Whether you’re presenting to investors with a pitch deck, or jostling for a foot in the door by way of an elevator pitch, we’ve trawled the depths of YouTube to bring you some of the best presentation and pitching advice from brilliant companies and people. The videos we’ve collected will help you with structure and delivery, and if you find yourself inspired to get started on a killer presentation, be sure to take a look at Pitch Envy, a collection of some of the best pitch decks.

States with the best tech and science assets tend to have the strongest economies. Where is the tech sector most prevalent? Which states have the skilled workers to sustain these innovative companies now and in the future? Find out in the fifth edition of our State Technology and Science Index.

You’ve likely read enough blogs to fill a digital library focused on what Big Data was about to help humanity accomplish. We are guilty as charged here on the TopCoder blog as we’ve shared such tales, even illuminating how Big Data will soon improve your golf game (Fore!). It’s fun to envision the ‘what ifs’ of technology, but it’s also supremely important to spend time with two feet on the ground, discussing what is actually happening within a given movement, right now. For that reason we recently featured author & speaker Phil Simon on our blog because his new business book: Too Big to Ignore – the Business Case for Big Data focuses a great deal on case studies that have trailblazed the paths that others are now heading down as it pertains to Big Data experimentation and value creation. **Disclaimer – TopCoder is featured in Simon’s new book.

One of the toughest challenges of an entrepreneur in building a startup is the fact that there are so many things that you don’t know how to do, or don’t like to do. Things like raising money, building a business plan, or hiring and firing people. These aren’t fun, especially for a visionary. That’s when the curse of procrastination steps in.

The result is that certain things just never seem to get done. Jan Yager, in her book, “Work Less, Do More” talks about procrastination as a primary obstacle to efficient time management. She describes how you can grow so busy doing everything but what you should be doing, that you’re unaware that you’re failing to address what’s really fundamental to your success.

Learn-to-code startups abound these days, but one in particular is focusing on the very young and is having some success in elementary schools around the country — even underserved schools with no budgets for STEM but great needs for better tools.

The startup is Tynker; it makes a web-based learning platform and a visual programming language for teachers and kids in K-12 classrooms. In a discussion with its co-founder, we found out why teaching kids how to code is so important to him.

Leaders from every corner of Quad-City business are uniting to discuss ways for the region to distinguish itself from other metro areas in the fierce competition for jobs, investment and talent.

The Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday that nearly 100 area executives and business owners have been meeting as a new group, known as the Regional Opportunities Council. The group, which the chamber formed in August 2011, has been meeting quarterly to identify opportunities that will help transform the region in the decades ahead.

Fifty years ago, a cheap lunch ladled onto a tray was a decent enough perk at premier American companies, such as Ford or Eastman Kodak. Today, that wouldn’t do in Silicon Valley, where in-house “cafés” have become a microcosm of modern cookery: a dedicated staff of bakers at Cisco, for example, or an Indian chef at eBay preparing curries spiced by decades of experience.

Tumbling in the waves as they hit a rocky shore tells purple sea urchin larvae it’s time to settle down and look for a spot to grow into an adult, researchers at the University of California, Davis, Bodega Marine Laboratory have found. The work is published April 8 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“How these animals find their way to the right habitat is a fascinating problem,” said Brian Gaylord, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis and a researcher at the Bodega Marine Lab. “The turbulence response allows them to tell that they’re in the right neighborhood.”

Some places have more start-ups than others. By the best scorecard available — venture capital invested — Silicon Valley is doing better than Seattle and Tel Aviv. To understand why, scrutinize each region’s Start-up Common.

In 2012, Silicon Valley lured $10.9 billion worth of venture capital for its start-ups. That was five times more than Tel Aviv’s $1.9 billion and over 10 times more than Seattle’s $1.1 billion. To understand why, it is worth understanding the six dimensions that constitute a Start-up Common:

For any one of us, the "reality" of a situation is just what we choose to pay attention to. Take the wonderful experiment a few years ago when renowned violinist Joshua Bell played for tips in the subway. Thousands of people rushed through that busy metro station barely noticing what seemed to be yet another poor musician on the platform. Their reality was the noise and the myriad annoyances that go with crowds of people jostling to get to trains. A few stopped in their tracks and listened in awe. Same place, same time — two different realities.

