The Patrick-Murray Administration, along with Massachusetts Technology Development Corp. (MTDC), announced today the launch of the START program to help fuel the Massachusetts innovation economy. START is a $6 million initiative that will help growing companies commercialize technologies developed under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts. The START program will not only provide financial support but also coaching, business planning and introductions to potential investors, thereby driving job growth within the Commonwealth.

Massachusetts has long been a national leader in SBIR grants and dollars received; ranked second in the nation in dollars received, first in dollars received per capita and more than $3 billion in commercial sales of SBIR technologies generated to date. The new START program, one of the first of its kind in the nation, is aimed at helping fund the transition of technologies developed under SBIR Phase II awards into commercial products and services. The SBIR program funds feasibility studies in Phase I, technology development in Phase II and leaves commercialization to the private sector.

"I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them."

- Thomas Edison

Some of the state’s most innovative research is taking place in a large, nondescript, one-story building off Route 1 in North Brunswick.

Twenty-five biotechnology firms have set up shop in the Commercialization Center for Innovative Technologies, a 10-year-old "incubator" for companies in the early stages of their research or foreigners beginning to conduct research in America. The facility offers access to labs, affordable rent, common areas like conference rooms and — most important of all — a network among each other, the state’s pharmaceutical industry and 15 research universities in New Jersey and nationwide.

In the research for my new book to be published this fall, Hungry Start-up Strategy: Creating New Ventures with Limited Resources and Unlimited Vision, one of the most surprising things I found is that entrepreneurs are not motivated primarily by money.

Instead of money, successful start-up CEOs hunger to turn their vision of the world into a thriving venture. The March 25th New York Times features an excellent example of such an entrepreneur, Gilad Elbaz.

With the competition in today’s job market, you’re considered lucky if you are offered an interview.

But once you’ve made it to the interview round, there’s more to consider than just dressing the part and ensuring you remember to bring extra copies of your resume. To really nail the interview — and ultimately, get the job — you need to demonstrate to the employer why you’re the best person for the job. This can be difficult for many job seekers to do.

When Tereza Nemessanyi, founder of online Q&A platform Honestly Now, argued about a year and a half ago on a venture capitalist's blog about the need for a “startup accelerator” focused on women in their 40s, her comments went viral.

The former Pricewaterhouse-Coopers consultant pointed out that it's not always viable for those with children to relocate to Silicon Valley to participate in prestigious programs like Y Combinator.

Since then, Ms. Nemessanyi, 41, has been surprised by the increasing activity to support women entrepreneurs, especially locally. In August, she secured nearly $1 million in a first-round investment led by Canrock Ventures and Golden Seeds, a local angel investor network for women business owners.

With the passage of the JOBS Act, the Crowdfunding Industry is uniting behind a Self Regulating Organization (SRO) to monitor and oversee this new marketplace and ensure investor protection. The Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Association will commit to providing investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation of those within the crowdfunding industry. CFIRA will create rules, oversight and a united voice for the CrowdFund Investing platform companies as the industry is formed. CFIRA announced today that the founding partners will be:

• Startup Exemption, The CrowdFund Investing authors that wrote the framework for the Crowdfund legislation passed by Congress.
• The SoHo Loft Capital Creation (TSLCC) Events, the definitive event platform for the private markets aimed at facilitating capital formation and job creation.
• Gate Technologies & GATE Impact, a platform and electronic marketplace and that provides regulatory compliant private market transactions.

What you can learn about building your company from a guy who helps hundreds of entrepreneurs launch and build and grow their startups?

Adeo Ressi is the creator of the Founder Institute, the world’s largest idea-stage incubator. In this interview you’re going to hear about a mistake that has shut down his entrepreneurs–once you hear it, you’re going to kick yourself for making a similar mistake.

Kevin Kelly, in What Technology Wants, writes on the characteristics of living organisms that make biology useful to us humans and the reasons why life can sustain its own evolution indefinitely.

According to Kelly, “living organisms and ecosystems are characterised by a high degree of indirect collaboration, transparency of function, decentralisation, flexibility and adaptability, redundancy of roles, and natural efficiency".

I think there are some interesting parallels here from Kelly’s case for what makes a useful technology that can be carried over to the consideration of the characteristics of a successful and self-sustaining innovation ecosystem:

Following a series of site closures and job losses within the pharmaceutical sector in Quebec, the drug giant Merck has announced a major multi-million dollar investment in the region, which involves partnerships with local universities.

The 'big pharma' company Merck Canada is partnering with Lumira Capital, together with some other and other venture capital firms, to launch a multimillion-dollar research and development fund to attract pharmaceutical firms into Quebec. The new venture, reported in the Winnipeg Free Press, will be called the Merck-Lumira BioScience Fund.

Many people have said to me in the past few months, “I’m going to buy a home.” Or, “What do you think of the idea of me buying a home?” Everyone thinks: Well the housing crisis is now over so I should buy a home. They think: It’s probably a good investment. They think: Time to put down “roots”.

I’ve owned a home. A couple of times. I bought a home once after I sold a business. I then lost that home. I then went almost completely insane trying to sell it. Two things: If you are about to do a startup or if you are in the middle of startup-phase then you definitely can’t afford to waste the time or money to buy a house for reasons I explain below. Second, when you sell your startup — everyone wants to buy a house with the proceeds. Don’t. It’s just part of the American mythology. You know the myth: the white picket fence, the yard, the pool, the walls that you can paint, the keeping up with the Jones family. Just don’t. You’ll go broke. At least, if you are as stupid as me. I might be dumber than most though.

Growthink - a leading entrepreneurial consulting firm that has helped thousands of clients develop business plans - reveals the secret to finding angel investors. Angel investors are those elusive, much sought-after individual investors with money for early-stage companies. And unlike marketing efforts for other business ventures, wide-ranging marketing efforts for securities and equity is forbidden by US law, bound by "General Solicitation" regulations. So how does an entrepreneur find that angel investor needed to get a company off the ground? Given the laws against "General Solicitation" what should an entrepreneur do? That answer is fairly simple - network.

Dave Lavinsky, co-founder of Growthink, says, "I do a lot of marketing. I market via my website. I market via social networks like Facebook and Twitter. And I market via more traditional means like public relations and direct mail. But when it comes to several of these marketing channels, there's one thing I NEVER market, and that's equity or securities. You see, while you can market products or services pretty much anywhere, in the United States there are many laws that the regulate the sale of securities, mainly the stock in your company that you may want to sell to individual or 'angel' investors."

Nicholas Lore is a bit of a renaissance man. In his younger days, he was a denizen of Greenwich Village, soaking up the sixties with his boarding school roommate John Sebastian, founder of folk-rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. He studied psychology, Eastern philosophy, anthropology and literature.

Lore later worked as a CEO, an entrepreneur, a manufacturing plant manager, a psychology researcher, a blues musician, an artist, a well driller, and a paper boy. "But I still had no idea what to do with my life," he says. "Work was just a way to make a living."

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a new regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today its selection of Todd Chappell as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for BHI at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). Mr. Chappell, a venture capital-backed entrepreneurial leader and inventor with more than ten years of experience in molecular biology research, drug development and life sciences business strategy, will help support the development of new start-up companies based upon OTT technology license agreements.

“Todd’s proven track record in attracting funding and developing successful businesses around research products makes him the ideal candidate to serve as our first Entrepreneur-in-Residence,” said Richard Bendis, BHI Interim CEO. “Todd’s appointment underscores the goal of the BHI-NIH partnership intermediary agreement that we announced earlier this month: to advance human health while growing jobs in Central Maryland through the formation of new companies.”

I still remember learning in grade school that men were better at math and science, and women were better at English and art. The teacher (who was a woman), presented the information as a general fact--noting that these were just loose guidelines that could differ from person to person--and I didn’t question it for a second. You know, until I grew up a bit and realized the very premise was preposterous.

But as this infographic (which is really a narrative of sorts) shows us, it’s not enough to right the wrongs of gender perception when people grow older, the damage has already been done.

Only a small percentage of medical research projects result in a new product on the market. If Ron Marchessault has his way, the U.S. military will see more and more promising technologies put into use to improve the care of our service members.

Marchessault is the director of technology transfer and commercialization for the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center. TATRC's goal is to translate research into new products to advance the care of the nation's warfighters.

As if we didn’t already know this, yes? Still, a new survey finds that 68 percent of pharma execs agree that Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. To be specific, 44 percent agree that the pharma industry model is broken and 24 percent strongly agree with this statement. Another 22 percent are neutral and 6 percent disagree. We wonder where this 28 percent is working right now…

And over the next two years, 76 percent believe the healthcare system pricing and budget pressures will be the biggest challenge; followed by 70 percent who believe they will have to demonstrate cost effectiveness; 69 percent who cite more restrictive market access; 60 percent who fear generic competition; 53 percent who worry about less access to docs and 50 percent who are concerned about the ability of patients to pay for their meds.

The recent news that tiny FerroKin BioSciences earned a big buyout deal with Shire ($SHPGY) has helped spotlight the growing popularity of the virtual biotech model. And that has big implications for everyone in the outsourcing industry.

Like other virtuals--such as Stromedix, recently acquired by Biogen Idec ($BIIB)--FerroKin had only a handful of employees working full-time for the company. CROs, CMOs and other outsourcers created a network of support vendors that carried out much of the heavy lifting in drug research. And with some proof of concept data in hand, FerroKin made a tantalizing morsel for an acquirer looking to build up its pipeline without having to acquire a sizable research infrastructure it didn't need.

Cincinnati’s biggest group of angel capital investors, Queen City Angels    , is planning to raise a fourth fund that could total as much as $6 million.

The group expects to apply in the next few weeks for the latest round of capital made available through Ohio’s Third Frontier program, said Tony Shipley, chairman of Queen City Angels. It will seek the maximum amount – $3 million – from Third Frontier, which the state set up in 2002 to foster innovation and build technology-based companies and jobs.

Ann Arbor Spark, a public-private partnership whose mission is to advance innovation-based economic development in the greater Ann Arbor region, recently launched the first in a four video series highlighting its work.

Available on its Web site and YouTube channel, each of the videos focuses on a different area of the organization’s work, and is designed to show how Ann Arbor Spark helps businesses and talent to create economic opportunity in the region.

The videos were created by Emmy award winner Beth Tanenhaus Winsten of Ann Arbor’s tinyBigPictureshows.