Today’s University is a rich resource for companies seeking game-changing technological breakthroughs. In this in-depth article Melba Kurman looks at the benefits of open innovation partnerships between companies and American university researchers.

Crowdfunding is one of the hottest new strategies for small business owners and entrepreneurs to raise capital for their startups, expansion projects or new ideas. This investing style first saw widespread use in 2012, mostly through online platforms like Kickstarter and GoFundMe, and it’s still going strong for 2013.

What is crowdfunding?

Basically, it’s getting a whole bunch of people, the “crowd,” to believe enough in the concept of your business or idea to donate small amounts of money, often in exchange for rewards that range from acknowledgements to free products or services. The best part? These are donations and therefore, don’t have to be paid back.

Pitches are nerve-wracking. The perfect pitch would probably have the ability to “plant ideas” like Leonardo DiCaprio does in Inception. Sadly we don’t live in a Christopher Nolan directed reality. We do however live in a world where we can learn from other people’s success. Having a good concept is one thing. Having to present that concept another. Especially if you’re seeking funding. The elevator pitch is all about getting your startup’s concept to your audience as simple and coherent as possible. It’s like having to paint a picture with a 140 character limit.

In the face of rising global competition and increased funding for science, mathematics, engineering and technology, researchers across the spectrum need to develop interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle pressing societal challenges, a conglomerate of scientists declares in a new report.

“What is both possible and necessary is a true conceptual leap from interdisciplinary collaboration to a powerful transdisciplinarity, sweeping together the physical sciences and engineering (PSE) and the life sciences and medicine (LSM),” the report reads.

The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it.

Smart grids should be far more resilient than conventional grids, which is important for surviving storms, and make it easier to install more intermittent sources of energy like solar power (see “China Tests a Small Smart Electric Grid” and “On the Smart Grid, a Watt Saved Is a Watt Earned”). The Recovery Act of 2009 gave a vital boost to the development of smart grid technology, and the Florida grid was built with $200 million from the U.S. Department of Energy made available through the Recovery Act.

Older adults who have higher levels of blood omega-3 levels—fatty acids found almost exclusively in fatty fish and seafood—may be able to lower their overall mortality risk by as much as 27% and their mortality risk from heart disease by about 35%, according to a new study.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Washington found that older adults who had the highest blood levels of the fatty acids found in fish lived, on average, 2.2 years longer than those with lower levels.

Today we came across what should be considered a classic open innovation viral video, if there is such a thing.  This great and informative clip gives one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-digest primers on open innovation and co-creation that we've seen, with highlights from all sorts of successful projects around the world.

If you need to explain how open innovation works, or the potential of co-creation, this is a great introduction for beginners, and all in less than 7 minutes. It comes from the folks at HYVE in Germany who have been at this for some time. Enjoy.

Your high school and collegiate days might be behind you, but that doesn’t mean the English lessons you learned are over as well.

Even in today’s professional business world, I run across endless grammatical errors in my business dealings. While most typos are forgivable, others cause confusion and don’t provide a good impression.

Whether you’re posting content for your brand or simply exchanging a business email, it’s extremely important for anything you write to be error free. After all, you don’t want to make a negative impression with poor grammar. Clean and compelling content influences both B2B and B2C consumers. Follow these 20 grammar rules below.

SAN FRANCISCO – To keep up with the breakneck pace of developments in online education, higher education researchers must be nimble and sometimes make do with “dirty” and quickly gathered data. Otherwise weighty discussions about student learning might get lost in all the hype around massive open online courses and other digital innovations. That was a takeaway Tuesday during a panel discussion here at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Participants in the session tried to define a meaningful research agenda around emerging forms of course delivery.

To believe you can inspire someone at times feels a little arrogant, and so maybe I don’t think about it in quite that way, preferring the idea of providing support and encouragement instead. However, one might regard it, the role of mentor is one I yearn more and more to assume the older I get – which perhaps accounts for the fact that I seem to be discovering more and more opportunities for doing so these days.

