Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Staffing a startup is an art. And while you’ll find dozens of different theories on right-fit hiring in the blogs, books and podcasts of seasoned HR reps and startup founders, there are two words you’re mostly like to find in all of them: culture and drive.

It seems intuitive, right? Only hire clever, execution-oriented employees if you want a clever, execution-oriented team. The problem is where do companies find these wonder-workers who are both qualified and culturally a good fit? One trick is to tap your current team’s friend networks. Ask your best engineer who the best engineer he or she knows is. Then do everything you can to hire that engineer. Of course, demand for these rare startup types is high and friend pools can be exhausted quickly. And no matter who refers the employee, it’s impossible to know if the fit is right until someone officially joins the team.

Martin Luther King Jr.  had a dream that his children would “one day live in a nation where they would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

While we’ve certainly made great strides towards racial and gender equality, an undeniable gap still remains. According to the Department of Labor, unemployment for African-Americans is more than double that of whites. There’s inequality on the gender side as well:  For every dollar a man earns, a woman makes 77 cents.

I have a dream, too. Admittedly, it’s far less profound than that of Martin Luther King Jr , but it’s nonetheless a vision of what things should look like — a chance to succeed based on merit without bias. Sounds simple enough, but think for a minute what this requires: no racism, no sexism, no affirmative action, no homophobia, and no anti-Semitism.

Corporate innovation teams at big companies need to pay more attention to communication if they want to improve their success rate of their innovation outcomes.

They need to communicate internally in order to get the support needed to make innovation happen and they need to communicate externally in order to be able to bring in the best external resources to the innovation process.

I often state that when we talk about the intersection of innovation and communication in the forms of PR, branding and promotion, this used to be all about the innovation outcomes (products and services). The sales and marketing functions deal with this so the innovation people did not really have to focus on innovation. This is changing for a couple of reasons.

Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. There are people who are natural musicians, but that doesn't mean we don't try to teach them music.

Of course, there's no law saying you have to go to college to start a business. We can all point to examples of successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, but still went on to make a big impact. Current young adults have grown up hearing about Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), who dropped out of Harvard, as the paragon of success. Why not try to follow in his footsteps?

The year was marked by one of the most anticipated global environmental meetings in 20 years: the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The summit was a major step towards hammering out a development roadmap to follow after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015.

SciDev.Net analysed the key milestones, from the launch of UN's draft negotiating document, 'The Future We Want', the ambivalent welcome of the document by the scientific and engineering communities, to the splits over what the final document should contain that lingered until the close of the summit.

Everyone lives with self mythology.

The more important a memory is to the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, the more often we rehearse the memory. And the more often we relive those memories, the less likely it is that they are true.

Despite our shared conception that we are rational actors making intelligent decisions based on an accurate view of the world and ourselves, precisely the opposite is true. Your customers, your workers, you and I, we are all figments of our imaginations.

Are you looking to hire creative employees at your company? If so, allow me to propose some characteristics you can advertise for and look for in order to find true creative thinkers. However, I also have a warning for you. But first, a little background.

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about how companies are looking to hire creative employees. But, the job advertising I see does not reflect that. Most knowledge workers are expected to follow a rather narrow career path defined by the position they seek. Typically, that will involve a degree in a relevant field, ideally an advanced degree and similar work experience.

The individual fulfilling the job description is likely to be competent. But there is no guarantee that she will be particularly creative. Moreover, her background will be so similar to that of people already working in the division that she will be unlikely to bring much diversity of thought to the division. Diversity of thought help in collaborative creativity. The more diversity you have in a group, the more raw material you have for creative ideas.

A £50m venture capital fund focusing on early-stage life science and health technology companies has been launched in Scotland.

Rock Spring Ventures said it had already secured commitments worth more than £25m from a range of investors.

Backers include the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

The fund aims to provide capital to the most promising life science technologies, including those being spun-out from leading UK universities.

Making predictions in a world that moves as quickly as the one we live in today is brave and perhaps even a little foolish. But based on the way the world evolved last year, here are a few trends I expect to play out in 2013 and beyond. At the centre of these trends is the way that technology is giving the consumer more power to shape brands than ever before.

