Q: I am a senior in college, majoring in taxation. I don't think I want this to be my career -- I want to be my own boss. I need to tell my parents my true feelings. Could you please give me some advice? -- Bei, China

If you want to be an entrepreneur, leaving school to pursue your own goals can be a smart move, but it can also be a difficult choice, especially when well-meaning family members and friends are urging you to finish your studies. However, many successful business leaders, including myself, have taken this path and never looked back.To read the full, original article click on this link: Richard Branson on Taking the Leap Into Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneur.com

This is a question that I and my colleagues here at Babson College are frequently asked by the media, entrepreneurs, friends and fellow academics.  The number of colleges and universities offering courses has grown dramatically from 253 schools to more than 2600 worldwide (Katz, J., E-web- SLU.edu, 2012; Kauffman Foundation, 2012). With this rise in courses, also comes the question of metrics- how do we know that these courses are effective? The most popular way to measure, based on questions posed by the many rankings organizations, has to do with the number of students “starting a new venture right after graduation”.

The gathering, at a glorified construction zone, felt like a TED conference in the desert. A charismatic speaker held a roomful of entrepreneurs rapt with visions of the future. The crowd frequently broke into rapturous applause.

The speaker, Naveen Jain, came to downtown Vegas in May to tell the story of his journey “from the streets of India to the moon.” Concluding his talk, Jain urged the entrepreneurs in the room to dream big. He asked, “Can we create a new model for learning? For transportation? For health care?”

As economic recovery indicators fell flat last week, the leaders of G20 nations held meetings in Russia. Entrepreneurs were present and armed with a two reports from a couple of “Big 4” heavyweights to help them deliver their message -- “Help us help you stimulate job creation.” We take a look this week at some of the highlights of what the authors had to say.

While I left Russia last week before the important government leaders arrived, I was there for the release by Ernst & Young and Accenture of their reports measuring entrepreneurship. This year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneurship Competitiveness Barometer, which measures the entrepreneurship competitiveness amongst the G20 countries, highlights the fact that youth unemployment has reached critical levels (higher than 30% in the worst-hit countries). Making matters worse, these levels are expected to rise over the next five years, raising the specter of what the report calls a “lost generation.” The loss of this untapped generation is significant not only because of their numbers (290 million young people neither working nor studying according to The Economist) but also because young people around the world are under-employed relative to their training and capabilities.

Talk to the founders of Silicon Valley startups and they will tell you that the single greatest obstacle they face after they obtain funding is the dearth of skilled talent. They say this is limiting their ability to innovate. A group of tech CEOs told President Obama in March that five companies alone — IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, and Qualcomm — had 10,000 job openings in the US. They called this "one of the biggest economic challenges facing our nation" and asked the president to address the need for more qualified, highly-skilled professionals, domestic and foreign, and to urgently enact immigration reform.

Polarization is often stark around highly-skilled immigration, one of the issues at the heart of the tech sector's pleas. It can be difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Two years ago, I made a commitment to do something that made me profoundly uncomfortable. I had just finished writing my first book, and I promised my publisher that I would reach out to bestselling authors and senior leaders, asking them to read my book and consider endorsing it.

I knew their quotes would go a long way toward attracting readers. But as someone who generally prefers to be on the giving side of exchanges, rather than the asking and receiving end, I knew it was time to pick up some new tips. I began seeking advice, scouring the research evidence, and test-driving what I learned in my quest to capture the attention of busy people.

There comes a stage in every company’s lifecycle when going public makes sense. It might be to maintain growth, pull off more aggressive expansion, or bring on new shareholders to gain access to resources and knowledge. Before doing so, a startup (or private company) should give some thought to the differences between a private and public company, especially in terms of what analysts and investors take into consideration when valuating.

The term “private company” covers an array of businesses; all the way from single-employee (non-incorporated) to startups, to former public companies who became private after a buyout. This is how diverse the characteristics are that make a company “private,” and with this diversity of characteristics are equally diverse factors that analysts look at when valuating. Let’s look at five.

As GE's chief marketing officer, Beth Comstock leads growth and market-innovation initiatives. She describes the two main qualities that propelled her career, which included key roles at some of the world's biggest media firms.

Introducing 'WSJ Startup of the Year,' a new documentary series from WSJ Live that matches 24 innovative startups with a team of world-class mentors and tracks their journey from startup to success.

A new resource will allow scientists to explore the anatomy of a single brain in three dimensions at far greater detail than before, a possibility its creators hope will guide the quest to map brain activity in humans. The resource, dubbed the BigBrain, was created as part of the European Human Brain Project and is freely available online for scientists to use.

The researchers behind the BigBrain, led by Katrin Amunts at the Research Centre Jülich and the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany, imaged the brain of a healthy deceased 65-year-old woman using MRI and then embedded the brain in paraffin wax and cut it into 7,400 slices, each just 20 micrometers thick. Each slice was mounted on a slide and digitally imaged using a flatbed scanner.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has announced a Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) for funding being made available through its Office of Economic Adjustment (DoD OEA) for community planning assistance and economic diversification in response to reductions or cancellations in DoD spending.

