Technically Philly was able to stop in to see half of DreamIt Ventures’ kick off weekend at the University City Science Center last Friday where local media, entrepreneurs and participating companies got a chance to network and prepare for the incubator’s third class. It was the first time that the participating companies were able to see the space and meet one another. New this year is Brooklyn-based edication investor Startl’s involvement. The group partnered with DreamIt to incubate five of Dreamit’s 15 participating companies.

In opening remarks, co-founder Mike Levinson said that DreamIt received over 350 applications and the tech world considers DreamIt as “one of the top three incubators in the country.”

There are several important documents you'll want to have ready when you meet with potential investors. Your mission statement. Your founding team's resume and responsibilities. A business plan.

But most investors agree: they do not want to sign an NDA.

While non-disclosure agreements are designed to protect your ideas, asking potential investors to sign an NDA is generally seen as unnecessary and unwise. Most VCs point to the following reasons for avoiding NDAs:

1. Trust. Potential investors are not your competition, and asking them to sign an NDA is often interpreted as a sign you don't trust them. As professional integrity is important to VCs, requiring an NDA is generally seen as a violation of business etiquette.

Over the weekend, startup accelerator TechStars announced a partnership with Startupbootcamp, a Copenhagen-based incubator and the very first member of a new global affiliate program hosted by TechStars. With programs in Boulder, Boston and Seattle, TechStars is now expanding and "open sourcing" their incubation model by providing guidance and support for independent international startup accelerators. A TechStars presence in Europe, in any way, shape or form, is a positive step for seed funding in Europe, which - as we've discussed earlier - is in dire need of growth.

Startupbootcamp is a three month program running from August through October where a select group of companies will fine-tune their ideas, develop prototypes and develop their business. At the end of October, the teams will present their products to a group of over 100 investors in hopes of securing further seed or Series A funding.

The Secretary’s Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls seeks to find and bring to scale the most pioneering approaches to the political, economic and social empowerment of women and girls around the globe. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the award is part of the State Department’s continuing emphasis on public-private partnerships, and is administered by its Office of Global Women’s Issues. The award, and the office, are founded on the premise that the major economic, security, governance and environmental challenges of our time cannot be solved without the full participation of women at all levels of society. The Rockefeller Foundation, as part of its mission to expand opportunity and promote more equitable growth, seeks to identify innovative approaches that can be scaled to address these challenges.

Business incubators—programs designed to help launch entrepreneurial ventures—are expanding nationwide amid increased demand for the resources, services and counseling the programs typically provide for little or no cost.

New incubator programs have been forming in the U.S. at an annual rate of 8% to 10% for the past five years, and today there are approximately 1,200, estimates Tracy Kitts, vice president of the National Business Incubation Association, a nonprofit in Athens, Ohio. The programs are commonly funded by economic-development groups, government entities and academic institutions, and more than half support start-ups in a mix of industries.

Most incubators offer start-ups commercial space to grow their ventures for below-market lease rates, plus free counseling, administrative support and services in areas such as human resources, information technology and marketing.

This special issue, 169 Best Illusions, contains a smorgasbord of static images that appear to be moving (such as the Hatpin Urchin shown here), “impossible” sculptures, freaky faces, ghostly afterimages and even some edible illusions.

Illusions make great eye candy, but they also serve a serious purpose. When we look at an illusion, we “see” something that does not match the physical reality of the world around us. Scientists take advantage of this discrepancy between perception and reality to gain insights into how our eyes and brains gather and interpret (or misinterpret) visual information. Here’s a sneak peek at 10 different types of illusions and what they reveal.

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.), May 11, 2010 – Despite their majority representation at U.S. colleges and universities and increased participation in science and engineering, women still are under-represented among business founders, particularly in high-tech and other high-growth fields.

A new study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, "Are Women Entrepreneurs Different From Men?" provides insights into the few differences and many similarities between successful men and women entrepreneurs, including background, education, motivations for starting a business and beliefs about key success factors.

"We have a robust pool of potential high-growth entrepreneurs in the women who now earn nearly half of all PhDs conferred in this country, yet few are following an entrepreneurial path," said Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman Foundation vice president of advancing innovation and an author of the study. "This study identifies subtle but meaningful factors that influence women to pursue, and succeed in, entrepreneurship. If we can respond to this study by developing programs that support women in creating high-growth businesses, the positive impact on our economy could be significant."

This is the best time for Angel Investors to partner with entrepreneurs, since the early stage investment community is going through a radical change.  VCs find it very challenging to relate to early stage ventures and their Founders, and these VCs are more likely not entrepreneurial.  Angel Groups who used to promote entrepreneurialism have been acting more like traditional VCs.   Individual Angel Investors with strong business skills and extensive operations experience are in the ideal position to bring about the financial and operational revitalization needed to create new businesses.

Many retired successful business people and downsized seasoned business professionals have experience and money to help a new company get off the ground or mature it to sustainability. These same people also naturally understand how to participate in operational decisions without the desire to micro-analyze a spreadsheet for every decision because they know what it took for them to get where they are today. Younger companies face too many issues that require gut instinct from experience. Only a few people truly fit the mold of understanding what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and only a few more have the money and sense of opportunity and excitement to participate in the rebuilding of businesses across the world.

Blogging is a great option for your entrepreneur business opportunity. Blogging provides a way for you to share your passions with the world and generate a nice income as you do so. If you are looking for a home based entrepreneur business opportunity, blogging can be done at home or on your laptop from a cafe while you are traveling around the world. In this article we’ll take a quick look at the basics of blogging to make money online.

Pick a topic to blog about

The first thing you’ll need is a topic to blog about. Take some time and do a little research to discover which things that you are passionate about might make a good topic to blog about. In addition to wanting to make money, you will need to have another primary purpose for your blog. Other people will share your passion for your ideas, but if it seems like your only passion is making money, that will not attract many loyal fans or followers.

Regardless of who forms the next administration, tackling the health of the UK's finances will undoubtedly be a top priority for government. One thing we all share as business leaders is a passion and energy to do what is within our power to promote and support the UK's relative positions of strength in the global capital markets – inward investment, a mobile workforce, tax policy and demand for our prized goods and services – to boost UK competitiveness and lead us into recovery.

With employment in the public sector set to shrink as the government seeks to restore its finances, the jobs created by fast-growth entrepreneurs will be vital to reducing UK unemployment. It is therefore important that government policy is geared towards tapping into the employment and GDP growth potential that these companies generate.

High-Growth “Gazelle” Companies Account for 10 Percent of New JobsWhat’s the best way to create new jobs? Based on a recent study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, it’s by stimulating more startup businesses.

The study, High-Growth Firms and the Future of the American Economy, found that in any given year, the top-performing 1 percent of companies account for some 40 percent of jobs. Within that category, fast-growing “gazelle” companies (3 to 5 years old) make up less than 1 percent of all businesses, yet account for approximately 10 percent of net new jobs in any given year. The “average” company in the top 1 percent generates an astounding 88 net new jobs annually, compared to the two to three net new jobs generated by the average firm in the economy as a whole.

The number of small-shop innovators continues to dwindle.  In a sample of recently issued patents,* only 20% claim “small entity” status.  Of those, 30% (6% of the total) are held by the original inventors.** According to the PTO Rules, large universities and non-profits still qualify as for the small entity price-break so long as the patents-in-question have not be assigned or licensed to a non-qualifying entity.  At least 12% of the small entity patents are assigned to universities or non-profits.  These small entities include multi-billion-dollar operations including Battelle Energy Alliance, California Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and the Korean government funded ETSI. The remaining small entity patents are largely held by companies and partnerships such as Audible Magic, PixArt Imaging, and Alverix.

Indian companies in the recent past have been big importers of management wisdom from the West. Sadly this perception has been accepted to the point of universal truth.

We don’t see many manufacturing companies that boast of “Indian practices and standards” (unless ISO is “Indian Standards Organization”).  It’s easy to see how this started. As a late adopter of industrialization, all new businesses in India naturally looked to their more established counterparts in the West. Later, when Indians were allowed to conduct businesses that were earlier reserved only for the British, the flow of learning was clearly one way.

I [Mitch Ditkoff] just Googled “definitions of innovation” and came up with 5,240,000 choices. Good luck reading them. For now, here are ten I’ve gathered over the years that I like. How about you? And if you have a better one, let me know.

