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.
Boston's Emerson College recently announced the launch of The Emerson Accelerator, a two-year, extracurricular program scheduled to launch next fall. The program will provide $6,000 in total seed funding per semester, to be distributed among participating startup teams. (There will most likely be three startup teams per semester, but that could change, depending on the quality and quantity of the applicants.)
Image: http://www.inc.com
In an epic battle of man-versus-machine ping-pong, man ultimately prevails, but the showdown highlights advances in developing human-like qualities in robots.
To celebrate the opening of a Shanghai factory, German robotics company Kuka pitted its one-armed ping-pong-playing robot against German table tennis champ Timo Boll.
The alarm went off late, traffic was a nightmare, and you have four long meetings today on top of a major deadline. On the way to work, you heard a tragic news story you can’t get out of your head. Add some money problems and an argument with your significant other and the stress can feel unbearable at times. How can you focus and get things done when you’re under so much pressure from all sides?
Stop. Take a deep breath. Now, exhale and do it again. Feel better? You’re going to get through this.
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Innovation occurs in an ecosystem, where individual components thrive off one another and allow for evolution.
Those components—entrepreneurial spirit, research and development, intellectual property lawyers, venture capital availability, among others—exist in Wilmington. But they’re not quite churning—yet.
So says John Hardin, executive director of the N.C. Board of Science & Technology, who visited the Port City on Thursday to observe its potential in the innovation economy.
Image: From left, John Hardin and Scott Doron of the N.C. Office of Science & Technology. Photo by Ben Brown.
When it comes to the JOBS Act, much of the excitement (as well as criticism) has been around Title III, which, when finalized, will allow unaccredited investors to invest in businesses online.
But other parts of the act were, arguably, just as significant, and they’re here now. One of those sections — Title II, which is sometimes referred to as accredited investor crowdfunding — came into effect on September 23. Title II lifted the ban on general solicitation, or advertising, allowing companies, asset managers, and investment firms to market investment opportunities to the general public.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new, stretchable antenna that can be incorporated into wearable technologies, such as health monitoring devices.
“Many researchers – including our lab – have developed prototype sensors for wearable health systems, but there was a clear need to develop antennas that can be easily incorporated into those systems to transmit data from the sensors, so that patients can be monitored or diagnosed,” says Dr. Yong Zhu, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work.
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Since the invention of fermented beverages, curing the dreadful aftermath of overimbibing them has been one of humanity's morning-after quests. Ancient Greeks ate sheep lungs and two owl eggs to cure such a hangover, a cure tweaked by Roman Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, who suggested raw owl eggs or a fried canary. Sicilians recommended dried bull penis although Mongolians prefer tomato juice and pickled sheep’s eyes.
The federal government is rebooting its approach to building online services.
A new program dubbed 18F will try to graft the DNA of a high-tech startup onto the cumbersome machinery of government. Housed at the General Services Administration, 18F will be home to a team of developers who will build Web services for government agencies, prototypes for projects and tools that can be reused across government.
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Australian start-ups particularly in the mining sector are in line for part of a $US100 million ($110 million) injection following the launch of an innovation fund by networking giant Cisco.
Announcing the fund in Melbourne on Wednesday, Cisco's global entrepreneur-in-residence, Wim Elfrink, said Australia was well equipped to be a leading innovation and development centre especially in resources and minerals.
Image: Cisco Australia and New Zealand vice-president Ken Boal said funds would be allocated to the best projects globally and not by country. Photo: Simon Schluter
When I launched a side business about five years ago coaching people about their finances, I enjoyed it so much that I barely charged--if I charged at all--for my services. Many of the people I was helping were in the hole--and desperately trying to get out. Plus, I loved talking to them about their money, so it didn’t feel like an even exchange. I felt ashamed asking them to pay me.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/92396017@N00/1323193903
How do you win your NCAA tournament bracket? If there was one surefire formula to domination, the same people would win their office pools every year. Instead, it is often the person that knows the least about basketball that takes home the bragging rights, choosing their teams seemingly at random.
One of the two greatest tournaments in sports is set to start this week as the NCAA men’s basketball championship set to tip off Thursday afternoon. March Madness—next to the soccer World Cup—is the most captivating series of games to happen, and luckily for us, it happens every year. Underdogs become national heroes as basketball pageantry takes center stage over the next three weeks.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
At LinkedIn, we’re often asked what successful job seekers are doing on LinkedIn.
It turns out that job seekers are already ahead of the curve just by using LinkedIn. With over 300,000 jobs spanning nearly every profession, 90% of the Fortune 100 and thousands of other businesses using LinkedIn to hire, LinkedIn is the perfect place to jumpstart a job hunt.
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Don’t worry, this is not about a fitness wearable device. Instead I want to share my perspective on the deal evaluation process at a VC. This post has been inspired by a conversation I recently had with founders of a company we really liked. Our discussions with them were progressing at a rapid pace when they asked, “Why are you moving so fast on this deal?” I think it is one of the smartest queries relating to a VC’s evaluation process– entrepreneurs should ask questions not only when a VC is moving too slow but also when they are moving too fast!
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In business, strategies fail not because they are flawed but because they are not implemented well.
In the 20 or so years that I have worked as a consultant I have seen employers craft robust strategies only to see them fail because they did not anticipate the most obvious pitfalls. In my book Making Your Strategy Work: How to Go From Paper to People I have tried to explain what these are and how to avoid them. Here is my top ten derived from over 100 interviews with CEOs globally.
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Data is crucial to our lives, but it can be hard to make sense of. That’s what makes these visualization tools potentially transformative.
In a world where bits travel at thousands of miles per second, the last 20 inches of the journey—those separating the screen from the user—are where communication stops.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The patent system in the United States is one of the most important foundations for progress and innovation and was one of the driving forces for industrial expansion in the 19th century. The system gives inventors legal protection for their ideas and empowers innovators to innovate. Some of these inventions from 1864 might seem laughable now, but all of them tried to answer a need or want of some kind, needs that we still have 150 years later. Some were ridiculed back then as well: Sylvester Marsh’s cog railway up a mountain for tourists was considered ridiculous at the time, and one New Hampshire legislator thought that Marsh would be as likely to build a railway “to the moon.” But sometimes inventors can, as the saying goes, “laugh all the way to the bank.”
Image: http://www.scientificamerican.comÂ
Tech companies—Facebook, Google and IBM, to name a few—are quick to tout the world-changing powers of “big data” gleaned from mobile devices, Web searches, citizen science projects and sensor networks. Never before has so much data been available covering so many areas of interest, whether it’s online shopping trends or cancer research. Still, some scientists caution that particularly when it comes to data, bigger isn’t necessarily better.
Image: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com
After decades of bafflement and frustration, the world is still struggling to guess the secret of Silicon Valley’s success. Sure, the towns and cities at the San Francisco Bay’s southern end have plenty of high-tech talent, but that’s scarcely an explanation: those ambitious young engineers and innovators could find work just about anywhere they choose.
Image: Silicon Valley, California. Credit: Samykolon/Wikimedia Commons
I grew up in the golden age of Disney films and in the aftermath of the Challenger explosion and the birth of the Apple computer. I'm part of the can-do generation raised after the Equal Rights Amendment was debated in Congress, and during the rise of the supermodel and the gradual fall of communism. I'm someone who actually knew about Aliza Sherman when I became a MacGirl Evangelist in special education in the '90s, and that it was just a matter of time before the first leg of the Technology Revolution changed our lives forever, starting with the dot-com boom.
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How is it that only a few business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to drive exceptional results and disruptive innovation in this rapidly changing market economy (marketquake)? These few seem more adept at executing market and technology turns, not just incremental evolution. They consistently take bold steps to stay ahead of the curve, often contrary to conventional wisdom.
Steve Jobs of Apple may have been the most visible example of this ability to “see around the corner,” but others often mentioned include Richard Branson (Virgin Group), and Howard Schultz (Starbucks). Most of you could suggest one more, but not many.
