In the last three decades, college tuition has grown over 900%. It is one of the biggest burdens families face today. The inability to pay for higher education is even greater for families from underserved backgrounds.

Through the proven effectiveness of crowdfunding, Takeashine's online community platform will help students meet their financial needs for higher education. The platform will allow students to showcase their talents using a variety of assets like a portfolio, resume, a photo of a sculpture they made or even a video of them performing a soliloquy from King Lear to encourage donors to support them and their goal of achieving a higher education.

Students are not only able to attend college but they will also gain valuable business and marketing skills throughout the process. Takeashine is the ultimate learning-enabling technology. They have already reached their tipping point, which means they will be able to launch their website very soon for participating students.

Gov. Bill Haslam's job creation plan seeks to seed startups by pouring $50 million in federal and state dollars into an effort to get them off the ground.

Called INCITE, the initiative depends heavily on $30 million in U.S. Treasury funds allocated to Tennessee last October as part of the State Small Business Credit Initiative, aimed at increasing lending opportunities for small businesses.

The state is currently working with the federal agency to craft a program that could include anything 'from seed funds to loans to mezzanine financing,' says Bill Hagerty, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.

Benjamin Disraeli, a 19th century British Prime Minister, once said, "Man is only great when he acts from passion."

For today's aspiring entrepreneur, exploring avenues of creativity to find your passion is likely the quickest route to increase your chances of launching a successful business. Where to start? Here, five exercises to help you uncover your passion.

Exercise 1 - Revisit your childhood. What did you love to do? "It's amazing how disconnected we become to the things that brought us the most joy in favor of what's practical," says Rob Levit, an Annapolis, Md.-based creativity expert, speaker and business consultant.

Levit suggests making a list of all the things you remember enjoying as a child. Would you enjoy that activity now? For example, Frank Lloyd Wright, America's greatest architect, played with wooden blocks all through childhood and perhaps well past it.

What motivates you to innovate?

There is a snare drum being played in the MaRS lobby. As any drummer will tell you, it’s not a regular drum, but a “collapsible drum” designed by James Paterson at Humber College start-up expanDrums. The drum has a removable segment that allows it to be played at a big, boomy rock show or an intimate jazz gig – a seriously useful invention for a professional drummer.

Entrepreneurs like Paterson pass through the halls of MaRS every day with a wide array of products and inventions – what motivates entrepreneurs like this?

Since a lot of folks (primarily policymakers) seem to think that small businesses don’t need anything at all but access to debt financing in order to thrive, it’s interesting that we have a couple of highly relevant bits of nongovernmental research on the subject this month.

But, if all small business owners need is access to debt financing, then it looks like we might be in trouble.

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.

If the country is to recover financially and politically, new leaders will have to emerge to fill the leadership deficit – new leaders who understand that leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement, according to executive coach Michael Schutzler, author of the book “Inspiring Excellence – A Path to Exceptional Leadership.”

Entrepreneurs are well positioned to become the new leaders, because they perceive problems as opportunities, and have the mental mindset to innovate and execute. They have the required passion, perseverance, and work ethic. What they don’t have by default are the skills required, or the relationships. These don’t come automatically with the CEO title.

Some of us are naturally gifted networkers. We walk into a room of 50 strangers and giddily begin introducing ourselves to 50 new friends.

For those of us who are less outgoing, however, it helps to start with some sort of connection. However many degrees we are separated by, Sonar wants to map them out.

The iPhone app (iTunes link), which launched in May, shows you who is in the room by using data from social networks. After connecting accounts, you can see who else is checked in on Foursquare or Facebook Places, as well as which one of them shares your Twitter or Facebook friends. You can send a message to any of them with a click in order to make a connection in real life.

GrowLab, a “startup boot camp” for entrepreneurs, is giving five companies up to $25,000 in seed funding, four months of mentorship, free office space and the opportunity to pitch investors at the end of the program for follow-on funding. GrowLab aims to find the world’s smartest Internet entrepreneurs who are passionate about technology and changing the face of traditional business.

