Cities have powered the world economy for centuries. Large cities generate about 75 percent of global GDP today and will generate 86 percent of worldwide GDP growth between 2015 and 2030. Population growth has been the crucial driver of cities’ GDP growth, accounting for 58 percent of it among large cities between 2000 and 2012. Rising per capita income contributed the other 42 percent.

Image: http://www.mckinsey.com

As men increasingly rival women in the amount of money they spend on clothes, the tech scene is accommodating the man who wants to dress like Kanye, Bieber, or even President Barack Obama—but on a millennial’s budget.

Menswear sales grew 13% from 2010 to 2015, versus 9% in womenswear for the same period in the U.S., according to Euromonitor International. By 2020, worldwide annual menswear sales are predicted to reach $457 billion and womenswear, $698 billion.

Image: Combat Gent is a design-to-delivery menswear brand offering suits, tuxes, dress shirts, chinos, denim, and ties for the modern millennial. (Photo: courtesy of Combat Gent)

The architectural style of a building is a peek into how the person—or entity—that commissioned the project wanted to be perceived. Royalty built castles as displays of power. When the U.S. government wanted to project a down-to-business persona, it mandated utilitarian Brutalism. And let's not forget the gilded skyscrapers Trump constructs to project a veneer of wealth over a string of business failures and bankruptcies.

Image: https://www.fastcodesign.com

As Chinese investors flock to Israel in search of new technologies, top universities there are forging cooperation agreements with their Chinese counterparts and firms for R&D as well as technology transfer services.

For instance, Haifa University, known for its science research, is working on a joint research laboratory with East China Normal University. The lab, funded by the Chinese government, will focus on big data, neural biology and other medical areas.

“Wanna take a sit break?” said no desk-bound employee, ever. Most of corporate America is already sitting for eight to 10 hours daily, so instead, we stretch our legs, step out for air, or take a walk around the block. Basically, we do anything we can to get the blood moving, because sitting all day leaves us feeling lethargic and just plain bad. Which makes a lot of sense considering being glued to a chair is slowly, but surely, eroding our health—and making us sick and fat in the process.

The drive for economic growth around the world is seeing regions strive to create their own innovation ecosystems. Universities are an important aspect of an innovation ecosystem, so for the second year running, Reuters has created its index of the world’s top 100 most innovative universities, highlighting those educational institutions doing the most to advance science and invent new technologies and help drive the global economy.

Not surprisingly, the world’s top three continue to be Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (ranked #2) and Harvard University (ranked #3).

Innovation is a driver of economic success and growth. That’s why everyone talks about innovation. Companies and countries that consistently invest in innovation by prioritizing research and development and allocating funds and resources for this activity are proven to be more successful than those that don’t.

A new report, 2016 State of Innovation, says there is a convergence of collaboration, innovation, cultivation, cross-pollination and calibration, between corporations, universities, government agencies. research centers, and startups to drive new levels of innovation. Physical and mental boundaries are being lifted. Like-minded, similar-goaled organizations are finding each other. A web of information is aligning partners and best practices in an effort to collaboratively innovate.

Throughout SSTI’s 2016 Annual Conference, we will be engaging with the theme of Innovation with Purpose: Shaping Future Opportunities. Whether you are interested in the agenda overview, four thematic tracks, interest group roundtables and tour, or want to see the agenda by session type, you can find that information below. We’re looking forward to having this conversation with you in November! 

Bendis to Speak

The Defense Department plans to make Hack the Pentagon-style bug bounty challenges available in a new contract vehicle.

The department contracted HackerOne and Synack to create a contract vehicle that allows DOD components and services to launch such competitions to discover and remediate website vulnerabilities.

Most startups with $73 million in funding would spend some of it on making sure their workers have all the usual trappings of a well-resourced office. But Meron Gribetz, founder and CEO of Meta, is planning to strip his employees’ desks bare and make them get by without computer monitors.

Meta’s staff will instead be forced to manage their e-mail and other tasks using the company’s augmented reality glasses. Gribetz has pledged to make the switch by March 2017 to prove out his thesis that switching from flat windows on a screen to 3-D objects that float around you in space lets you get more done—once you’ve gotten used to a more futuristic way of working.

