$285.6 million public-private partnership to enhance the nation's biosecurity preparedness and create jobs in Texas

John Sharp, chancellor of The Texas A&M University System, today announced that the A&M System has been awarded a contract to develop one of three U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing. The $285.6 million contract includes an initial investment of $176.6 million from the U.S. government, with the remainder cost-shared by commercial and academic proposal partners.

Rockville-based Emergent BioSolutions Inc.    has formed a public-private partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing.

The contract has an initial run of eight years worth $220 million with up to 17 additional one-year options. The partnership, with HHS’s Biomedial Advanced Research and Development Authority, will initially develop a new pandemic influenza vaccine and construct facilities to produce it.

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Even for low-tech startups, the scope of information available on the Internet, and its global reach, has had a similar financial impact on the many other challenges facing every startup founder. Here are a few examples:

A new report from the National Academies' National Research Council urges the U.S. federal government, state government, business and universities to act in concert to preserve the competitiveness of the nation's research universities. The report, a follow-up to 2005's Rising Above the Gathering Storm, suggests that a number of ongoing trends threaten U.S. global leadership in higher education. The most critical of these issues are declining federal funding for university research and the erosion of state support for higher education in general. By restoring university funding, easing regulatory and reporting requirements, building stronger university-business research partnerships and addressing attrition rates within graduate programs, the U.S. can restore its national research ecosystem, according to the report.

The report, Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation's Prosperity and Security, was commissioned by Congress in 2009 to assess the competitive position of American research universities. A committee of 21 luminaries, including industry CEOs, university presidents, a former U.S. Senator and a Nobel laureate, prepared the report as a strategic plan for university research policy and investment over the next five to ten years. The committee provides ten specific recommendations for action by the White House, federal agencies, state governments, universities and the private sector to bolster the country's research infrastructure.

For a century, doctors have waged war against bacteria, using antibiotics as their weapons. But that relationship is changing as scientists become more familiar with the 100 trillion microbes that call us home — collectively known as the microbiome.

“I would like to lose the language of warfare,” said Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. “It does a disservice to all the bacteria that have co-evolved with us and are maintaining the health of our bodies.”

Interview – James Todhunter – Invention Machine

I had the opportunity to interview James Todhunter, Chief Technology Officer at Invention Machine about engaging employees in a successful open innovation effort. Invention Machine is a software company that drives sustainable innovation across global organizations. In his blog Innovating to Win, Todhunter regularly offers insights and observations on building high-performance teams that can drive sustainable innovation across organizations.

Here is the text from the interview:

1. When it comes to open innovation, what is the biggest challenge that you see organizations facing?

Imagine a scenario where a patient, from her mobile phone, can find the best possible health care provider and securely book an appointment; where she and her doctor have the latest treatment information at their fingertips; and where this information helps improve or even save her life. 

This scenario, and many others like it, is now being brought to life by entrepreneurs and innovators leveraging the power of data to improve health and health care.  Last week, we had the amazing experience of joining nearly 1,600 rock-star innovators who packed into the Health Data Consortium’s third annual Health Datapalooza here in Washington.  

In a major shift, Microsoft has jumped into the hardware business, launching the "Surface," a tablet that competes with the iPad.

We don't know how much it will cost, or when it will be released. We know Microsoft is working on it.

The Surface is a thin tablet with a kickstand built in. It runs Windows 8.

Investor Laura Sachar says she can spot entrepreneurs who have ideas, but don't know how to execute them.

Sachar, general partner and founder of StarVest Partners, has been involved in early stage companies since the mid-'90s. She shared her insights on a panel at Business Insider's Startup 2012 conference:

Sachar focuses on people in the early stage, because it's about the belief that the person can figure out what to do with the business to make it successful.

You’ve got to hand it to whoever handles Microsoft’s marketing, they sure know how to drum up hype. The tech press hadn’t been this excited for an announcement since, well, the last Apple launch. Wait, does that mean we actually expect Microsoft to be cool again? Totally. In fact, we think its big tablet reveal shows that the Redmond-based giant is getting its groove back and (dare we say it?) becoming cool. Here’s why. 1. Venue

There is a saying, “horses for courses”. It means that certain character types (horses or people – or others) perform in different ways depending upon the circumstances. This holds true in collaborative engagements, whether they are crowdsourcing exercises, virtual focus groups, online research communities or a growing number of other online activities. A key success factor that we found over the last number of years — and perhaps the key success factor– is understanding what the best stimulative environment is for that activity, and your participants.