Proposals will be considered for funding on a continuing basis, subject to available appropriations, commencing on the date of publication of this notice. OEA will evaluate all proposals and provide a response to a respondent within 30 business days of OEA’s receipt of a final, complete application.

View the June 17, 2013 Federal Register Notice for complete details.

After being cooped up inside all day, your afternoon stroll may leave you feeling clearheaded. This sensation is not just in your mind. A growing body of evidence suggests we think and learn better when we walk or do another form of exercise. The reason for this phenomenon, however, is not completely understood.

Part of the reason exercise enhances cognition has to do with blood flow. Research shows that when we exercise, blood pressure and blood flow increase everywhere in the body, including the brain. More blood means more energy and oxygen, which makes our brain perform better.

Something strangely productive happened in 17th-century England: The meeting spot of choice changed from ale house to coffeehouse, and correspondingly, a population went from intoxication to stimulation--and as Where Ideas Come From author Steven Johnson observes, a flowering of innovation soon followed.

This burst, he argues, comes from a number of factors: beyond the caffeination, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with other yabbering thought mongers availed people to spill their ideas (and drinks) onto one another, adding nodes to their networks and dipping into serendipity. And as the New York Times reports, coffee shops just sound creative.

Crowdfunding has stormed the startup scene. Many entrepreneurs are turning to platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise funds rather than seeking traditional seed capital. Success stories like gaming console Ouya and smartwatch Pebble have sent waves of excitement through a startup community that relies heavily on venture capital to keep its blood (and dollars) flowing.

Most entrepreneurs have faced rejection from investors at one point or another, and crowdfunding provides an alternative to going door-to-door to major VC firms looking for someone who believes in you and your idea. Along with the rise of crowdfunding comes criticism of the VC fundraising model and questions about the future of venture capital.

In one of his recent blogs at Life Sci VC, Atlas Venture’s Bruce Booth makes the optimists’ case for venture capital investments in the life sciences. Booth’s message is that life sciences venture capital is healthy but misunderstood, but he misses the forest for the trees in important ways.

Based on my 27 years in the venture industry, I would argue that another ten years like the last decade would put life sciences venture capital in serious jeopardy. I’ve seen estimates from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) that predict the number of U.S. venture firms will be one-third of the pre-2007 level by the time the post-meltdown shakeout has run its course—and the number of VC partners will be a quarter of what it was. My guess is that life sciences as a subset will fare even worse.

Connecticut Innovations is taking a new investment approach as it prepares to launch a $200 million fund to spur bioscience research and development in the state. The fund, originally pitched by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and approved by lawmakers during the recent legislative session, will provide grants, equity investments, loans and loan guarantees to bioscience related initiatives over the next 10 years. In addition to investing in early stage companies, however, CI will provide capital to researchers who are still only in the idea stage, meaning they've made a discovery in a lab but haven't yet formed a viable business.

What’s your best advice for a recent college grad embarking on a serious job hunt for the first time?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

1. Re-Examine “Job Security”

For some reason, people mistakenly think that working for somebody else gives them more security. Not only is there now a ceiling on how much you can make or what you’ll be allowed to do, but your fate is tied directly to who’s running the company that employs you. If it hits a bad spot, you’re expendable. Always have a plan B in the form of your own projects just in case! - Travis Steffen, WorkoutBOX

Interested in joining or founding a startup but have no idea where to begin? Or perhaps you're interested in walking a mile in the shoes of a developer at a startup to see what it's like?

There's a (free) class for that, and it's taught by two of the best computer science professors in the Silicon Valley.

The telegram has been in the news recently. It seems that the last telegram company is shutting its doors next month.

I suppose this has made the news because reporters and editors have found it odd that a telegram company could still be operating today. I don’t find it odd.

Let’s look at a few reasons the telegram company survived in India all these years:

• the telegram was sunk cost, meaning the wires were already in place and the physical infrastructure to support it was money already spent (like phone landlines in the US) 
• it was a highly secure system for transmitting legal documents, especially court orders and specific government actions (only in the last few years has the US adopted e-signatures for certain legal paperwork) 
• it was easier to train a few people to use the telegram than to train them to use computers 
• until everyone had a phone, it was difficult to displace the rapidity of the telegram for communication 
• people use what they are familiar with

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has amended the rules relating to its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. The new SBA rules implement the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which included changes to the SBIR and STTR programs. These rule changes increase the opportunity for private equity and venture capital investment in SBIR program participants and may preview future revisions to the SBA's general affiliation rules.

Background

Prior to the new SBA rules, businesses could not participate in the SBIR program unless they were majority owned and controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens or by a single business that was majority owned and controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens. In addition, such participating businesses could have no more than 500 employees, including the employees of their affiliates.

Continuing its efforts to promote changes to U.S. immigration law that would benefit foreign-born entrepreneurs, the National Venture Capital Association has updated a 2006 report on job creation by immigrant-founded companies.

The report, which will be released in full in July, found that one-third of U.S. venture-backed companies that went public between 2006 and 2012—including high-flyers such as Facebook FB -1.68%, LinkedIn and Zipcar—had at least one immigrant founder.