Many of the nation's largest cities recorded spikes in population growth last year as Americans flocked to urban centers, Census data released this morning shows.

The 2011 estimates signal population is increasing in most large cities faster than the nation as a whole, and the growth appears to be accelerating. Areas of the southwestern U.S. and those with stronger economies, in particular, reported sizable gains over the year.

"We're seeing a real bump for city growth," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "It has a lot to do with the metro area's economic base and whether the city has a good quality of life."

The Battelle/BIO: State Bioscience Industry Development Report (See p 86 for MD) did an accurate job of portraying the struggles that the Maryland Bioscience industry had over the recession, as further outlined in Bill Flook’s WBJ article “Maryland Biotech Jobs dropped by 1.2% during recession”.  If you take a closer look at what is behind the numbers though, you’ll find some more surprising data that sheds some light on a potentially greater problem hiding beneath the surface; the exit and decline of commercial drug manufacturing companies in Maryland.

The total industry job loss through 2010 was only about 400 jobs when all was said and done.  During that time innovation and entrepreneurship flourished in the R&D / Testing Laboratory sector which grew by 210 companies and 230+ jobs.  Compared to most states, I’d say we made it through the recession in pretty good shape and poised for strong rebound, but not without some worry.

Have you ever read news that sort of makes you want to cry? I have to warn you, that’s what this new study from enterprise mobility company Good Technology might inspire. The company polled 1,000 U.S. workers to get a better understanding of their mobile work habits. The results are not surprising: the line between work and free time has become so blurred it’s practically non-existent.

80% of people continue working after leaving the office (a figure which actually sounds low, if you ask me). Half of them do so because they feel they have “no choice.” Connectedness means customers demand fast replies. There’s no off switch. Half of respondents check their email in bed, starting at around 7:09 AM. 68% check email before 8 AM. And you wonder why people hate email so much? God forbid we get a cup of coffee in us before dealing with the latest work emergency.

In 1902, five businessmen from Two Harbors, Minn., started 3M (NYSE:MMM), originally called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing.

The original intent was to mine a mineral deposit, but when it produced nothing, the founders instead refocused on a new product called sandpaper.

Since then, 3M has been a source of incredible innovation. Just some of the company’s breakthroughs include Scotch tape, videotape, the overhead projector and of course, Post-it Notes.

Some things in life we can’t choose: birth order, the weather, embarrassing family members, and for most of us, our bosses.

CEOs are the exception – they can choose the funding partners that become their board members, who are in a way their bosses.

If you’ve raised venture capital, you know that accepting funding often means giving up majority control of your business. Selecting the right funding partners and board members can springboard a business from startup to stardom, while the wrong ones can create more friction, discord, and overall awkwardness than your uncle’s seventh glass of wine ever did.

If you look at any of the top web properties on comScore, Quantcast, Alexa or any other third party reporting service you will see that they all have been fairly flat over the first half of the year. You might think that all these big web services are flatlining.

We have seen this in our portfolio too. From board meeting to board meeting, we are seeing a similar pattern. Web is flattish. But mobile is growing like a weed.

A lot of entrepreneurs are excited about the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more commonly known as Obamacare. They think it will mean free healthcare and better access to healthcare. But here are some reasons why it actually hurts entrepreneurs:

• The tax credit for providing health insurance to employees only extends to businesses with 25 employees or fewer. For entrepreneurs wanting to grow their businesses, this means that, once they hit 26 employees, they'll lose their tax credit. Either this means forego the tax credit or forego expansion.

Recently, 149 women from 15 nations gathered in Delhi, India, for the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) to learn, network and do business. Although the conference only lasted two days, in the words of one attendee, “That was enough time to cram in a lifetime of knowledge.” I agree. Here are five things I learned at the conference.

1. India is a fast-rising entrepreneurial global player. It is one of only three nations in the world with a "super computer." Twenty percent of Fortune 500 companies have research facilities there. In a nation of 1.22 billion people, India has more than 121 million Internet users, the third highest in the world, and over 919 million mobile phone users (the second most in the world), making mobile marketing key to reaching most of the nation's consumers.

When companies, non-profits, and governments create products and services that better meet customer needs, there is less waste of human capital and natural resources, and everyone wins. That’s why my mission for many years has been to:

“To make innovation and marketing insights accessible for the greater good.”

So, how can you help Innovation Excellence achieve this mission I laid out many years ago?

It’s simple. Here are a few quick and easy ways to help:

• If you have knowledge to share, then join the community and use the ‘Add Content’ menu option to write an article for Innovation Excellence

A new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report names Maryland the #1 state in the nation for entrepreneurship and innovation. The annual report on 2012 Enterprising States, also ranked Maryland #1 in academic research and development and #3 in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) jobs and in the concentration of high-tech business locations.

"We are very pleased to see the State of Maryland receive this distinction," said University of Maryland Vice President for Research and Chief Research Officer Dr. Patrick O'Shea. "This national recognition reflects the efforts of the Governor and General Assembly to promote innovation across the state, the tireless work of the state's successful businesses and entrepreneurs, as well as the University of Maryland's dedication to creating a culture of entrepreneurship among our faculty, students and alumni."

As we’ve documented throughout our #FixYoungAmerica campaign, there is a critical need to empower America’s young workers if we want to resolve the unemployment crisis and put Millennials back to work. Just last year, 1 out of 2 recent college grads were either jobless or under-employed — and the class of 2012 isn’t faring much better.

But the solution to the youth unemployment epidemic is not just about creating more Millennial entrepreneurs (although Millennials are the most entrepreneurial generation in history). It’s also about demanding change from those who are managing and hiring Gen Y workers.