1. Shared value continues to rise

Today people scrutinise brands carefully and seek out those with an authentic commitment to creating value for their customers and society at large. That means companies can no longer focus only on maximizing profits for shareholders, but must also show alignment with customer values and commitment to creating shared value for a broad range of stakeholders.

PayPal co-founder, early Facebook investor and Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel today took the stage at the DLD conference in Munich for a very wide-ranging discussion about the future of education education, how we can sustain growth in the developed world and why Facebook won out over MySpace.

According to Thiel, the 21st Century will be about globalization and technology. These, he argued, are two different things. Technology is about creating something new and rapid growth, while globalization is about copying things that already work. In the next century, says Thiel, “we have to do both.”

The holiday decorations are all put away, you've survived another big visit from the family, and you're already a little behind on your new year's resolutions. But you can be excited about 2013's prospects for both your startup and the entrepreneurship ecosystem as a whole.

Here are my 2013 predictions for entrepreneurship:

Crowdfunding will mostly benefit small businesses rather than high growth tech. Lots of companies are excited for the SEC to clarify the crowdfunding rules under the JOBS Act because it might help their startups raise some much-needed capital. But the truth is that the main beneficiaries of the new investment rules will likely be small local startup companies like restaurants, services or retail. That's because the high-growth tech companies with the strongest business models will continue to rely on traditional methods for raising capital. There is no shortage of capital for strong startups. And the novice investors who are excited to invest for the first time on crowdfunding sites will be drawn to safer investments that they either understand or have some sort of connection to, i.e., a business in their community that they'll be able to see and use.

* The C$400 mln was announced in budget

* Ottawa wants to keep entrepreneurs, woo back investors

* Venture fundraising has dropped since dot-com bubble

* Gov't wants to attract foreign expertise and capital

By Leila Lemghalef

MONTREAL, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a plan on Monday to provide C$400 million ($408 million) in venture capital to stem the loss of young entrepreneurs to the United States and to rekindle investor interest in providing start-up funds for new ventures.

It's 2013, but in the minds of many people, it will always be 1999 for Microsoft. Try as it might, the company has a hard time shaking its image of a 'closed shop' software company that exists mainly to slap copies of Windows and Office on as many PCs as it can.

But Microsoft is trying very hard to shake that image – and leading the charge, in a suburb of Tel Aviv, is the anything-goes Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure. There, 13 of Israel's best start-ups – gathered from a total of 1,000 applicants – are working on everything from retail apps to software that trains medical personnel to digital signage technology.

Watches enjoy a renaissance as accessories

A host of connected smart watches will emerge in 2013, with the phone becoming a new digital hub in this “personal body network.” Media poster child Pebble will be the tipping point for early adopters, while MuteWatch 2.0 looks likely to push functionality to new levels.

But creators face tough product choices between form and functionality, making 2013 the most interesting year in watches for decades. Meta Watch, for example, has taken the path of following form instincts, while Basis chases a pure functionality route. For the past 80 years form has won — will 2013 turn things in the other direction for watches?

Dogfish Accelerator, the first accelerator program for film producers, announced today the launch of its business fast-track program for film producers. Founded by film industry innovators James Belfer and Michelle Soffen of Dogfish Pictures, this new venture empowers production teams to produce better and more lucrative movies by providing access to capital, business mentors and a network of resources.

“Dogfish Accelerator turns film producers into successful entrepreneurs,” says James Belfer, co-founder and CEO of Dogfish Accelerator. Film productions are entrepreneurial ventures that are driven by the desire to tell a powerful story. And, good stories are in demand. However, film production teams often don’t have the right business model. They need access to business, finance, HR and legal resources to turn their creative works into successful ventures.

Venture capital isn't dead, but it is riddled with ailments.

Returns are lousy. Fundraising is down. And exits — both initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions — are down from 2011, even with 2012's monster Facebook IPO.

This has some pension fund investors wondering whether the asset class is worth its extended period of illiquidity when funds are performing so poorly.