GrowLab is now accepting applications for its fall 2011 program at www.growlab.ca from entrepreneurs globally; winning teams will be based in Vancouver for the first three months, with the fourth month in San Francisco.

Deadline to apply is June 15, 2011. Five companies will be chosen for the first cohort beginning August 15, 2011.

With all the competing offers for hot-stone massages, dinner cruises and skydiving lessons flooding our inboxes today, it’s no wonder consumers have been complaining of a vague, anxiety-producing syndrome the media has dubbed “deal fatigue.”

But while the consumer space has become saturated with Groupon clones, the enterprise sector has barely been tapped.

This is changing. A handful of business-to-business deal sites have sprung up to offer big discounts on everything from search engine optimization packages to HR handbooks.

Within this group, Menlo Park, Calif.-based GroupPrice is aggressively trying to capture both the domestic and international B2B markets in order to cement its position as the “Groupon for businesses.” Launched domestically in January, GroupPrice recently went on a Canadian public-relations blitz to drum up business in the great white north. And on Tuesday, the startup will launch a new British deals site, GroupPrice UK.

In a changing market which is more demanding and competitive, entrepreneurs don’t pay enough attention to their markets, investors say.

Two decades since Israel’s high technology industry took off, many of the country’s start-up entrepreneurs have yet to develop the skills to position their products in the marketplace, devise effective business strategies and develop the management skills to build large and growing companies, investors and industry consultants say.

Speaking at the sidelines of the High Tech Industry Association conference in Jerusalem, the annual jamboree of Israel’s start-up industry, investors were unanimous is praising Israeli innovation. But many cautioned that technology is only half the story and that start-up entrepreneurs often fail to size up the market and its needs, competing technologies and changing conditions before they try to raise capital and develop their idea.

Often best places lists reflect as much on what’s being measured, and who is being measured as on the inherent advantages of any locale. Some cities that have grown rapidly in jobs, for example, often do not do as well if the indicator has more to do with perceived “quality” of employment.

Take places like Denver and Seattle. Both do well on what may be considered high-tech measurements – bandwidth, educated migration, entrepreneurial start ups – but have trailed other places in terms of creating jobs. Others, such as Oklahoma City and Raleigh, do better in terms of overall job creation and cost competitiveness.

There are effectively few truly objective criteria, and the Area Development list does tend to weigh a bit heavy on the factors that help more expensive – although not necessarily the most costly – cities. If cost of doing business, or regulatory environments were given more weight, some of the high fliers would not do as well.

We see entrepreneurs every day. They're actually pretty easy to spot.

Have you ever been stranded in the automotive purgatory of a highway construction zone? Do you secretly admire the driver who flies down the side of the road and then darts into the merge point at the last possible moment? Well, your rush hour hero is probably an entrepreneur.

This breed tends to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. They also see no problem using the other sex's restroom if the appropriate lavatory is otherwise occupied.

Entrepreneurs think outside of the box and have an incredible tolerance for risk. In his seminal textbook, "The Entrepreneur's Guide To Finance and Business," Steven Rogers points out that the average entrepreneur fails 3.8 times before succeeding.

Having been able to participate on this Panel for the AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, I can attest to the relevance and timely value of the strategies offered by both Rob Atkinson and Richard Bendis – building a National Innovation Strategy and leveraging a cluster strategy across the nation. These are necessary baselines should America even want to remain on the global innovation playing field.

Leadership in the Knowledge Economy, however, will require even more…

Simply stated, we have reached the law of diminishing returns on competitive strategy. There is a new game in town – the art of ‘collaborative advantage’. Some nations and regions are already learning how to harness this kind of positioning in the new networked interdependent world. China enjoys over a decade of experience with their Knowledge Innovation Program (KIP) – a cornerstone of their economic strategy. India – via its Confederation of Indian Industries - seeks to become the ‘crucible of global innovation’. The inauguration of KAUST – King Abdulla’s University of Science and Technology –sent overnight shockwaves across their region and the world.

This does not mean that we do not compete; we do. But now, we need to collaborate to compete.

Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are not enough these days to make your product and brand visible in the relentless onslaught of new promotional media out there today. Innovation in marketing is perhaps more important than product innovation. Yet in the business plans I see, the marketing content and budget are smaller than ever.

