KAUST is an example of an ambitious attempt to construct a new site of knowledge production, albeit one that is significantly deterritorialized given the globalized nature of the forms and quality of the knowledge communities being targeted, and the cultural-politics of Saudi Arabia. KAUST is thus a unique experiment in how to organize an institution to facilitate innovation in scientific knowledge production, a secure and efficient compound (hence Saudi Aramco’s involvement), a defacto sovereign wealth fund, a demonstration effect for new approaches to higher education in Saudi Arabia, and many other things (depending on standpoint). Regardless of standpoint, though, KAUST is an experiment worth watching, discussing, debating about, and learning from.

How do you harness the creativity of your workforce? In this age of Twitter, Facebook and other so-called Web 2.0 tools, technology seems like an obvious way to get employees to collaborate. Ditto your suppliers, customers and other interested parties.

But collaboration, high-tech or otherwise, isn’t so easy to manage. Renowned business strategist Gary Hamel is one of many business leaders to comment on the challenges of sparking workforce creativity. In his book Leading the Revolution, Hamel dedicates a chapter to Design Rules for Innovation. He notes that a company’s intent on generating sustained wealth must create “an open market for ideas…a dynamic internal market for ideas within the organization.”

Cheaper health-care goods and services will be created in the developing world, then sold in the U.S. That’s a big idea that Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, has been pushing lately.

He explained it at great length in a recent Harvard Business Review piece that used the phrase “reverse innovation” to refer to creating new products in developing countries, then exporting those innovations to the developed world. (Here’s an example of how the company did that with portable ultrasound machines; here’s a WSJ article on how wider use of ultrasound in India has been fraught.)

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) has adopted a tough mantra for an age of austerity, arguing that innovation must take a back seat to cost-cutting and productivity gains when it comes to selling technology.

'Things have come down. I see them staying down and slowly growing,' Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said today in a speech to British business leaders.

Hats off to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, the three American scientists awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday. Their cell research demonstrates that we're on the cusp of an era of medical innovation that could radically improve lives and life spans, if government lets it blossom.

The trio was honored for discovering how chromosomes act to protect themselves from degrading when cells divide by using an enzyme called telomerase. Subsequent studies have found that telomerase is closely tied to aging and human cancers, and work on the enzyme has become a popular area of drug research. Their discoveries "have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies," said the prize committee.

The White House's plan for $130 billion in innovation funding is admirable but lacks detail, and here's why the money could be wasted, says Jeneanne Rae 

Recently, the Obama Administration issued A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving Towards Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs. Reading it would inspire anyone to think that this Administration has a good handle on what needs to be done to shore up America's many weaknesses and keep the U.S. out in front in terms of economic as well as scientific leadership. It details where our country stands on important issues such as R&D investments, workforce skills, physical infrastructure, energy, and health care, among others. It puts forth a fairly clear and comprehensive vision for the results the Obama Administration wants to drive and provides a breakdown of where approximately $130 billion in government funding might be spent over the next several years to support this first-of-a-kind innovation agenda. Bravo!

Seeing a codified assessment and vision made my heart sing, but at the same time made me nervous. Not only is its lack of executional detail scary, but the rate of concurrent change called for shows a level of naivete that seriously undermines the plan's intention. If the health-care debate is any indication, I predict much of Obama's innovation funding will be wasted. Here are a few reasons why:

Christchurch-based venture capital company, Milestone Capital, is negotiating a joint facility for clean technology innovation in China.

Milestone principal and co-founder of institutional investment management firm, Infiniti Capital, Kenji Steven told NBR the Chengdu government was keen to work with New Zealand to bring clean technology to China, although he was sketchy on the details.

A recent report by the Future Agricultures Consortium provides some very interesting insights into knowledge creation and sharing in the innovation systems of pastoralists in Ethiopia and Kenya.

The authors report on discussions that were held at the ‘University of the Bush’ - under some trees next to a tented camp.

Talecris Biotherapeutics (TLCR) raised $950 million in the biggest biopharma IPO in three years and the second largest U.S. IPO this year even as the stock market fell as declines in factory orders and increases in job cuts heightened concerns about the economy’s recovery. The capital markets seem to be opening up to life sciences companies with two IPOs, 15 PIPEs, four public offerings, and five debt offerings, contributing to close to $5 billion in capital raised during the week.

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based Talecris sold 50 million shares of its common stock at its mid-range price of $19 per share and began trading on October 1 on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “TLCR.” Of the shares offered, 29.9 million were offered by the company and 21 million were offered by the selling stockholder, Talecris Holdings, which is owned by private equity firm Cerebrus-Plasma Holdings, the managing member of which is Cerebrus Partners, and limited partnerships affiliated with Ampersand Ventures. The underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 6 million shares. Talecris intends to use its share of the net proceeds to pay down debt. Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Sachs; Citigroup Global Markets, and J.P. Morgan Securities were the joint book-running managers of the offering, while Wells Fargo Securities, Barclays Capital, and UBS Investment Bank acted as co-managers.

Recently, Sumathi pointed the SpicyIP team to this article in the Wall Street Journal about Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta and I grabbed the chance to post about him before anyone else could. I first heard about Prof. Gupta last year, when as a member of the Editorial Board for a Journal published by my University, we began to look for diverse influences in the sphere of Intellectual Property to be on our Advisory Panel.

Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta in my mind, is exactly that sort of person. Having read about his work, it absolutely amazes me to see grassroot innovation being supported in a large scale manner.

