MADISON - Stratatech is a Wisconsin company at the forefront of efforts to develop substitute skin. It's also a prime example of how emerging companies with innovative technology can compete for, and win, federal research grants that speed discoveries into the marketplace.

Madison-based Stratatech announced this week it has won a $4.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to begin clinical trials of ExpressGraft, a skin substitute designed to heal foot ulcers linked to diabetes. It works by closing the wounds and protecting them with a protein that fights infection.

It isn't hard to find skilled scientists and engineers in Madison or to bring them here from other parts of the country. It isn't even much of a problem to land $1 million or so to start a company here. But what is very difficult is bringing in enough money to take a company beyond the startup stage, and that's where the state needs to step in.

That was the message from executives of several of the Madison area's most successful tech companies at a panel discussion Wednesday at the Early Stage Symposium at Monona Terrace.

“Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it," said W. Somerset Maugham. Which is, of course, the way most of us would prefer it.

For all our willingness to play with fire, the human species has quite a flair for not getting burned. The same combination of irrationality and ingenuity that we bring to finding new ways to fight each other also informs our quest for eternal life. We don’t just want to survive. We want to be immortal. We want to defy illness, build utopia, and track down the fountain of youth. We may soon get our wish, says Sonia Arrison, a writer and futurist, thanks to the "coming longevity revolution.”

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Like many others, I have been devouring books and articles about Steve Jobs ever since he passed away. My fascination with his genius has less to do with technology than creativity. I have been involved in advertising all of my adult life. To my mind, in the past 25 years no other company, not even Nike or Disney, has been as brilliantly and consistently creative as Apple. And there’s never been a better advertising mind than Steve Jobs’.

Jobs was different from many other corporate leaders in that he always knew what he wanted. When he returned to Apple after his decade-long banishment starting in the mid-80′s, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. He actually wrote some of the better lines of the famous “Think Different”  manifesto ad that helped refocus the company and bring it back from the brink, and even got personally involved in the editing of the finished spot (see the rare Jobs-narrated tribute commercial, below). The bar was always raised very high for his team, almost preternaturally. This tyranny of unreasonableness in demanding of those around him to leap above and beyond  what they assumed was only just possible, was a reflection of his complete belief, almost a religious devotion, in explosive inspiration over process.

The slow pace of job creation has revived interest in getting promising new technologies out of university labs and into the marketplace. At Stanford University, a group of academic researchers from all over the country gathered to take a crash course in how to turn their projects into startup companies.

The National Science Foundation screened applicants for this Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program and awarded each research team $50,000. They'll be mentored by entrepreneurs familiar with bringing a new technology to market, and participate in ongoing webinars and progress meetings throughout the process.

Last week on MBA Mondays I posted about the difference between CFO and VP Finance. In the comments to that post, I was asked about VP Eng vs CTO and I figured that had the makings of a good post too. So here we go.

Like VP Finance & CFO, the differences in the two positions are not just about seniority. In fact, in the case of CTO and VP Eng, seniority is often a non-factor. They are often peers. A VP Eng can report to a CTO. And a CTO can report to a VP Eng (although this last one is less frequent).

Researchers at Northeastern University have developed a virtual nurse and exercise coach that are surprisingly likable and effective—even if they're not quite as affable as the medical hologram on Star Trek. In fact, patients who interacted with a virtual nurse named Elizabeth said they preferred the computer simulation to an actual doctor or nurse because they didn't feel rushed or talked down to.

A recent clinical trial of the technology found that Elizabeth also appears to have a beneficial effect on care. A month after discharge, people who interacted with the virtual nurse were more likely to know their diagnosis and to make a follow-up appointment with their primary-care doctor. The results of the study are currently under review for publication.

Almost every startup is a virtual team these days, since most don’t start out with dedicated office space, and some or all members of the team work part-time or out of their own home. It’s a small world, so these team members may not even be in the same town, or the same country. Outsourcing is just another extension of the virtual team concept to people you don’t even know.

Working effectively with a virtual team of any sort has many challenges. How do entrepreneurs establish and maintain rapport with people they rarely see, and team members who have never met? How do they keep track of what everyone is doing and assure effective communication between all team members?

Entrepreneur Bowei Gai sold his last company, a mobile business-card reading app called CardMunch, to LinkedIn earlier this year. Since then, he's been able to pursue some of his other interests.

Like the Chinese startup scene.

Last month, Gai visited China to research the startup scene and culture. He wanted to see if there might be any good opportunities there for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors.

