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.
The world could be at your fingertips, thanks to a new wearable, gesture-based gadget.
Fin enables users to control up to three devices such as smartphones, car radios and smart TVs using only swipes and taps. The ring-shaped technology is worn on the thumb, and communicates with different devices using Bluetooth.
Coming on the heels of one of the most prolific quarters of private equity (PE) investment on record in 4Q 2012, deal-making in the U.S. started off slow in 2013, as was largely anticipated. The pace of investment did accelerate throughout the year, but rising valuations for both public and private companies, a high level of competition and a dwindling number of attractive targets made deal sourcing difficult. To that end, PE deal flow fell 14% in 2013 to 2,124 transactions. Although deal flow was down, capital invested in 2013 rose to $426 billion—its highest point since 2007—thanks to a flurry of deals with a price tag of $2.5 billion or more.
The difficult deal sourcing environment and a renewed focus on operational improvements has resulted in a noticeable shift in how PE firms invest. Platform buyouts shrunk to roughly one-third (32%) of all PE deals in 2013—the smallest share on record—and were surpassed by add-on acquisitions for the first time ever. In addition to more add-on deals, investors also executed a higher proportion of growth/expansion deals, which now comprise nearly a quarter (23%) of all PE transactions.
Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook" while he was a student at Harvard University on Feb. 4, 2004. Unlike many trends from 2004, Zuckerberg's creation remains one of the most influential in the world today.
But it begs the question: What else was popular that year?
Image: http://mashable.com/
In organizations around the world, new digital tools and technologies are adding efficiencies and enabling new business models. Chief information officers stand at the epicenter of this activity: As keepers of the IT wallet and managers of the firm’s tech-savvy talent, they stand to unlock the competitive advantage of digitization. But with digitization’s promise come challenges for those who manage how it is deployed and used.
To better understand the changing role of the chief information officer, Booz & Company surveyed 60 CIOs of large multinational corporations in a variety of sectors as part of its inaugural CIO Success(ion) Study in late 2013. These CIOs must coordinate an increasingly complicated set of internal and external resources and capabilities; oversee the development of complex new IT-enabled projects on time, on budget, and in a way that delivers the promised business value; and continually assess emerging technologies and solutions.
Image: Illustration by Carlos Aponte
Across countries, entrepreneurship is shown to support wealth and income generation, job creation and innovations in product and process. The precise role of entrepreneurship in any specific country depends on the institutional context. Much of our understanding of institutions and entrepreneurship is based either on empirical studies from countries at relative peace, or on theoretical models assuming peaceful conditions. We have little understanding of how an institutional context characterized by armed conflict affects entrepreneurship, and how entrepreneurship can best be promoted in post-conflict situations. This article, based on a paper presented at the UNU-WIDER workshop on Entrepreneurship and Conflict, held in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in March 2009, addresses this lacuna by discussing the case of entrepreneurship in Iraq. It provides an overview of entrepreneurship in Iraq, focusing primarily on the importance of accurately understanding what is going on, and identifying four key sets of constraints.
Image Courtesy of domdeen / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A new study at the European School of Management and Technology Berlin (ESMT) suggests that there are three main practices businesses should undertake to enjoy the benefits of open innovation.
The recent study by Linus Dahlander, Professor and KPMG Innovations Chair at ESMT and Stanford PhD Henning Piezunka, looked at 23,800 organisations which use online feedback mechanisms in almost every sector. Data suggests that the success of online suggestion solicitation varies widely. However, if companies want external contributors to engage, they must follow three practices:
Image Courtesy of samuiblue / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Female blue crab's eyes play a role in growing body parts that enable the crabs to mate and reproduce, according to researchers at the University of Maryland's Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET). It has been known that the crabs' eyeballs produce hormones responsible for the growth and development for a crab from adolescence to adulthood, but this new find is noteworthy for its necessity in crab motherhood.
Image: Scientists at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Maryland recently discovered a new hormone in those eyestalks responsible for forming body parts that make it possible for female crabs to mate and raise young. Credit: Cheryl Nemazie, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
One year after DreamIt Health and the Canadian consulate launched digital health accelerators, the University City Science Center is hosting a state-backed health IT accelerator, according to a statement. The program has spots for six companies in a three-month program in Philadelphia. Aron Starosta, who set up the Canadian Consulate’s accelerator on the Science Center’s campus, also developed the Pennsylvania-backed program.
Geography isn’t a barrier as long as companies are registered in the state. The application deadline is March 15.
Image: http://medcitynews.com
In November 2013, the University Innovation Fellows launched a new wiki platform at universityinnovation.org for students to share information and best practices about innovation and entrepreneurship at their schools. The wiki provides student leaders in academia with resources and how-to strategies for enhancing the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem on campus. Information on courses and programs also enables students on campus to find resources to advance their skills in topics such as creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, commercialization, technology translation and venture development.
by Laurie Moore
In Spring 2013, a student in North Carolina hosted a TEDx Conference on her campus for 1,000 attendees. Another student in California turned an oversized junk closet on his campus into a collaborative prototyping space. In Kentucky, a student founded the first entrepreneurship club at his school.