Bootstrapping a startup is no easy task. That first year is particularly grueling. Yet these days, a lot of folks are bootstrapping their web startups, rather than going the VC-funded route.

It takes a tremendous commitment from the founder(s) to make it through the ups and downs during those early months. You must overcome many roadblocks and hurdles as you travel from idea to side project to full-time gig to thriving company.

Kim Jong-un? I know how he feels. Really, I do.

The young ruler of North Korea has been getting a lot of bad press. Within the last few months, Jong-un has launched test missiles, re-positioned other missiles for a potential attack on his neighbors, threatened a nuclear war with the U.S., strained ties with his chief ally China, cozied up to Iran, announced he will restart a nuclear reactor to add to the country's arsenal, made sexist taunts at South Korea's leader, and talked about more imminent nuclear tests. His behavior continues to destabilize the Korean peninsula, add tensions among the world's superpowers, and, worst of all, I'm now seeing way too much of Dennis Rodman on TV.

With record numbers of new start-ups, astonishingly generous tax breaks for investors and ever-more crowdfunding sites gaining traction, more and more entrepreneurs - or 'wantrepreneurs' - are queuing up to get backing.

I must have met hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last few years and seen hundreds of others make presentations.

Around $174 million was invested across 54 deals across 9 different Industrial category in Q1, FY 2013.

Internet industry at 25 deals worth $94 million attracted 46.3 % of total investments in volume and 54% in value (million $). Healthcare (which attracted 8 deals worth $31.31 million) and Enterprise (8 deals worth $14.7 million) attracted 18% and 8.4% of total funds respectively, were the next most popular industrial targets after Internet.

With the success of the iPad, the global uptake in the number of tablet computers and the urgency that almost every manufacturer on the planet has felt to create its own 7-to-10 inch slate, you’d think the last thing the boss of any mobile company would be talking about is the death of tablets. Well, you’d be wrong. BlackBerry’s Thorsten Heins apparently thinks the gadgets won’t see out the decade.

Bloomberg reported today that the CEO doesn’t put much stock in the trend, quoting him as saying “in five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore.” “Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model,” he said.

Nothing better expresses America’s aspirational ideal than the notion of small enterprise as the primary creator of jobs and innovation. Small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 employees, have traditionally driven our economy, particularly after recessions. Yet today, in a manner not seen since the 1950s, the very relevance and vitality of our startup culture is under assault. For the country and the states, this is a matter of the utmost urgency.

To encourage residents to start their own businesses, U.S. states are investing in entrepreneur mentorship programs and pumping up their high-tech workforce.

Maryland, Colorado and Virginia are the three states most supportive of innovation, according to the fourth annual Enterprising States report out this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Washington, D.C., based business advocacy organization.

President Obama plans to nominate venture capitalist Thomas Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission, White House officials said.

Wheeler, managing director at Core Capital Partners, a venture-capital firm based in Washington, D.C., also has worked at several start-up companies and been a top lobbyist for the wireless and cable industries.

Georgia took steps this week to create a public-backed venture fund aimed at keeping startup companies from fleeing the state when funding dries up.

The fund could eventually pump $100 million into innovative new companies, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported (http://bit.ly/a1eK ).

Gov. Nathan Deal's recent decision to sign House Bill 318 forges a new, riskier, path for state funding of private companies.

If timing is a critical factor in starting a business, then those interested in small business start-ups should take heed of growing trends in the society. A number of industries are seeing significant growth regardless of slow economic conditions. These businesses offer plenty of opportunity for new entrepreneurs in 2013.

Healthy Fast Foods

Fast food is one of the industries that has weathered the problems in the general economy. Working parents, singles and senior citizens often have little time or inclination for cooking, but they still are concerned about the foods they eat. Healthy prepared foods have picked up a significant market share in urban and suburban communities and are expected to continue growth for some time in the future.