreneurs Want From VCs: Independence And Faster Feedback – thefaredge.com

Gore Backed Car Firm Gets $529 Million U.S. Government Loan –americanpatriotjournal.com

Sorry for the long hiatus – exciting things in Rochester –rochesterstartups.com

Commerce Dept Launches New Programs to Help Entrepreneurs –techpolicycentral.com

Friday Q&A: Sherrill Neff, founding partner of Quaker BioVentures –technicallyphilly.com

Posts about venture capital as of September 26, 2009

I invite everyone to read President Obama’s new Innovation Strategy document and see for yourself if it adds up. To me, it is a list of priorities, important priorities to be sure, that are just stitched together in one document and called “innovation.”

It is chock full of talk about information technology, sustainability, open markets, and clean energy, stuff engineers from Silicon Valley love to champion. I champion all that too. It is chock full of all the reasons why the US is in danger of losing its economic preemience. This, too, I applaud for its veracity. But these pieces don’t add up to a national innovation strategy.

Innovation can only be encouraged, managed, tracked and measured if it is a core element in organizations growth aspirations. So it needs to be fully integrated into the strategic-management agenda and the executives top down need so as to create the conditions that allow a more dynamic innovating environment to emerge by setting out and providing the context. The very same people must be explicit in their steps to foster an innovation culture where trust, ideas are valued, these can be freely expressed and can help oversee risk collectively.

Industry Minister Tony Clement's review of the sale of Nortel Networks Corp.'s enterprise-solutions unit to Avaya Inc. under the Investment Canada Act is a flaccid gesture that masks Canada's larger failure to actively court, develop or retain flagship innovators.

The review was triggered because Nortel's accountants deemed the book value of the assets to be above the act's $312-million threshold. Avaya has yet to make the concrete job commitments that would reassure Mr. Clement that the deal is of "net benefit" to Canada (the criterion for approval). Avaya spokeswoman Lynn Buckley said that Avaya was "committed to maintaining" two Nortel research facilities, but would not comment on a report last week that up to 400 of 1,000 jobs were at risk.

Could following the next steps toward California's new clean-energy economy really lead to burdensome regulations and increased job loss? Or, instead, will the implementation of AB 32, the groundbreaking road map to that future, more likely lead to further innovation and leadership?

How we answer these timely questions could determine our state's economic future.

We cannot ignore that even with its recent fiscal woes, California has been leading a national transformation for decades in the ways we use energy, communicate, conduct business and think about innovation. Why would anyone want to impose a moratorium on our future?

Who would have believed that the country with the highest mobile subscription rate worldwide (138% as per World Economic Forum’s World Competitiveness report), the broadest high-speed mobile broadband coverage and the densest network of public internet access points in Europe is the small nation of Lithuania, sandwiched between Latvia, Belarus, Poland, Kaliningrad and the Baltic sea?

Prompted by comments I heard on numerous occasions (including geeky ArcticStartup and TechCrunch events), and equally inspired by the enthusiastic entrepreneurial community in Lithuania, I thought I’ll share a few facts.

Last week’s Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit was teeming with experts. They offered points and opinions on so many topics, with data to back it all up. Here, some of our favorite stats:

1. The No. 1 quality that successful business leaders have in common is that they started a business at a young age. –Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) (Click for video of Summit interview with Buffett.)