If innovation and inventiveness are the qualities which drive America to become the largest economy in the world, perhaps the same qualities will put the U.S. out of its multiyear decline, one in which both housing and real income have slipped substantially. That is the case Ben Bernanke, chief of the Fed, made recently.

Bernanke’s argument could be that the education of young Americans, particularly in math and the sciences, is not adequate to keep the U.S. in the innovation race. The superior educational attainment of children in Asia and parts of Europe will chip away at the American lead in creating the products which will drive the global economy in the decades ahead.

When you run a company--especially a start-up--it can be a 24-hour job. But no matter how busy you are, there's one crucial part of your operation you should never ignore: sales. Not every entrepreneur instinctively understands this part of the business, but if you keep these four things in mind as you lead, you’ll have happier, more productive sales reps and plenty of loyal customers.

One of the hardest but most exciting things about being a young entrepreneur, first-time business owner or even a startup manager is the hiring process. But there are a few things you have to think about before green-lighting a new startup employee, especially in the earliest stages of starting up.

Here are 3 questions to guide you:

1. Do you really NEED another employee?

When you’re first starting out, you’re hiring someone for one of two reasons: (1) because you have pushed your own limits of how much you can work in a day (aka you’re going insane by working so much), or (2), the person you’re hiring has a skill that you simply don’t have and the time spent learning that skill would not be worth it for your business.

Growth opportunities are emerging in new more efficient and innovative business models as the Affordable Care Act produces a dramatic shift in the healthcare delivery and payment, according to financial executives participating in a recent panel.

The investment experts also said they anticipate merger and acquisition activity (M&A) to pick up later this year. The briefing was sponsored by the Nashville Health Care Council, which made the event available via phone to reporters.

Americans understand that one of our great national strengths is innovation. Great innovators -- Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others -- are household names.

The social and economic impact of innovative American researchers, companies, and workers over the course of U.S. history have been enormous. Innovation has dramatically improved the quality of life in this country since the time of Benjamin Franklin, by many accounts America's most illustrious innovator. More recently, statistics show that innovation is responsible for nearly three-quarters of U.S. post-World War II economic growth. Knowledge-based companies exported more than $1 trillion -- approximately 74 percent of total U.S. exports -- in 2011.

It’s one of the anomalies in global statistics: South America is home to the world’s highest proportion of entrepreneurs, yet their presence doesn’t often translate into global innovation or broad-based wealth creation.

Chile has been eager to change that reality. And, it seems, its efforts are starting to bear fruit. Several Chilean-bred tech companies have recently been acquired by venture capital funds, and three Chilean-focused VCs vowed to invest some $67m in Chilean companies this year. Is Chile really becoming “Chilecon Valley”?

If you could hop onboard a time machine and visit the earth as it was 500 million years ago, during the Paleozoic era, you'd be forgiven for thinking you had traveled not to another time period but to another planet altogether. In essence, you would have. The continents mostly sat in the Southern Hemisphere, the oceans had vastly different configurations and currents, the Alps and the Sahara had yet to form. Land plants had not even evolved. Perhaps the most dramatic difference, however, would lie in the animals that inhabited this primeval earth. Back then, most of the world's multicellular creatures lived in the sea. Clamlike creatures called brachiopods and trilobites—those extinct cousins of today's lobsters and insects, with their hard exoskeletons, long antennae and compound eyes—reigned supreme.

From an economic perspective, the most positive outcome of the treaty negotiations (ratified in 1922) was that the Irish Free State acquired full fiscal autonomy from the UK thereafter. But our new study of Irish economic history since independence has revealed that the economy performed very poorly in the inter war years relative to the British and European economies, despite vigorous attempts to encourage growth, initially through improving agricultural exports in the 1920s and subsequently through import substitution and protectionism.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Maryland Department of Business of Economic Development announced Monday that they created a new program to help companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase to continue to grow.

Advance Maryland is designed to assist these companies with developing markets, fine-tuning their business models and boosting growth with the help of a research specialist. Similar models have been adopted in other states, the groups said.

Responding to an April mandate from a federal district court that would make the emergency contraception drug Plan B available without a prescription to all women regardless of age, the Obama administration reduced current age restrictions on the pill from 17 to 15.

That political compromise, despite being the U.S.’s most progressive legislation on emergency contraception to date, continues a historical pattern of ignoring the very studies U.S. administrations have ordered to evaluate the safety of the drug and the societal effects of increased access to emergency contraception.

A single short putt is necessary to win the tournament, but suddenly the golfer's hands cramp up, and the putt goes wide. According to several studies, as many as 48 percent of serious golfers have experienced such motor skill failures, known as the yips. It is most often used to describe golf-related errors, although the yips can strike athletes in any sport.

There is no clear explanation as to why pro athletes, who frequently encounter high-stakes moments, still choke under pressure. One suggested explanation is a neurological condition called focal dystonia that results in involuntary muscle contractions when performing a motor task and tends to affect a muscle group that is used frequently and repeatedly. The cause is unclear, but the contractions may involve abnormalities in neural communication.