Small business owners used to be interested in employing others. While many still are, that fraction has been falling for many years.  Consider figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The government agency’s data show that back in 1995, 20.7 percent of self-employed heads of unincorporated businesses had employees. By 2010, the figure was down to 16.6 percent.

Source: Created from data from the U.S. Census

Data from another government agency, the Census Bureau, shows a similar pattern. Back in 1992, 26.2 percent of U.S. businesses employed at least one person. By 2010, only 20.5 percent had anyone on their payroll. As the figure below shows, the decline has been pretty steady since the Census Bureau began reporting annual data in 1997.

Many dream of the day they can start their own business, take control of their career, set their own schedule, and make their own decisions. In these days of economic uncertainty, starting your own business no longer seems all that much riskier than a 9-5 office job.

While self-employment is a tempting career path, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people are able to carve out a successful, sustainable solo career, while other equally talented colleagues dabble in the self-employed lifestyle only to be lured back to a job at a more established organization.

Maryland bioscience executives, along with county and state officials, are in Boston this week to sell the state’s potential to the world’s biotech industry.

With more than 15,000 expected at this year’s Biotechnology Industry Organization International Convention, which started Monday and runs through Friday, the state wants to make a strong showing through its Bio Maryland 2012 pavillion. Last year’s convention was staged in Washington, D.C.

Think you don't have enough time? Nice try. Here are the most common reasons people don't take the plunge--and why they don't hold up.

It's likely that one of your excuses is that you don't have enough time--so let's get right to it:

1. I'm too scared.

Join the club. Every entrepreneur is scared.

So you have a choice: Let your fears hold you back... or use those same fears as fuel to do whatever it takes to succeed.

Complacency is the enemy of achievement and fortunately fear drives complacency away.

Social media is the introverted public relations or marketing professional’s fantasy come to life. Being a person with a more quiet or naturally shy personality is not a bad thing in the world of marketing. Don’t attempt to utilize the same techniques more extroverted professionals typically choose to boost the sales of their product or service. Rather than attempting to fit a round peg in a square hole, don’t fight it! Embrace what you do best and utilize your unique skills as a rock star marketer online, even though you’re usually the quietest one in the room.

The following common traits of a typical introvert can work in the favor of the marketing or public relations specialist, especially online.

The word “technology” combines the Greek tekhne and logos, symbolizing that technology, like language, is as intrinsic to the human condition as speech. Language, though, does not stand alone; it is part of a larger cultural system. Hence the German word Technik, which denotes not only technologies themselves, but also the skills and processes surrounding them. A century ago, leading Western philosophers appreciated the promise and peril of mass industrialization technologies. Oswald Spengler’s Der Mensch und die Technik: Beitrag zu einer Philosophie des Lebens (1931) proposed to integrate technology into a philosophy of life, arguing that Technik is a process that unites our economic, political, educational and cultural systems. The American sociologist Lewis Mumford, in his Technics and Civilization (1934), emphasized that technology must be more than just objects seen as ends in themselves (monotechnics); it must be a collection of ideas and methods that improve society (polytechnics). Technik unites the scientific and mechanical dimensions of technology (determinism) with a necessary concern for its effect on humans and society (constructivism). Technik, then, is the technological quotient of civilization.

Sponsored by InnoCentive, Forrester Research conducted a global survey of 229 open innovation decision makers, augmented with more than a dozen in-depth interviews with senior executive leaders in large multi-national firms.

The research reveals that the use of open innovation tools and techniques continues to gain momentum and achieve mainstream adoption within many large organizations. This white paper dives into the research findings, provides in-depth analysis, and offers recommended courses of action. Key topics include:

• The current state of open innovation (OI) 
• How and why companies are investing in OI 
• The need for collaboration to drive the OI agenda 
• Key stakeholders involved in the agenda 
• The importance of quick wins and value measurement

Is a viral tweet the modern day smoke signal? Startup Twtrland thinks so. The company just launched a new product called Yamana to work in conjunction with their original service. The product is named after the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego and the islands of Cape Horn.

“The Yámanas used smoke signals to spread messages. Today, messages spread via the social web. We see you as one of those people, standing on a hill,” the website says.

An international team of researchers’ study of the spatial patterns of the spread of obesity suggests America’s bulging waistlines may have more to do with collective behavior than genetics or individual choices. The team, led by City College of New York physicist Hernán Makse, found correlations between the epidemic’s geography and food marketing and distribution patterns.

“We found there is a relationship between the prevalence of obesity and the growth of the supermarket economy,” Professor Makse said. “While we can’t claim causality because we don’t know whether obesity is driven by market forces or vice versa, the obesity epidemic can’t be solved by focus on individual behavior.”