Cashless Innovators: student change agents. Here’s a subset of Generation O identified in the 2012 mobileYouth report who, unlike the Teenage Pirates, aren’t looking to radically overhaul the system, they simply want to create an alternative. They are the backpackers of their generation looking for The Beach – their own alternative parallel universe of retro cool (Instagram, Fixie bikes or Pabster Blue Ribbon).

Fast Company looks at why young digital talent doesn’t want to work at your company. The problem is that for many Cashless Innovators growing up into the working world, the timeless draw of a secure working environment in the big company no longer holds the kind of sway it used to.

Some are occupying streets while others are throwing tear gas bombs and shooting rubber guns; some are cheering while others are sneering... In the meantime, the main culprits of the global economy downfall keep on devising elaborate financial schemes that will help them maintain status quo and go on steeling from all those previously mentioned! In response to this idiotic reality, austerity measures stricken people of Athens are joining forces and gathering around Athens TimeBank, initiative that is helping them survive hard times with dignity and sense of purpose. The currency that they use in their economy is respect and care for other human being.

Physicians who listen to Mozart while performing colonoscopy may increase their detection rates of precancerous polyps, according to the results of a new study unveiled today at the American College of Gastroenterology’s (ACG) 76th Annual Scientific meeting in Washington, DC.

The study, “The ‘Mozart Effect’ and Adenoma Detection,” by Catherine Noelle O’Shea, DO and David Wolf, MD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, found adenoma detection rate—the proportion of patients undergoing screening colonoscopy in whom an adenomatous polyp is found and an important measure of a high quality endoscopic exam –increased from baseline values with music compared to without for two endoscopists whose baseline adenoma detection rates were calculated over a one-year period prior to the start of the study. The “Mozart Effect” refers to a set of research results that found listening to Mozart’s music may result in significant short-term improvement in spatial temporal reasoning. Researchers used this previous theory to determine whether or not listening to Mozart while performing a colonoscopy had any impact on an endoscopist’s adenoma detection rate.

Consider this all too familiar scenario: Company X’s new products developed and launched with great expectations, yield disappointing results. Yet, these products continue to languish in the market, draining management attention, advertising budgets, manufacturing capacity, warehouse space and back office systems. Wouter Koetzier explores how to avoid the innovation death spiral.

It’s that time of year when one holiday seems to follow right on the heels of another. Now that summer is wrapped up, you need to get the jack-o-lanterns, Halloween candy and costumes ready for our scariest of holidays.

While ghouls and goblins should frighten you on Halloween, what about starting your own business? Fear (and more specifically, the fear of failure) is one of the strongest forces preventing budding entrepreneurs from reaching their potential. It’s fear that has stopped countless great businesses before they’ve even begun.

I have written extensively about Twitter in the past. I still find that many people don’t understand the basics. If you consider yourself a newbie, please check out a group of posts that I’ve done in the past that might make you feel more comfortable with what is unique about Twitter.

In this post I want to talk about a Twitter that I see beyond what is visible to most Twitter users today. Call it “Strategic Twitter.”

The White House aims to hasten how federal technology research reaches the commercial market as part of a presidential directive aimed at creating more jobs and increasing U.S. competitiveness abroad.

President Obama also called for the launch of a website for small businesses to research how they can work with the federal government to increase exports in a directive released Friday.

Social networking is pretty good for keeping abreast of far-flung friends. Could it work for entrepreneurs looking for investors?

Critics say the idea is dangerous for investors, and even dicey for the entrepreneurs. Yet, it is gaining traction with small-business owners from the Bay Area to New York, who say they eagerly await an opportunity to sell stakes in their businesses through social networking—a process known as crowd funding.

According to United Nations demographers, the world’s population likely topped 7 billion on Monday, and we’ll now steam forward, hitting 9.3 billion by 2050. 7 billion is a newsworthy milestone, to be sure. But what does this number really mean? To put things in perspective, we’re featuring a recent TED Talk by Hans Rosling, a professor of global health who presents data in imaginative ways. His presentations can get wildly digital. (Just watch 200 Countries & 200 Years in 4 Minutes). But not so in this case. The props are simple goods bought at IKEA, and they do more than an adequate job explaining the past, present and future of global population growth.

When we started Under30CEO it was for one reason: to surround ourselves with the most motivated young people on the planet.  There is nothing better than going to a high energy event and bringing home a ton of knowledge, building relationships and having shared experiences with like minded people.  At Under30CEO, we don’t like to admit it, but we’re event whores… most of the events below we’ve attended ourselves or at least have had a recommendation from a friend.  Take a look at our honest feedback and get out there and make something happen.