“Change that creates a new dimension of performance.” – Peter Drucker

“The ability to deliver new value to a customer.” – Jose Campos

“Adapting, altering, or adjusting that which already exists for the sake of adding value.” – Anonymous

“The managed effort of an organization to develop new products, new services, or new uses for existing products or services.” – Ricky W. Griffin

Are you wandering to buy Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development in detail. get the very credible on line site to buy your favorite Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development , Use your wisdom and common sense to judge the correctness to Buy business life books.

In this breakthrough book, Joan Fitzgerald lays out a visionary yet pragmatic agenda that melds three concerns that are too often approached in isolation: economic development, urban sustainability and social justice. As she notes at the start, what makes the achievement of this agenda so urgent is the ongoing prospect of devastating climate change coinciding with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Written in lucid, jargon-free prose, Emerald Cities charts the way forward.

Fitzgerald examines five areas–renewable energy, energy efficiency, green building, waste management and transportation–and identifies three kinds of strategies cities can pursue within those areas: linking strategies that connect sustainability or climate change initiatives to economic development goals, such as Los Angeles’ tying efficiency retrofitting to work-needy residents and Chicago’s Waste to Profit Network; transformational strategies that enable existing businesses to expand into green markets or services, such as Portland’s local street car industry and Toledo’s move from glass to solar panel production; and–boldest of all–leapfrogging strategies that attempt to create an entirely new sector in a green technology, such as Cleveland’s offshore wind production initiative.

A Good Story, Listening and Asking the Right Questions
Equals Greater Success in Early Stage Investing for Entrepreneurs

What is an entrepreneur?

The entrepreneur is someone who makes something happen commercially.

The successful entrepreneur is someone who makes something commercially happen that benefits others.

The commercially successful entrepreneur is someone who makes something commercially happen which benefits others and produces a “profit” or “excess” in the case of a non-profit.

The commercially successful business entrepreneur is someone who is attrac¬tive to investors/supporters and is someone who makes something commercially happen that benefits others, and that produces a profit of sufficient magnitude to justify the risks inherent in providing the funding for the entrepreneur.

San Francisco based Twilio makes APIs that let web developers easily build phone and SMS capabilities into their apps.

Twilio charges flat rates for calls, texts, and phone numbers. It's an attractive business because the margins are ample and developers have traditionally had to pay exorbitant sums to accomplish similar feats.

The company faces increasing competition from other startups in the space, but it's a huge market, and Twilio is growing rapidly, with over 9,000 developers now using its platform. Much of its business comes from other startups, but it has also worked with some major brands like Sony.

Apple recently filed a patent application for a heart sensor built in to an iPhone casing that would serve as a biometric security device.

That sounds straight out of science-fiction, but it's just another day at the Apple patent factory. Apple is constantly filing new patents for awesome-sounding new technology. Some of that tech ends up as terrific, real-life gadgets; much of it never comes to anything.

There are too many patent applications flowing out of Cupertino to keep track of easily. Fortunately, there's Patently Apple, a blog dedicated exclusively to monitoring Apple innovation. We pulled 15 of the coolest, craziest gadget concepts Apple has been playing with over the past few months.

As we’ve noted for the last several quarters, venture capital investment in the healthcare sector has dominated receiving the most venture capital dollars and also representing a large number of venture deals.  But this has not always been the case and so we looked at venture capital investment in the healthcare sector from 1998 to 2009.

As can be seen in the graph of deal activity and dollars invested over that time period, the healthcare sector has shown a steady and consistent climb in venture deals and with the exception of 2009 which was universally bad across all sectors, the dollar value of deals has also steadily climbed.

You want to buy a new company, expand operations, acquire a business, or raise capital. You’ve decided to go for venture capital funding versus a bank loan for a multitude of reasons from the risks involved to the amount you need to carry out your plan.

Do you know as much as you’d like about gaining capital? Most people don’t. Their expertise is in their business, not in capital funding. Here are ways to protect yourself from vultures, deals you can’t afford, and the nightmares of both.
Some quick explanations:

A venture capitalist (VC) is a person, group of people, company, or group of companies with money to invest in your business.
A VC broker represents you (or possibly a VC) and arranges the parties to create a deal. This article is about working with the broker.