Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, we all start our day at some point. And we all seem to start it differently.
Some of us hop online to check social media, others dive in to email, still others eat breakfast, exercise, or pack lunches for the kids. There’re a million different ways a morning could go.
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oday Crowd Valley publishes Crowdfunding Market Report for Q2 2014, unveiling the latest trends of this fast-growing industry, as observed by the company during the last quarter.
Since the start of 2014, the international crowdfunding market kept developing fast, with new actors moving the first steps into the arena and many policymakers inserting the topic in their agendas. In particular, in the second quarter of 2014, large countries like India, Australia and Japan have started to draft regulations for securities crowdfunding.
The FLC planner visually communicates the outstanding research and development efforts of the federal laboratory system. Images and captions tell the story of the technology's scientific relevance and potential impact.
Printed annually, the planner is distributed to over 10,000 recipients, including members of Congress, scientists, researchers, agency representatives, laboratory directors, technology transfer professionals, students, academia, and members of industry.
Image: http://www.federallabs.org
Policymakers have focused much attention in recent years on increasing the number of workers with training in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
While this group makes up a relatively small share of the nation’s workforce, many policy analysts view them as a key component to improving the economy. In 2005 a coalition of groups issued a study stating U.S. higher education institutions needed to double the number of STEM graduates. Business leaders also frequently cite a shortage of STEM grads. Last year a letter signed by CEOs called on President Barack Obama and Congress to grant additional visas for high-skilled immigrants to help fill job openings.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Having said for years that St. Louis has a shortage of venture capital, the St. Louis Regional Chamber is throwing its own money at the problem. The business group has set aside $700,000 to start a so-called sidecar fund, which wouldn’t select companies itself but would invest alongside other venture capitalists who make deals in St. Louis.
When it comes to raising capital for a tech startup, savvy entrepreneurs know how important it is to hustle. From trying to attract the attention of VCs to appearing on television shows like ABC’s Shark Tank, these days when it comes to raising cash, everyone is out to get their share.
However, you may be surprised to learn that in this high-tech world, one very traditional institution is looking for smart entrepreneurs to give money to. Aspiring entrepreneur, meet the Small Business Administration (SBA).
We are commissioning research to classify and measure the creative economy in North America and one or more EU countries using the creative intensity methodology used in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)’s 'UK Creative Industries Economic Estimates', and described in our report 'A Dynamic Mapping of the UK’s Creative Industries'.
The project will produce a research report, which contains a quantitative comparison of the UK’s Creative Economy with that of the countries studied.
Image: http://www.nesta.org.uk
In a few weeks, a $2 million technology center designed to help take university research to the commercial market will open its doors in Brookings.
The Agriculture Technology Center for Rural Enterprise already has its first tenant, Prairie AquaTech, an aquaculture firm that uses South Dakota State University research to develop a soybean-based food for fish farms. The 30,000-square-foot building in the Telkamp Industrial Park on the east side of Brookings is designed to help the city become a hub for both research and economic development, according to partners in the project.
Image: Jay Pickthorn / Argus Leader
Business incubators -- organization that supports startup and fledgling companies by providing a variety of resources and services meant to accelerate its development -- are becoming very popular and growing in number, reach and effectiveness.
While incubators vary widely in services and resources provided, as well as cost to be accepted, most entrepreneurs find them invaluable. The application process is grueling, with thousands of companies applying for a very few number of spots. For this reason, would-be entrepreneurs need to be prepared before they even start.
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I am not against crowdfunding. I think it's great for funding small projects including art, community projects, and even to develop a new product. Crowdfunding gives people an opportunity to help get a project or company going with an initial injection of capital from the public (or, perhaps a group of wealthy individuals). However, I think people are starting to confuse equity crowdfunding with investing. Similarly, I think some entrepreneurs are starting to believe that they can completely replace the traditional fund raising process with crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is not a magic bullet for the startup world.