Yesterday [Oct 3 ed.], Democratic Sens. Kerry and Boxer dropped their initial version of a Senate climate bill, so the game’s on. We’ll defer to Brad Plumer’s Vine post for a good side-by-side comparison, but suffice it to say the Kerry-Boxer Senate outline looks a lot like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House earlier this year, with a few differences.

Like the Waxman-Markey legislation, the Senate version sets emissions targets (a little stricter than the House standard with a 20 percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels required by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050). Like Waxman-Markey, Kerry-Boxer proposes a pricing and emissions trading mechanism (now called, euphemistically, a Pollution Reduction and Investment tool, with revenue allowances left undetermined).

Entrepreneurs everywhere finance their small or medium-sized ventures more or less the same way. First, they will tap into their personal funds or resources, including building up balances on their credit cards. Next, they may obtain loans from family and friends. All along, they may be benefiting from a secured or unsecured overdraft from their commercial bank. The latter relationship may eventually be converted a 1-3 year collateralised commercial loan agreement. Typical collateral may consist of a mortgage on property or a lien on a vehicle, backed up by the borrower's personal guarantee. Sooner than later, their fledgling business is financed by a preponderance of debt.

According to a reliable source at the Small Business Association (SBA) in the United States, by their third year, sixty per cent of start-ups are being financed by 60-70 per cent debt. Some persons within the small and medium-sized business (SME) sector in Jamaica with whom I have spoken support my suspicion that the debt picture may even be worse here.

The G-20 Summit is over, and the world finally knows Pittsburgh is no longer the dirty, smoky steel town pictured in the history books. Now it’s time to stop talking about how we recovered from job losses 30 years ago and start talking about how we can accelerate job growth over the next 30 years.

The fact that we’ve lost fewer jobs than most regions during the recession doesn’t mean we’ll grow more jobs than other regions when the recovery begins. In the years following the end of the last recession, the Pittsburgh Region’s economy had the 4th worst job growth among the top 40 regions. In fact, the region never recovered all of the jobs it lost in 2002-2003 before the current recession hit.

“…Out of such dreary statistics comes a new class of self-starter, the accidental entrepreneur–someone who never considered owning a business until there was no other option. These entrepreneurs are making tough choices for themselves and their families, living in reduced circumstances, doing without the corporate comforts and resources they once took for granted, sometimes succeeding, very often failing, invariably struggling. But at least they’re not waiting for the phone to ring.”
--Fortune Magazine

I wonder if it’s bad advice and a bad judgment to recommend to someone to start their own business. There are a couple of scenarios.

Scenario one, you are long-term unemployed and you make the judgment to start your own business. Scenario two, you leave your current job due to your “Entrepreneurial Spirit” which can’t be satisfied at your current company and start your own business. What could the future hold?

While the American people remain concerned about the direction of our country and the state of our economy, a growing consensus has emerged in support of policies that encourage private sector and entrepreneurial growth.

In the most recent poll that the Kauffman Foundation conducted as part of its regular research it does on economic growth and entrepreneurship, 34% of Americans say the economy is headed in the right direction, while 54% say it is off on the wrong track. In addition, they remain skeptical about their personal economic situation, and they do not think that the economy is recovering. 54% of Americans say the U.S. economy is not beginning to recover, while one-third believe that it is.

The incoming class of MIT Legatum Fellows has been announced, who aim to bring entrepreneurship to low-income countries.

As is readily evidenced by reading the latest news, for entrepreneurs in America times have been tough. Yet 16 entrepreneurs, armed with grants from the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are looking beyond Main Street and focusing their entrepreneurial dreams on helping others in developing countries.

Since 2001, The Baida Center has been a business incubator in Drexel’s Lebow School of Business that houses eight to ten companies on average, mostly winners of the school’s incubator competition. The center is also a big reason the school was named one of the top three entrepreneurship programs for graduate students in the country (three spots ahead of, ahem, Temple University).

Technically Philly sat down with the man behind the scenes: Executive Director and Senior Executive in Residence Mark P. Loschiavo and asked him how the incubator works and why, like the rest of us, Loschiavo has trouble pronouncing “Baiada.”

Every entrepreneur, whether their business is online or offline based, can take advantage of the multitude of free tools that exist online. We’re always surprised when we poll entrepreneurs to know that not many are aware of these tools, let alone using them. And no, we’re not talking about Twitter, or Facebook, or even Sprouter. We’re talking about lesser-known online tools you as an entrepreneur can adopt today to further your business and gain exposure. See below for our list of the top 4 online tools for entrepreneurs:

PRESS RELEASE

MADISON - The in-house research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will work with a Wisconsin tech-based organization to help make its world-class research more widely available to companies and academic institutions in Wisconsin, it was announced Tuesday.

The Agricultural Research Service, which has scientists working at 100 locations across the United States and abroad, has signed a “Partnership Intermediary Agreement” with the Wisconsin Security Research Consortium, an independent, non-profit corporation with ties to the Wisconsin Technology Council. The Tech Council is the independent, non-partisan science and technology adviser to the governor and the Legislature in Wisconsin.

I recently interviewed Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital and Paul Graham of YCombinator. Mike Moritz is probably the most successful venture capitalist of the last twenty years since he invested in Google, Zappos, Yahoo, and PayPal. Paul Graham’s YCombinator is at the leading edge of tech startup creation. Contrary to the typical bull shiitake that most venture capitalists spin (“we want a proven team in a proven market with a proven technology”), these guys are really making things happen. I picked up these twelve lessons from the interview: