According to the latest census figures, Detroit’s population continues to plummet while its public school system remains largely dysfunctional and FBI statistics report an increase in violent crime after several years of decline.

But Detroit, the buckle of the “Rust Belt,” is also a city of paradoxes. In the city’s midtown, an innovative project, Tech Town, stands out as living up to its motto, “Reigniting Detroit’s Entrepreneurial Culture.”

The city has been counted out before — “Decline in Detroit” was Time magazine’s headline in 1961 – so talk of a comeback has a precedent. In 1999, Irvin Reid, president of Wayne State University in midtown Detroit, decided that a “business incubator” that drew from the university but wasn’t part of it could help the city and the region’s economy. Unlike many other innovation-driven incubators, which usually brought new technology to an untouched area, Reid’s Tech Town would be a “brownfield” incubator, building up in region closely associated with heavy industry.

If you're a recent college graduate looking for a job, you know this already: It's tough out there.

As of October, the unemployment rate nationally was 9 percent. But for young grads, who must compete with more experienced workers for a limited number of openings, the rate was higher in October. Among 20- to 24-year-olds, including noncollege graduates, 14 percent were unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The competition is forcing many 20-somethings to launch their professional life outside of the traditional entry-level position.

NEWARK, Del. — For many internships, students live in a new city and work in an unfamiliar office. And by the time they get their bearings to tackle bigger projects, the summer is over, and it’s time to go back to college.

But for a group of University of Delaware undergraduates, college classes and internships now happen under one roof. This semester, UD unveiled the JPMorgan Chase Innovation Center.

What used to be a student lounge on the ground floor of Purnell Hall is now a small outpost for a global business giant. About 15 student interns work beside two full-time JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers for stretches lasting at least nine months and up to a year.

Can you turn a scientist into an entrepreneur? The National Science Foundation and Stanford University are trying to find out.

Twenty-one teams of scientists and engineers who’ve developed technology backed by the NSF are in the midst of an intensive class taught through Stanford to see if they can learn to launch start-ups and even become entrepreneurs.

Called the NSF Innovation Corps, the program aims to commercialize technology inside U.S. university laboratories and to get the scientists out of those labs and into conversations with prospective customers—often strangers–about how to adapt their technologies into products.

Cancer researchers in Bergen have helped to develop a new technology that could customise and improve the treatment of endometrial (uterine) cancer patients. Bergen Teknologioverføring (BTO), a company specialised in commercialising research results, helped the researchers to get their licensing structure in place.

“It is a good feeling to help along such important research that can benefit society,” says Berit Bjørnhaug, a legal adviser at BTO.

On my way to attending an Endeavor Summit this summer, I had the following conversation with a customs officer upon arriving in the U.S.:

Immigration officer: What do you do for a living? Me: I work at a startup, and I’m here to meet people from my industry. Immigration officer: Ok. How long have you been at your current job? Me: We started around five years ago. Immigration officer: Five years! And you still call yourself a startup?!

This interaction has stayed with me because it seems to me to be a great example of the discrepancy between the reality distortion field that is Silicon Valley — and the reality almost everywhere else. Even the immigration officer at the San Francisco airport was of the opinion that five years is too long for a company to consider itself startup.

Rule #1: Stick to one thing and do it well!

Ok, ok… so you want to save the world, end poverty, global warming and create world peace all in one shot. That probably wont work, well if definitely will not work in one attempt but there is good news my friends. You decided to become an entrepreneur because you care about the world and you realized that through the power of business, change can come. What you need to do is focus on one service at a time. Who are you? What does your social entreprise embodied? What do you guys (and/or gals) do and do well? If your startup tries to do too much, you’ll lose.

This varies dramatically by firm and by school. Some venture firms do a good job of having dynamically updated job boards on their websites that list all open jobs by portfolio company. Some examples are us (Foundry Group), Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital (as you indicated), and Spark Capital. These job listings tend to be by company, role, and location – not by educational background.

Some firms actively engage with the nearby MBA programs through their entrepreneurship programs. This is especially true of places like MIT and Stanford, but equally likely at schools like University of Colorado and University of Michigan. While a lot of this is locally driven, some of this is alumni oriented (for example, see the trip that my partner Jason Mendelson and I made recently to University of Michigan, where’s he’s an alum.)

Synaptic Dynamics, Inc., a University of Connecticut startup company, is screening a compound to stimulate the brain to use its own defenses to fight off Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that has remained for the most part untreatable. But even with its slick ideas, the company has staggered in its efforts to raise capital.

Now there may be a white knight on the horizon — a new angel investment fund at UConn aimed at just such companies struggling to emerge into the marketplace.

Synaptic has had a tougher time in the business world than in the science realm. It lost its COO, saw a potential partnership dissolve, and has yet to attain venture capital. None of that is unusual for companies with technology or patent-ready ideas as they move from the sheltered university system and into the marketplace, say technology leaders at the school.

A quick update on the previous post – Bainbridge provides some links related to crowdfunding and the law.

Bus Law Prof has details on the House bill that “would establish a federal securities law exemption for crowdfunding.” For a good introduction to the phenomenon, see Crowdfunding of Small Entrepreneurial Ventures. For an excellent summary of the key legal issues, see Steve Bradford’s Crowdfunding and the Federal Securities Laws.

Talent is stuck in the Rust Belt. The headlines cry "brain drain" but the real problem is that too few people are leaving. Richard Florida on the crisis:

There is a distinctive “stuck belt” across the middle of the country running from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, down through West Virginia and into the Sunbelt states of Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Mobility is largely a bi-coastal—plus Rocky Mountain state—phenomenon.

The talk about great innovators and visionaries has been hot these past few weeks, with images and articles about Steve Jobs appearing in every corner of the internet world. The focus was on Steve Jobs, and his passing, but should that stop us from honoring earlier innovators, who not only innovated things during their time, but also helped create what we have now?

Below you will meet some of the world’s best inventors when it comes to disseminating information and improving technology as we know it. I must warn you, all but one have left this world. Still, with new technology booming every month, it surely won’t hurt learning about them!

Just how far can you go with an open R&D approach to drug development? Johnson & Johnson is stepping up with $3 million to seed a new program that intends to find out. J&J has set up a group called Healthy Minds, which will assist the International Mental Health Research Organization in setting up a collaborative effort on neuroscience drug programs. Faced with some Herculean R&D tasks, the campaign for a collaborative research approach to brain disorders will set out to marshal forces from Big Pharma, biotech, academia and government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic, testing the limits of the new “open innovation” movement in drug development.

SOME people who toil discontentedly in corporate cubicles regard entrepreneurship as the cure for all workplace ills. Only when they’ve experienced running a business personally do they find that the reality is much different.

Mike Cleary, for example, left his job as a sales and marketing executive to become an entrepreneur because he was tired of office politics. But after buying a franchise and an existing business about eight years ago, Mr. Cleary sparred with difficult vendors and suppliers. “It seemed very one-sided, with many commitments and obligations on my part, and much less required of the people I was buying from,” he says.

In an effort to establish trust, he says, he extended credit to a client of the previous owner. Unfortunately, he says, the client was not forthcoming with payment, costing him tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Atlanta ranked third in housing affordability, fourth for the most university graduates and fifth for venture capital. But it's near the bottom in per capita personal income, per capita gross metropolitan product and job growth.

Austin ranked at or near the top in several categories. It has the highest percentage of university graduates, the lowest unemployment rate and the least loss of housing values in the downturn, plus it tied for the second-highest job growth. Its economy grew the fastest, 7 percent, from 2009 to 2010.

Denver has the second-highest percentage of university graduates, second-highest amount of venture capital and second-highest per-capita personal income. The Rocky Mountain city landed in the middle for housing affordability and job growth.

Remember, R.I.P Good Times, the Sequoia slide deck  in 2008 warning its portfolio companies to batten down the hatches and “spend every dollar as if it were your last”? Things aren’t yet quite as dire as the last time the economy tailspinned into recession, but a number of factors are making some startup investors wary. “I think 2012 will look more like 2008 than 2011,” warns First Round Capital’s Josh Kopelman. His pace of investing has not slowed down.  He’s just being realistic.

Speaking to other early-stage investors recently, I get the same sense that the froth (dare I say “bubble“?) of the past 18 months is coming to an end. Many VCs (and founders) have been feasting, and now it might be time to take  a breather. The number of seed-stage fundings is outpacing series A fundings. And whether you consider this a Series A Crunch or not, many more seed stage companies got funded over the past 18 months than previously and many more will subsequently not continue to get funded when it comes time for a series A.

Last week, I visited Turkey, and discovered what a lot of people are saying about this fascinating country: It’s the next developing hotspot for technology startups, especially for e-commerce.

The sector is exploding: The Turkish e-commerce market hit $10.6 billion in the first six months of the year, compared to $16.3 billion for all of 2010.

And after years of neglecting Turkey, U.S and other investors are now starting to flock there. Investment capital isn’t gushing full-bore yet, as investors assess this still-emerging market. But 2011 is the year when the spigot was first turned on.

Here at Tech Cocktail, we like technology.  We are lucky that we get to cover a lot of really interesting startups and apps, some of which we adopt and realize we cannot live without.  To celebrate Thanksgiving, we thought we’d share with you all the bits of technology we are thankful for, from devices to apps.

Frank Gruber, Founder and CEO

I am thankful for a number of technologies that make every day life easier.

After working all year with an iPhone 3S that was on its last leg, I am thankful for my iPhone 4S. It makes producing content, email and other tasks a breeze….And where would I be without my new best friend Siri?  Of course, I love apps like Instagram and Tripit, but I would not be able to take advantage of them without the iOS platform.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Social capital is important at every stage of entrepreneurship, but it is particularly important when the potential entrepreneur needs access to resources and expertise at the startup. Gallup surveys in 83 countries indicate that adults who have access to a mentor are three times more likely to say they are planning to start a business (14%) than those who do not have a mentor (5%).

Overall, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of adults (20%) planning to start a business in the next 12 months, followed by the Middle East and North Africa region (10%) and Asia (8%). Comparatively, the more developed world has fewer adults planning to start a business in the next 12 months: Northern America (7%), the former Soviet Union (4%), and the European Union (3%). However, access to social capital is important to encouraging entrepreneurial intent in all regions of the world.

There are, of course, many aspects of Black Friday that are unseemly and unsavory. But this doesn't mean that, like most people, we aren't regularly seduced by fantastically designed products. To wit: our Best Of Wanted picks for 2011, from our stylish sister site, Co.Design. From low tech (The Most Fashionable Hot Water Bottle Ever), to high (A Chic Stylus For Drawing On iPads), here we've collected our favorite products of the year. Happy shopping!