These students are University Innovation Fellows, and they are leaders and drivers of change on their campuses. They observe the needs of their fellow students and respond to the demand for more activities and programs focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, venture creation, technology, design thinking and creativity.
Image: http://epicenter.stanford.edu
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution 200 years ago, automation has been the subject of both exultation and trepidation around the world. Then, England’s Luddites smashed looms that were replacing jobs for weavers. Worries about robots replacing workers have persisted ever since.
Despite these worries, there has been a consensus, at least in the developed world amongst academics, policymakers, and the public that technological progress is a good thing: providing much of the impetus for economic growth.
Image: Industrial welding robot. (Credit: Phasmatisnox - Wikipedia)
When you fly, you can choose your airline, your departure time, your luggage, and what snacks you buy in the terminal. You do not, however, have a choice when it comes to TSA. “It’s a brand that everyone must experience,” says Jeremy Miller, a master's student at the School of Visual Arts in New York who, along with a few other students, rebranded the TSA experience for a thesis project.
Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com
Two years ago, at the recommendation of a nutritionist, I stopped eating wheat and a few other grains. Within a matter of days the disabling headaches and fatigue that I had been suffering for months vanished. Initially my gastroenterologist interpreted this resolution of my symptoms as a sign that I perhaps suffered from celiac disease, a peculiar disorder in which the immune system attacks a bundle of proteins found in wheat, barley and rye that are collectively referred to as gluten. The misdirected assault ravages and inflames the small intestine, interfering with the absorption of vital nutrients and thereby causing bloating, diarrhea, headaches, tiredness and, in rare cases, death. Yet several tests for celiac disease had come back negative. Rather my doctors concluded that I had nonceliac “gluten sensitivity,” a relatively new diagnosis. The prevalence of gluten sensitivity is not yet clear, but some data suggest it may afflict as many as 6 percent of Americans, six times the number of people with celiac disease.
Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com
Every country worldwide will be building walls to defend itself from rising seas within 90 years because the cost of flooding will be more expensive than the price of protective projects, researchers predict in a new study.
The encroaching seawater threatens to flood hundreds of millions of people every year by 2100 as homes that are already below flood heights, or will be, succumb to climbing oceans. If governments fail to take any action, the annual cost of damage stands to reach hundreds of billions of dollars, at best, and as high as $100 trillion under grimmer scenarios, according to the paper, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Image: Rehabilitation of the seawall on the North Shore of Long Island, 2010. Image courtesy of USACE HQ/Flickr
NCIIA 18th annual conference--Open 2014--will be held March 21-22 in San Jose, CA. Entrepreneurship educators, students, and professionals from academic institutions across the country and around the world will come together for two packed days of informative, useful sessions, and numerous pre- and post-conference workshops on best practices for unleashing the creative potential of student inventors and innovators. This year's speakers and panelists include inventor and MacArthur Fellow Saul Griffith and Paul Polak, author of The Business Solution To Poverty, and NPR's Science Correspondent Joe Palca. Register at http://nciia.org/open/.
Entrepreneurship programs are ubiquitous at business schools. So how do you measure the course designed to instill the startup spirit? Do you count the number of businesses launched by the school’s recent graduates? Is it as simple as tallying the money grads are able to raise? Or perhaps some combination of the two?
The trouble with those approaches is that they miss a broader and more important issue: Entrepreneurship can be like a virus—incubation rates vary. We need to understand what happens not just in the months after students leave school, but over the course of their lives and careers.
Image: Photograph by Sam Edwards/Gallery Stock
It’s not easy being a young entrepreneur. I should know, I was once a twenty-something founder who had to learn startup lessons the hard way. While nothing is more valuable than the lessons you learn yourself, sometimes it helps to learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before.
I recently talked to 23-year-old entrepreneur Ryan Glynn, who is the co-founder and COO of mhoto. His company provides technology helping businesses and individuals create original music compositions using photos, videos, and text. The mhoto software analyzes the image and then creates a specially tailored song. While a picture might be worth a thousand words, mhoto sees music notes instead.
Venture capitalists Jennifer Fonstad of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Theresia Gouw of Accel Partners are leaving their firms to launch Aspect Ventures and focus on mobile computing investments. The new Silicon Valley venture capital firm will invest in Series A and seed venture rounds in up-and-coming mobile technology startups. Gouw said that the firm is hitting the ground running, with “a couple of investments we will be announcing in the coming weeks.”
Image: Jennifer Fonstad, left, and Theresia Gouw are launching venture capital firm Aspect Ventures.
Dozens of universities recently touted transfer agreements with community colleges as part of President Obama’s summit on higher education. Drexel University didn’t participate in the event. But it can hang with any private university when it comes to working closely with community colleges. For eight years the Philadelphia-based university has taken its bachelor’s degree programs across state lines to New Jersey’s Burlington County College.
Image: http://www.insidehighered.com
The pace of new business creation has been slow since the end of the recession, a new report finds.
The number of new private sector business establishments in the U.S. grew by only about 132,000, or 1.5 percent, from 2010 through 2012, the first three full years of the economic recovery. The report, from CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists, analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/