A child that begins primary school this year will not finish their working life until around 2075. It is hard to imagine what society will be like then: the only certainty during his or her life will be change.

Two skills that are essential to be able to succeed in an uncertain world are creativity and resilience. Labour introduced reforms to give more freedoms to schools, giving heads and teachers the space to foster creativity and resilience. While many schools have taken advantage of this, at a system-wide level schools, colleges and universities can be doing more to promote these skills, and the Government should be encouraging this, not stifling it.

Efforts of the region’s top business leaders have led to $384 million in new residences and historic restorations, restaurants and retail, offices and parks to revitalize Cincinnati’s urban core.

Now, the CEOs are putting tens of millions of dollars, hours of manpower and top Procter & Gamble leadership into a major initiative to help the region compete internationally for new high-tech jobs and business.

It’s called Cintrifuse, envisioned as the most ambitious corporate effort yet to reignite the local economy around innovation. Succeed and the region could see its next set of billion-dollar businesses with high-paying jobs. Fail and the Next Big Thing surely will sprout up elsewhere.

More and more students are realizing that they can’t pass their degree in for a job upon graduation anymore. The old promise made by our education system was that if you worked really hard in school, you would be almost guaranteed a job as a reward for your efforts. Furthermore, corporations used to hire most of their interns into full-time positions. Both of these promises have been broken due to economic constraints and global competition. Based on a recent report by my company, we found that employers expect students to have at least one internship, yet only half of them are bringing on new interns and few have hired them into full-time positions. The normal path to growing your career is non-existent. In today’s world, you can’t rely on anything or anyone to make you successful – you have to be accountable for your own career and create your own path.

A few months ago, 16-year old Shouryya Ray blew the mind of mathematicians and the media by solving two "unsolvable" particle dynamics problems first posed by Isaac Newton 350 years ago.

How did he do it?

Explained Shouryya: "When it was explained to us that the problems had no solutions, I thought to myself, 'Well, there's no harm in trying."

Many entrepreneurs work hard on the proof of concept (technical), but skip any proof of the business model (revenue flow). In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. These days, the technical side may be the easy part.

Proving the business model requires a different approach than proving the technical concept. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Customer personnel seemed to like it, and it worked, so he was totally devastated when he couldn’t sell one for a “reasonable” price in the first two months of hard work.

If you are planning to submit an SBIR/STTR proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before the August 5 deadline, one of your first considerations should be which of its many Institutes/Centers (IC) will be a fit for your project.

The NIH is an umbrella organization with 27 Institutes/Centers within its purview. Even though you submit a single SBIR/STTR application to NIH, your application is typically “housed” in one of the ICs after funding decisions are made. The program managers at each of the ICs are able to provide some feedback on the fit between your SBIR/STTR project and the IC. So here are two BBC tips to get you started.

The Founder Institute was started by serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi, who wanted to improve the rate of start-up success by providing high-potential entrepreneurs with "expert training, critical objective feedback, and peer support in the early stages of building a company."

How does that differ from other accelerator and incubator programs? According to New York chapter Co-Director Gabe Zichermann, Founder Institute--living up to its name--is "less about launching companies than launching founders."

Participants meet for 16 weeks with different sets of mentors. Each session has a theme, such as marketing, funding, or operations. And within that framework, the founders and future founders get off-the-record insights and "no BS" feedback from entrepreneurs like themselves.

The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition (ISTC), a statewide organization that works to cultivate innovation and technology-based economic development in Illinois, today released a report outlining a road map to encourage collaboration, create business development opportunities, and enhance the economic contribution of nanotechnology to the state of Illinois.

The report, “2012 Illinois Nanotechnology Report: A Road Map for Economic Development,” was made possible by a U.S. Small Business Administration grant and completed in partnership with the Illinois Nanotechnology Collaborative (INC), an umbrella organization founded to coordinate statewide activities, promote developments, and to identify the challenges and opportunities for nanotechnology development in Illinois.

Having risen to glory with their entrepreneurship skills in very less time, these women have proven their mettle and talent to the world. From being featured on Forbes Top List, to receiving global honor for their enterprise and their work, these women entrepreneurs are going places. Here’s a closer look at the five leading women entrepreneurs of Africa.

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu

When she started in 2004 with the name soleRebels, Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu exactly knew where her enterprise of making hand-crafted shoes would take not only her but also her local community in Addis Ababa. According to her, the fine and skilled artisans employed from her local community (in Ethiopia) form the backbone of the company and the essentials of the company’s ethics. With the joy of spreading a bit of their cultural heritage with every shoe crafted, Alemu has emerged as a commendable entrepreneur consolidating her business in less than a decade with her gumption. Owing to Alemu’s grits and dedication towards soleRebels today, the company is the only achiever of WFTO fair Trade Certified Footwear Company title worldwide. Following the success of her business, Alemu was invited by Bill Clinton for addressing as a speaker by The Clinton Global Initiative's panel. Subsequently in the year 2011, Alemu was again given the distinct honor by the World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, she was the first African woman entrepreneur to get the invitation ever. In the same year, she received global recognition for entrepreneurship by different institutions. soleRebels was among the top 5 finalists of the 2011 Legatum Africa Awards For Entrepreneurship. Alemu gives workshops & mentorship to young rural girls for their economic empowerment and to equip them with self-reliance. Alemu envisages coming 3 years as the period of expansion of her business beyond Ethiopia in more than 10 locations with annual revenues topping $10 mill.