(Nanowerk News) StartupNano opens its doors to entrepreneurs around the world working with nanotechnology based solutions. From the North of Portugal, startups have access to support to go from idea to global markets, to unique laboratories and expertise in nanotechnology, and to incubation in a unique international infrastructure for nanotechnology built by Portugal and Spain governments. Besides access to a specialized nanotech network of mentors and experts, startups have access to awards and up to €100k direct investment. The deadline for submission of ideas is Nov 20 at www.startupnano.eu.

With the launch of The Engine, MIT joins other major technology players investing in entrepreneurial incubators and accelerators across the Northeast. Autodesk opened its BUILD Space on Oct. 5, 2016, in Boston. The 70,000-square-foot facility includes a 34,000-square-foot fabrication lab, an AEC tech startup incubator and the company's flagship East Coast office. Meanwhile, the 84,000-square-foot New Lab, a public-private partnership in Brooklyn, NY's Navy Yard, opened its doors in September, offering a fabrication facilities to 50 small and midsize growth-stage companies.

There’s a big push in Philadelphia to help researchers and entrepreneurs move their tech to the marketplace. Tech transfer isn’t a new concept, but with the amount of innovation spaces popping up around universities and companies, the energy around the concept feels urgent now.

While Philly may have gotten a late start, initiatives like the University City Science Center’s QED Proof-of-Concept program, which helps academic researchers from 21 local institutions move their technology ideas from the “discovery” phase to development, prove that there’s an opportunity to keep growing.

Starting later this month, NASA plans to launch a group of very tiny satellites into space.

These cutting-edge devices will orbit the Earth, taking atmospheric measurements, monitoring storms, and studying factors associated with climate change. They will also serve as tiny stepping stones toward NASA's new focus on small satellites, or "smallsats," as an alternative to bulkier traditional satellites....

Many years ago, I was working at a software startup geared to helping salespeople set the best prices to charge customers. For a rep with a few dozen accounts, each of which purchased dozens of items at a time, the incremental profits added up to big money quickly. Since our tool was built to help sales reps optimize pricing, we felt we had a strong product and a proven user base—but there was a problem.

On November 2, 2016 the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memo to Examiners on its stance on subject matter eligibility in response to the McRO and BASCOM Federal Circuit decisions. The USPTO will be updating its subject matter eligibility guidance in view of these decisions and also the Amdocs decision, which issued the day before the USPTO published its memo and thus is not addressed therein.  

DHAKA – We live in an age of tragic health paradoxes. Mass immunization campaigns have eliminated entire diseases, but children in countries like Haiti and Bangladesh continue to die of easily treatable diseases caused by common pathogens. Globalization has lifted millions of people out of extreme poverty, but has left them exposed to the non-communicable diseases of the post-industrial age – from diabetes to heart disease – in countries that lack the resources to treat them.

The number of new corporate venture capital firms making first-time investments is on track for a record year, according to CB Insights Corporate Venture Capital Report.

More than 50 corporate venture capital firms globally made their first investment in the first half of 2016.

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc. (ITI), a privately-held, Maryland-based biotechnology company, today announced they are now accepting applications for their Cancer Discovery Incubator Award.

After experiencing partnering success and a $315 million deal with Japan-based Astellas Pharma Inc. for their LAMP-Vax platform technology in allergy, Immunomic Therapeutics, in concert with BioHealth Innovation, is giving back to the region's growing scientific community with the Cancer Discovery Incubator Award. The incubator will enable and accelerate beginning ventures aimed at offering measurable change in oncological health.

Brussels, Belgium – 8 November 2016 The European Commission’s launch today of a new Venture Capital Fund of Funds programme has the potential to attract over €1.6 billion to support the growth of Europe’s small businesses, says Invest Europe.

Space ventures, tech start-ups and budding engineering firms could all benefit from this investment, according to the trade association, in the Commission’s latest initiative in its Capital Markets Union action plan to promote European innovation and economic growth.

While the importance of innovation is crystal clear for many organizations, daily execution usually remains challenging. When renewing products, services or business processes, companies often encounter the same obstacles. But what if companies could learn from each other? Can innovation be streamlined by sharing successes and failures? That’s precisely what the first CREAX innovation roundtable was determined to find out. In collaboration with Oracle, we gathered a diverse group of innovation professionals for a lively debate on how to move from theorizing to getting things done. This is what we learned.

The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine today announced the results of The Princeton Review's 10th annual survey that names the 25 undergraduate and 25 graduate schools best for entrepreneurship studies. Harvard University finished #1 on the graduate entrepreneurship programs list for the 2nd consecutive year. Out of more than 300 schools offering entrepreneurship studies that The Princeton Review surveyed, 36 institutions' undergraduate and/or graduate programs made the roster of top schools for 2016. Four schools are new on the graduate list: the University of Maryland – College Park (#18), Saint Louis University (#19), the  University of Rochester (#22), and Oklahoma State University (#23)

Deloitte made its forecast after surveying the opinions of manufacturing industry executives for its 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index.

Deloitte says “executives expect the US to assume the top position before the end of the decade”. 

Currently, Deloitte says China is the most competitive nation, followed by the US in second, Germany in third, and Japan and South Korea placed fourth and fifth respectively.

In an effort to help regions across the U.S. become more economically stable, the government is making funds available to educational institutions.

Under the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) 2016 University Center Economic Development Program Competition, a total of $2,518,373 in grants to 24 colleges and universities in 16 states and Puerto Rico will distributed to run five-year programs that will leverage university assets to “promote American innovation and strengthen regional economies."

In today’s highly competitive market, executives must work harder than ever to ensure their company’s brand stands out, operates with a clear purpose, and maintains consumer appeal. In a 2015 study, “Bonfire of the Brands,” PwC traced the long-term success of more than 6,700 brands from around the world over the previous 16 years, using data from BAV Consulting on consumer perception of brands. The study found that consumers expect the best-known brands to do nothing less than have a role in shaping their world; the brands they favor must be innovative and, increasingly, trustworthy and visionary.

An international bank recently decided it wanted to see how customers would respond to a new email offer. They pulled together a mailing list, cleaned it up, iterated on copy and design, and checked with legal several times to get the needed approvals. Eight weeks later, they were ready to go.

In a world where people decide whether to abandon a web page after three seconds and Quicken Loans gives an answer to online mortgage applicants in less than ten minutes, eight weeks for an email test pushes a company to the boundaries of irrelevance. For many large incumbents, however, such a glacial pace is the norm.

A job at a large company used to bring with it several advantages, not the least of which was generally higher pay than similar employees working at a smaller firm. Called the firm-size wage effect, the phenomenon has been extensively studied by economists and sociologists as it has eroded in the last three decades and affected everything from employer-employee relationships to income inequality.

Maria, an executive in financial services, stared at another calendar invite in Outlook that would surely kill three hours of her day. Whenever a tough problem presented itself, her boss’s knee-jerk response was, “Collect more data!” Maria appreciated her boss’s analytical approach, but as the surveys, reports, and stats began to pile up, it was clear that the team was stuck in analysis paralysis. And despite the many meetings, task forces, brainstorming sessions, and workshops created to solve any given issue, the team tended to offer the same solutions — often ones that were recycled from prior problems.

This is a story about a successful consultant I know. He works with wonderful clients on interesting projects. He gets to travel around the United States and internationally, visiting well-trod as well as unusual, exotic, and remote locales. He’s always meeting amazing people, solving important problems, and engaging in social impact activities.

And yet, simple problems can make him crazy.

“Working in a third-world country will be a logistical nightmare.”

“No one will want such bright patterns on shoes.”

“Why aren’t your sales higher already?”

These are a few of the sorts of things people said to me as I started PATOS, a line of modern sneakers made with traditional Peruvian textiles that I’ve spent the last two years bringing to market. The idea for the business came to me during my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. I was visiting extended family in Argentina and met an artisan named Rafael at a flea market there.