The thought of launching a Startup is incredibly intimidating with most failing to survive their first few years, it can often result in an emotionally draining, frustrating and demoralizing experience for everyone involved. Of course with high risk comes high reward, which is why entrepreneurs still ‘take the leap of faith’ despite the odds being stacked against them.

There has never really been a better time to launch a Startup, especially if it resides in the Tech industry. The rapid advancement of the Internet continuously creates gaps in the market, and provides the perfect platform for launching a web based company.

Michigan’s venture capital industry grew again in 2012 as both the amount of capital under management and what’s available for new investments posted strong gains.

The results contrast the general national trend for venture capital and indicate “that Michigan is a destination where entrepreneurs and those that back them are thriving,” states an annual research report issued today by the Michigan Venture Capital Association.

Honduras has a lot of potential. There is a large bilingual population (there are about 728 bilingual schools in the country), a relatively well-built ICT infrastructure (aimed to attract outsourcing from less than 1,000 miles-away Miami) and an increasingly stable government. The Index of Economic Freedom describes the country’s business regulations as relatively benign, except perhaps in the area of labor relations. Efforts are also underway to map an emerging entrepreneurship ecosystem. For example, a national Honduras Emprende 2012 business plan contest recently involved actors from various sectors, including academia, and then set out to map the national institutional entrepreneurship ecosystem.

All this makes it even more tragic that Honduras must struggle so much with drug trafficking, violent crime and youth gangs who deter entrepreneurs—particularly in its capital city. In fact, a CID Gallup survey ranked Tegucigalpa as the most dangerous city in Central America. Not surprisingly, high-growth businesses are still only associated with traditional family names in the business world, rather than the “risk-taking startup culture” of nascent entrepreneurs now so prevalent elsewhere on the continent. Last November’s Chamber of Commerce survey outlining the scale of forced closures from gang violence tells policymakers interested in promoting new firm formation that their task is less about tax or regulatory burdens, but rather major institutional reforms to strengthen the legal system. In short, it is back to the basics for Honduras if it hopes to spur more dynamic economic growth across the country.

However, the government need not be alone in tackling these challenges. Deeper public-private dialogue has been taking place, with ecosystem players such as Junior Achievement, the Global Entrepreneurship Week movement (the Ministry of Education has been engaging with GEW since 2009) and the Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce all helping government to leverage entrepreneurship for these purposes. Once more, it is where top-down reforms meet bottom-up innovators that you will find positive action and impact—even when the challenge is a nation’s very own system of law.

Tags:  Chris Haughey, Tegu, Ibero-American Summit of Young Entrepreneurs,

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Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that the fastest way to kill a startup is to hire the wrong people. It’s true. As someone who has helped build multiple startups, I cannot overstate the importance of assembling a stellar core team. They are the ones who will transform your ideas into reality, and help you achieve your vision.

So, how difficult can it be to assemble a strong team? Most startups tend to focus on hiring the smartest, most qualified people around. But the truth is that sometimes, companies with the best talent and IQ flounder and fizzle out because their employees couldn’t work well together, or because they were undisciplined or unreliable, or because they just weren’t driven enough. So, as important as it is to hire people with talent and expertise, it is equally important to look out for certain other traits as well.

IN an effort to bolster enterprise development and job creation, the South African Revenue Service has taken a leaf out of the UK’s book and created a new asset class for investors to consider: venture capital trusts.

Venture capital companies can now trade as trusts and give tax breaks to those who are prepared to throw some money behind small business. The potential risk-reward matrix could be very tempting.

Don’t miss the thoughtful post by Steve Denning on Forbes.com, the one in which he speaks of “Leadership In The Three-Speed Economy”. It’s one of the best snapshots of “where we are” (in a global sense) in terms of business, society and the world economy. Denning notes that, when people talk about the economy “recovering”, they need to ask, first, which economy. He identifies three: The Traditional Economy of the 20th Century (General Electric, Walmart and the like)

On Wednesday night, 3dim earned the grand prize at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition after successfully pitching its business plan to merge two of today’s most popular, and profitable, technological phenomena: gesture-recognition and smart devices.

Members of 3dim celebrate after winning the grand prize at the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Photo: L. Barry Hetherington The startup was one of eight finalists that pitched business plans to a capacity crowd in Kresge Auditorium. While only one team walked away with the $100,000 top prize, finalists received startup funds totaling $257,000.

Social entrepreneurship is in the air – especially this week. In case you’ve missed out on our coverage of the Social Impact Award 2013, you might want to catch up on it here. With a number of outstanding projects already in the making, there is a new initiative coming out of HUB Vienna Incubation that is looking to select its first batch of startups to hold incubation stipends. The deadline for applications is 30 May.

Chequetta Shaw said she thought she knew about cooking before she trained at the Shoals Culinary Center.

“But I didn’t,” Shaw said, while chatting Tuesday with an Appalachian Regional Commission official. “There’s a whole lot of knowledge provided by this program.

She said the center gave her more than a jump on life. “Y’all gave me a good leap.”