Employer wellness programs used to mean just having a gym in the office or posters on the wall encouraging people to take the stairs instead of the elevator. Now more companies are using real money, and sometimes penalties, as incentives for workers to get in better shape.

Getty Images Nearly 90% of employers offer wellness incentives, or financial rewards or prizes to employees who work toward getting healthier, according to a recent survey from Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health. That’s up from 57% of companies in 2009.

In 2005, heeding the advice of his mentor, Adam Witty decided to start a publishing business from the spare bedroom of his apartment on James Island.

At a time when most book publishers were experiencing declining sales amid technological innovations and the growth of self-publishing, Witty grew Advantage Media Group Inc. into a globally operated company based in Charleston.

Some people make the jump to entrepreneurship fast – I mean really fast.  They get a great idea in college and run with it.  Just think about the big names that have done this over time: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and more.

But for every shooting star, I would venture that there are 10 slow and steady entrepreneurs that have been gradually building their businesses while gaining the skills and experiences necessary to succeed.  That’s my story – I’m working my way there right now.  I’m a believer that you don’t need to have overnight success to be an entrepreneur.  Rather, you can build a skillset over time that will empower you to be successful when you do make the jump to self-employment.

I met Slovenian entrepreneur, Sandi Cesko, in 2007 when his Ljubljana-based multi-channel retail operation, Studio Moderna, had about $70 million in sales. Not bad. I met him again two months ago: six years later he had scaled up by a factor of ten — all the result of organic growth — and employs over 6000 people. Even better.

I’m fortunate to have traveled to Brazil a couple of times a year for the last decade.  The country is amazing; the physical beauty of the Amazon, the luxurious beaches of Rio, the splendor of Carnival and the warmth and joy of its people.  During my trips, I’ve seen an incredible transformation.  The country has enjoyed tremendous economic progress over the last 20 years thanks to the reforms of Presidents Cardoso, Lula and Dilma, although there is still plenty of need for additional reforms.  Within this dynamic environment, I’ve had the opportunity to witness entrepreneurship first hand, working with Endeavor (a non-profit that transforms economies by working with high-impact entrepreneurs), SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro-Enterprise and Small Business Support Service – a quasi-government agency similar to our Small Business Administration), and my academic colleagues from leading universities like FGV and Insper amongst others.

Bitcoin is seriously hot right now. Yesterday one unit of the virtual currency went past the US$200 mark. Thing is, it can be a little difficult getting to grips with the phenomenon. It’s a currency, but it doesn’t work like conventional money systems. It has no central bank or trading system. Instead, it’s open-source, peer-to-peer and in trading, it is subdivided into 100-million smaller units called satoshis, defined by eight decimal places. Confused? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Mobile video has begun to accumulate scale, and has also turned out to be one of the few types of mobile content — along with games — that monetizes reliably and drives premium ad rates.  That's reflected in the much higher prices that mobile publishers can command for mobile video ads, compared to standard mobile formats like banners. eMarketer estimates mobile video will account for $520 million in ad spending in the U.S. this year, or 13% of the digital video ad market. 

The Obama administration on Wednesday proposed a budget for the 2014 fiscal year that suggests slowly rebuilding federal support for science, with an emphasis on favored fields that include clean energy and biotechnology.

The administration's 2014 spending plan includes a total of $33.2-billion for basic research, an increase of about 4 percent over fiscal-2012 levels. It proposes total research-and-development spending of $143-billion, about 1.3 percent more than the fiscal-2012 amount.

Ask an expert which university has the leading university-based technology innovation ecosystem in the world and you are likely to hear them say “MIT.” A ranking of 120 universities that demonstrate a “decisive impact and significant contribution in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation” has pointed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the world leader.

Sites that enable technology startups to “crowdfund”–tap dozens of small-scale investors for needed capital–could help venture and seed investors raise their own funds online, VentureWire reports today (subscription required).

At least one well-known seed-stage fund, Mountain View, Calif.-based 500 Startups, has tried a form of crowdfunding in recent weeks using the sites SecondMarket and AngelList. Others are considering the same method.