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Before I tell you what it was like to go a week without my smartphone, I have a confession to make: I cheated.
Not much, mind you, but when ReadWrite editor-in-chief Owen Thomas asked one of his writers to take a week's vacation from my mobile devices and write about the experience, I volunteered. I thought it would be much easier than it was.
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An interview with the board of directors is standard for the CEO, CFO, and nonprofit Executive Director hiring processes, but the group interview approach is becoming more common for many other positions. If you have a group interview in your future, it probably means that you are one of the top candidates for the job, but there are challenges that are specific to these sessions that can make them a tough hurdle to cross.
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As the Internet of Things (IoT) spreads, the implications for business model innovation are huge. Filling out well-known frameworks and streamlining established business models won’t be enough. To take advantage of new, cloud-based opportunities, today’s companies will need to fundamentally rethink their orthodoxies about value creation and value capture.
Value creation, which involves performing activities that increase the value of a company’s offering and encourage customer willingness to pay, is the heart of any business model. In traditional product companies, creating value meant identifying enduring customer needs and manufacturing well-engineered solutions.
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Since my last "real" blog post in March 4, 2012 (Pushing Past the Growth Plateau), I've been dealing with the "good problem" of rapid growth. For Silicon Valley startups, these are the good times, and for my company - which provides services to startups - it's been challenging to keep up! In the last 18 months, we've doubled in size, launched an entirely new line of marketing services, and entered a new customer segment. It's a good problem to have, as everyone likes to remind me and which I wholeheartedly agree.
Image: http://www.thricearoundtheblock.com
Amazon has announced that it will invest an additional US $2 billion to support its rapid growth and continue to enhance the customer and seller experience in India!
This comes a day after Flipkart announced its billion dollar funding.
“After our first year in business, the response from customers and small and medium-sized businesses in India has far surpassed our expectations,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “We see huge potential in the Indian economy and for the growth of e-commerce in India.
There's some debate about how many seconds a recruiter spends looking over a resume, but we can all agree that it's not a lot. With such limited time to get important information across, anything you can do to make your resume easier to skim could mean the difference between the forward or toss piles.
So, after you've spent some time perfecting the content of those sections and bullet points, it's time to make sure they're as easy (and appealing!) to read as possible. Here are 12 little formatting tricks you can use to help recruiters and hiring managers get the most from your resume during their six- to 18-second scan.
We are at a very exciting stage in the African Startup space. The attention we are getting internationally is great and we are seeing competitions, incubation spaces and accelerators popping up seemingly weekly. It is great to get the international support and attention, but beware the hype. The international ‘plug and play’ formulas offer limited value and struggle to create any kind of consistent momentum and value in the local markets.
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What type of company culture and environment is most desirable for job seekers? Recent research by iCIMS polled more than 400 job seekers to find out what they look for when seeking a job. Here’s some of what they discovered about how to attract the best employees to your small business. The study defined four main types of corporate culture: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy and market:
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We hear a lot in the news about America losing its competitive edge. With the private sector focusing myopically on short-term profits and Congress staggering along as usual, there seems to be no way out. In the past, our nation's academic research powerhouse spawned new industries that reignited our economy in times of contraction -- personal computers, fiberoptic communications, and the biotechnology industry are all prime examples. University researchers are as inventive and productive as ever. But as investors became increasingly risk-averse over the past few decades, a "valley of death" formed that swallows up promising technologies before they are mature enough to attract the financing they require for successful commercialization.
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MILWAUKEE – Greg Robinson, the manager of the new $30 million 4490 Ventures fund, will discuss his Silicon Valley background and the unique opportunity he sees in Wisconsin companies during the Aug. 14 Wisconsin Innovation Network meeting in Wauwatosa.
Robinson, who spent 12 years in San Francisco’s venture capital world before coming to Wisconsin, was recently named the managing director of 4490, a fund established by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). The fund is primarily focused on backing promising software startups in Wisconsin.