More than just spending, you need to create an “experience” in this digital age which sets you apart from the banner ads, email blasts, and old-school websites out there today. According to a recent book by Rick Mathieson, these have morphed into a digital universe of augmented reality, advergames, and virtual worlds – that are highly personalizable and uniquely shareable.

New research revealed in the Pilot Pen Creativity Report warns that a dependency on computer-based learning ''can lead to children feeling inadequate in their own academic abilities, and vulnerable when using a pen and paper as they will fear failure''.

So is this the death of handwriting? Patricia Lovett, fellow of the UK Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society, says that similar thoughts were voiced when the telephone was invented, and again with the invention of computers, fax machines, emails and texting.

Before one of our exams, one of the tutors reminded us to write legibly in our exam. Another exam was open book/open internet, and we wrote our answers on the computer before emailing them to our tutor at the end. The last time I remember having to write an essay by hand was five years ago for the AST. But still, I could if I had to.

We haven’t done Ask a VC for a while thanks to my hectic travel schedule, so I pulled David Hornik out of the hallway at D to catch up on his thoughts on his portfolio and the industry.

But first, we chat about the highlights from the All Things Digital conference. Or we started with that and then talked about how the motivation for starting companies is changing in Silicon Valley, given the soaring valuations and ease of raising money.

And Hornik explains why he’s not a fan of Peter Thiel’s 20 Under 20 Program, although he admits he still hasn’t paid off his own law school education.

The authors of a new book that looks at ways to reduce poverty around the world (and whether they work) have suggested one possible reason why the microcredit model may not be creating more entrepreneurs: It rewards cautiousness.

Sam Panthaky/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images A microfinance loan recipient in Gujarat noted weekly repayments from fellow borrowers in January.

Microfinance institutions have “rigid rules” that require small loans of a pretty fixed size, a weekly cycle of repayment often starting within one week of loan issuance, and lending to groups whose members keep an eye on each other, say the authors—economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo.

“There is a clear tension between the spirit of microcredit and true entrepreneurship, which is usually associated with taking risks and, no doubt, occasionally failing,” they write. “It has been argued, for example, that the American model, where bankruptcy is (or at least was) relatively easy and does not carry much of a stigma (in contrast with the European model, in particular), has a lot to do with the vitality of its entrepreneurial culture. By contrast, the MFI rules are set up not to tolerate any failure.”

According to Dow Jones VentureSource, estimate values of venture capital financed enterprises was up 19% in Q4 2010 versus the same period in 2009. Overall for 2010 (all quarters) the estimate values were up 23% over 2009 totals. The venture numbers significantly beat the Dow U.S. overall index for total stock market gains. Those numbers were plus 12% for Q4 and plus 17% for the year 2010 respectively.

Overall for 2010 $28.5 billion was invested by VCs in 2,874 deals. While representing a 17% increase for the year, it also represented an 8% increase in the number of companies that were backed. This is significant in that detractors from the view that the venture capital environment is currently much friendlier have pointed to total number of companies getting financing as down or flat.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino recently revealed plans for a public Innovation District in South Boston’s waterfront area. The mayor is hoping to appeal to venture capital firms from other parts of the state and elsewhere with attractive real estate within the ongoing Seaport Square project’s borders.

Venture capital firms in the state have been huddled in the Cambridge and Waltham areas for some time, and this is partly a result of the “Cambridge Initiative” which apparently was a similar initiative that was successful in achieving a kind of startup and VC hub in that area. The Boston Mayor envisions a similar hub in South Boston where smaller early stage companies can rub elbows or collaborate with larger companies and VCs who have capital and connections.

Google’s big push to increase its foothold in the social web is well underway. Social analytics technology startup PostRank announced Friday it has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount of money.

PostRank’s technology scans the web in real-time for “social engagement events” like comments and tweets so brands and publishers can gauge how influential their content is online. The four-year-old company is based in Waterloo, Ontario, but will soon move its team to Google’s Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, CTO Ilya Grigorik said in a blog post announcing the deal.