Venture capitalists are always chasing the next big thing. Of late, they are struggling to figure out what that might be.

Nearly a decade has passed since the smartphone sparked a startup gold rush. Silicon Valley investors have yet to identify the next product that will spawn a similar wave of tech companies and lucrative returns.

Venture capitalists are spreading their bets across technologies where the path to profits is unclear, including self-driving cars, drones, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, even food.

Image: Venture capitalists are spreading their bets across technologies where the path to profits is unclear, including drones. Above, a man controls a drone at the 2016 World Robot Exhibition in Beijing. PHOTO: LI WEN/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

Vietnam plans to implement a new law that will govern the establishment of domestic venture capital funds, and help funnel investments into startups in the country, that has become an emerging markets standout with steady growth.  According to the Communist party’s draft socioeconomic plan, Vietnam will target 7 per cent growth annually until 2020.

The draft law on support for small and medium enterprises (SME), which is expected to be passed during the country’s third parliamentary session this year, has a dedicated section for startup companies, which it calls “innovative businesses”.

Like many of my peers, I had thought that I could gently start thinking about retirement in my mid-fifties. But as my mid-fifties arrived, and as the debate about the human lifespan rages on, I’ve been confronting a new question: what if I live to 100?

For more, I looked to a book by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, two London Business School professors, called The 100 Year Life. Half the children born today, they say, have a 50% chance of living to 105. That’s up from only 1% a century ago.

Companies come and God knows where they go! Every year there are a number of companies and startups that are registered but even before attaining maturity, they dissolve. Who is to blame? The entrepreneur? The Market conditions or the consumer groups? Let’s catch the culprit? The Entrepreneurship!

If you’re expecting to go into your interview knowing everything that will be asked of you, you might want to think again. Besides the typical “one strength” and “one weakness” questions, many hiring managers want to know if you can think on your feet—and you can expect them to put you to the test in some pretty surprising ways.

We asked eight entrepreneurs from YEC to share the one unique test or question they use on candidates to get to know them better. While they’re all a little bit different, they typically all have one thing in common: There’s no one right answer. Instead, they’re looking to get more insight into your personality as well as how you approach difficult situations.

Eight communities in remote towns of Costa Rica are set to receive drugs via pilotless aerial vehicles (drones) starting from 2017, thanks to a new programme implemented by the government’s public health authority.   The programme will link basic health centers in these remote communities with distribution points operated by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS).

The use of drones is expected to reduce the waiting time for receiving drugs to 45 minutes after an order is placed. Currently, patients in remote areas wait anywhere from several hours to three days to receive the medicine.

Almost a year ago, the SEC proposed certain amendments to the current Rule 147 which were intended to help foster, and increase the viability of, Intrastate crowdfunding. While little has been heard about these amendments since their release (except from Intrastate proponents like me of course), over the last week the stars seemed to have aligned themselves and we may actually see these important amendments being approved by the SEC as early as next week … with a couple, extremely important modifications, we hope….

Providing career services for college students has become a hot business — even if many colleges themselves haven't yet figured that out. Students, parents, and employers have made it clear that they expect colleges to do more to prepare students for a job market that's rapidly evolving. Meanwhile, a growing number of private companies are stepping into the void, offering boot camps that help students develop marketable skills, networks of mentors, and other success strategies. Some are working in partnership with colleges. This special report on innovation examines some of the career-counseling efforts underway — by colleges, start-ups, and collaborations between the two. Nervousness over the economy and questions about the value of a college degree have contributed to growing expectations that colleges must make career services a priority.

The stage is being set for a coordinated attack on the patent system under the guise of making international health care more affordable. A newly released United Nations report encourages developing countries to use compulsory licenses to seize drugs, mostly developed in the U.S. The report was quickly followed by two high profile efforts pressuring our government to misinterpret the Bayh-Dole Act, designed to promote public and private sector R&D partnerships, with claims it allows agencies to move against high priced drugs both here and abroad.

Tech Launch Arizona, UA's hub for technology and invention commercialization, released its 2016 annual report reflecting on its successful year.

“Last year, we filed 278 patent applications and produced 250 inventions,” said David Allen, vice president of TLA. “Our revenue was a little over $2 million, which is slightly low, but it takes years before sales can be gained.”

Image: http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu