The cost of sequencing the human genome continues to fall, reaching a low of$1,000 this year due to a new microchip and machine designed by genetics company Life Technologies Corp. And unleashed by those lower costs, a small cadre of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is exploring ways to harness this data to enable us to live longer and healthier lives.

Dr. Dietrich Stephan, a human geneticist, has spent the better part of a decade trying to achieve that goal. Until recently, it has been costly and time-consuming to map the 3 billion units of DNA, known as base-pairs, which make up the human genetic code. But now, he said, with the low cost of gene sequencing technologies, we are on the brink of banishing a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine.

The Polish startup scene is looking increasingly vibrant. For some time now, technology blogs have been covering Polish startup expos, competitions and meetings such as Startup Weekend, PitchRally, E-nnovation and Startup Fest that are happening with some regularity across major cities. And Poland was one of the first winners of a Global Entrepreneurship Week Award. Is Poland poised to take the lead in Eastern Europe?

The answer is yes. Polish startups have begun to make headlines in a country beating a pessimistic outlook until a couple of years ago when many feared the capital markets or investor communities were not there yet to enable a startup ecosystem. Local rockstar entrepreneurs-turned-investors are some of the most eager participants, as Chris Kowalczyk, the founder of Warsaw-based HardGamma venture fund and the GammaRebels accelerator, told TechCrunch last October at the Startup Fest. Kowalczyk was able to raise money for his seed and early stage fund after supporting (as an angel investor) a successful startup called Codility.

Researchers from Norway and the United Kingdom have developed a new instrument to measure work addiction: The Bergen Work Addiction Scale. The new instrument is based on core elements of addiction that are recognised as diagnostic criteria for several addictions.

Some people seem to be driven to work excessively and compulsively. These are denoted as work addicts – or workaholics.

In the wake of globalisation, new technology and blurred boundaries between work and private life, we are witnessing an increase in work addiction, Doctor Cecilie Schou Andreassen from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bergen (UiB) says.

The Business Development Bank of Canada's venture capital arm will issue up to six million dollars in convertible notes over two years to graduates of FounderFuel, the Montreal-based startup accelerator program. Some 40 young enterprises from all over the country in the web, mobile, software as a service (SaaS), and gaming fields, will each be eligible for a $150 000 BDC convertible note upon their successful completion of FounderFuel's 12-week, mentor-driven business "boot camp". Convertible notes are short term loans that are usually converted into shares later on in the company's life. This investment is part of BDC Venture Capital's larger commitment towards accelerators across the country, a key element of its strategy to support tech enterprises in their early, most fragile, stage.

Raising capital is one of the most important, and intimidating, decisions in the life of a young company. Founders have long had to worry about questions around valuation, dilution, and the impact of potential investors. Now that the JOBS Act has been signed into law, a whole new set of opportunities has been opened through crowdfunding.

However, while there has been much written about the need to protect investors who crowdfund, there has been little talk of what companies need to look for in a crowdfunding portal. Below are four things companies should consider when selecting a crowdfunding source.

Being a female entrepreneur in the male-dominated tech industry is challenging, and comes with a distinct set of barriers. Thankfully, there are several female-led organizations that are working to bring more women into the tech fold.

I asked a panel of successful young female entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs, what challenges women in tech face, and what could help eliminate some of those barriers? Here’s what they shared.

One of the first tough decisions that startup founders have to make is how to allocate or split the equity among co-founders. The easy answer of splitting it equally among all co-founders, since there is minimal value at that point, is usually the worst possible answer, and often results in a later startup failure due to an obvious inequity.

Another common “failure to start” situation I see is one where the “idea person” insists that the idea is 90% of the value (and 90% of the equity). In the real world, the "idea" is a very small part of the overall equation.

A few years back, I interviewed some of the most successful CEOs in the world in order to discover their management secrets. I learned that the "best of the best" tend to share the following eight core beliefs.

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.

Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies, departments and groups. They build huge armies of "troops" to order about, demonize competitors as "enemies," and treat customers as "territory" to be conquered.

Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They naturally create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers ... and even competitors.

As the endless stream of emails, tweets, and news comes at me, I find myself going deeper on some things while trying to shed others. I’ve been noticing an increasing amount of what I consider to be noise in the system – lots of drama that has nothing to do with innovation, creating great companies, or doing things that matter. I expect this noise will increase for a while as it always does whenever enthusiasm for startups and entrepreneurship increases. When that happens, I’ve learned that I need to go even deeper into the things I care about.

My best way of categorizing this is to pay attention to what I’m currently obsessed about and use that to guide my thinking and exploration. This weekend, as I was finally catching up after the last two weeks, I found myself easily saying no to a wide variety of things that – while potentially interesting – didn’t appeal to me at all. I took a break, grabbed a piece of paper, and scribbled down a list of things I was obsessed about. I didn’t think – I just wrote. Here’s the list.

There's been one big change for the worse in the startup world in the last five years, according to Ron Fleming, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.

The market is now "loaded with bad information" from "startup advisors," says Fleming.

In particular, there's one piece of terrible advice from these advisors that is infiltrating the startup scene -- the rise of bridge debt for early stage startups.

The economy is starting to turn around, and if things continue in a positive vein as I think they will, your company may soon be growing. A growing company has many decisions to make, including:  do we hire full-time staff as employees, or do we add independent contractors?

The benefits of hiring independent contractors can include lower overhead in the form of health insurance and benefits. But does lower overhead outweigh the returns on investing in dedicated employees who may be loyal to the company, grow in ability with it, and eventually be more self-sufficient and reliable?  After all, that independent contractor may be spending more mindshare and effort building his or her own business, versus your business — on your dime!

It’s not enough.  Conversation, or lip-service (as my dad calls it), is not enough.  It’s true, we need all the inspiration and encouragement that we can find, but action has to follow all that self talk.

According to Susan L. Reid in “Why Positive Affirmations Can Be a Business Liability,”

“People don’t succeed with their business simply by staying positive and thinking good thoughts.”

Nearly 12 million Americans create or modify products they use at home, according to our research. But the vast majority – more than 90 percent – will never get a patent on their innovations. So what motivates them?

The innovators we studied (their innovations may or may not meet the criteria for inventions) are user innovators – a very different breed than independent inventors.

  User innovators are motivated to create a new product in order to use it rather than to sell it, and they are generally very successful at accomplishing what they set out to do. They are justifying their investment in inventive activities based upon the satisfaction they get from the use of their products.

When it comes to the economy, some experts say the focus needs to be on a sustainable Green Economy. Recently, the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome hosted a lecture titled “Green Economy” where more than 20 professors discussed why it shouldn't be ignored.

Vincenzo Buonomo “Green Economy”, Lateran University (Rome) “The 'Green Economy' can mean sustainable development and an alternative to the current situation. It can mean an economy that respects the environment, but above all one that respects people.”

The conference was divided into five major fields including, philosophy, theology, sociology, economics and law.

The internet finally has its own hall of fame, and it’s about time too seeing as playing in the online industry is every bit as tough and competitive as sport. The new hall of fame introduced a number of inductees who have made significant contributions to the development of the internet.

The awards program was established by the Internet Society to “publicly recognise a distinguished and select group of visionaries”. The aim of the hall of fame is to celebrate the people who bring the internet to life. A total of 33 visionaries will be among the first to be inducted to the Internet Hall of Fame in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Let’s dispense, once and for all,” writes Daniel Markovitz in an article in his HBR blog entitled The Folly of Stretch Goals, “with the managerial absurdity known as ‘stretch goals.’”

Well, no! Instead, let’s celebrate stretch goals. Let’s set awesome goals for ourselves that uplift the human spirit, goals that inspire those doing work and delight those for whom work is done, goals that are key to the ongoing phase change to the Creative Economy. Such stretch goals will be hard to achieve but they’re essential for our health and our prosperity.

A highly popular minor first introduced 12 years ago has been giving Engineering students the opportunity to gain insight into the business world.

The Engineering Entrepreneurship minor is a popular choice for Engineering students looking to learn more about technology ventures and business development. Currently, there are 162 students enrolled in the program.

Started 12 years ago, the minor was inspired by a similar program first formed by Stanford University. Two core interdisciplinary classes that form the foundation of the minor, Engineering Entrepreneurship 1 and 2, steadily gained popularity until the school’s administration suggested that a minor should be formed. The minor consists of the two core courses and four electives from a variety of schools including the Wharton School, the School of Law and the Graduate School of Education.

As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Stanford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship.

Thiel lost that one. So instead of being a clerk, he went out and founded PayPal. Then he became an early investor in Facebook and many other celebrated technology firms. Somebody later asked him. “So, aren’t you glad you didn’t get that Supreme Court clerkship?”

The question got Thiel thinking. His thoughts are now incorporated into a course he is teaching in the Stanford Computer Science Department. (A student named Blake Masters posted outstanding notes online, and Thiel has confirmed their accuracy.)

In an effort to make speech the dominant way that people control technology, AT&T is opening up its speech-recognition technology for others to use. Starting in June, software engineers can tap into a cloud service offered by the company to make any device that can connect to the Internet respond to its master's voice.

AT&T believes the technology could ultimately be used for everything from smart-phone apps and online games to cars and appliances. While the initial offering will only convert speech into text, and corresponding commands, the company is considering a broader set of offerings later, including ones that translate English text into six other languages and vice versa, and can also synthesize translated speech.

European Business Angel Network annual meeting is taking place in Moscow and a the end of the first day of congress EBAN nominated the champions of the year. Next nomination will probably be the new president that will be announced later today.

Philippe Gluntz, President of France Angels and business angel affiliated to Paris Business Angels network is EBAN’s 2012 Business Angel of the Year as announced during the 7th Annual EBAN Awards which took place last night in Moscow. Since 2004, Philiipe Gluntz has invested in 26 companies, out of which six in the past year.