Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Israel is gaining a reputation as the largest technology hub outside of Silicon Valley and is often referred to by locals as the “Startup Nation.”
Technology startups have spread throughout the region, particularly in Tel Aviv and Herzliya. However, this week, a businessman is launching one of the first micro-fund and early-stage product accelerators in Jerusalem, so new ideas can flourish in one of the world’s oldest cities.
Image: http://venturebeat.com
Drexel University, the University City Science Center and DreamIt Ventures are on a mission to support innovators and entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia region and have formed a strategic partnership that creates a hub for start-ups to test their wings and the capital that will support their continued growth. Drexel – Science Center Collaboration Drexel and the Science Center have collaborated to form a 17,500-square-foot innovation hub that will serve as a launching pad for companies by offering business incubation and accelerator spaces and services to support idea generation, innovation and growth as well as support for later-stage companies.
Why do so many corporations operate under the assumption that change initiatives must come from the top down? Mandated change is often out of touch with the everyday work of employees, so it’s met with resistance as they immediately anticipate the additional work these programs entail.
Image Courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
GE announced eight winners of its crowdsourcing contest '' 3D Printing Design Quest '' , which challenged innovators to redesign loading brackets found on jet engines using 3D printing. The redesigned brackets reduce engine weight and fuel consumption. M Arie Kurniawan, based in Salatiga, Indonesia, won the first place prize of $7,000. The balance of the $20,000 prize pool will be awarded to the finalists capturing second through eighth place.
In "The Power of Why "Amanda Lang argues that innovation is simpler than you think. One reason we’re endlessly focused on expert innovation, or as she calls it, innovation window dressing, is our core belief that innovation is difficult.
According to one recent study, 68% of business leaders believe that innovators are “born and cannot be made.”
Image: Reuters
The Arizona Commerce Authority on Monday announced 10 finalists for its bi-annual business-plan competition to receive up to $250,000 in funding.
The Arizona Innovation Challenge will award a total of $1.5 million to the top startup and early-stage companies in the competition.
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From Rough Type:
If progress is shaped by human needs, then general shifts in needs would also bring shifts in the nature of technological innovation. The tools we invent would move through the hierarchy of needs, from tools that help safeguard our bodies on up to tools that allow us to modify our internal states, from tools of survival to tools of the self.
Today Comcast will convene an open house at the company's newly expanded Silicon Valley Innovation Center, where Comcast will preview upcoming product innovations and discuss Silicon Valley partnerships to advance broader industry innovation. Comcast's technology partners Twitter, Altia Systems and the California Telehealth Network will also be on-site to demo new product innovations in partnership with Comcast.
The line between insanity and entrepreneurship is razor thin (and at times, non-existent). Envisioning a world that no one else sees can accurately describe both camps. In an effort to build this alternate reality, entrepreneurs forfeit many of the common lifestyle “luxuries” granted by a normal 9-5.
Image: http://tech.co
Faced with an alarming loss of coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, scientists in Queensland are building a coral sperm bank to protect as many species as possible against extinction. A 2012 study estimates the reef has lost more than half of...
Hoag Levins: Sam, how did you get interested in this subject in the first place?
Samuel M. Khamis: I’ve always been interested in the idea of using advanced technology to help the general population, and it became a personal mission of mine before I went to grad school. When I went to grad school at UPenn back in 2004, I started working on novel nanotechnology.
Image: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu
For young people seeking innovation in the organizations where they work, education as a sector may not be the most conducive environment. "Millennials," who make up a quarter of the current workforce, consider educational institutions the least innovative, at least when compared to retail, technology, healthcare and advertising, marketing and PR. This segment of the population, also known as Generation Y, were born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, putting them somewhere in their early 30s and younger.
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Aging baby boomers, Obamacare and a greater push toward electronic medical records. Three Baltimore-area investment heavyweights — Paul Silber, Rick Kohr Jr. and Harrison Perry — are hoping that’s the winning combination for an investment fund they have launched to pump money into health care companies in the mid-Atlantic region. The Healthcare Innovators Fund plans to invest in companies mature enough to have a product or service on the market and be producing revenue. The idea is to catch these companies on the way up before they grow so large — $10 million or more in annual revenue — that they attract the attention of larger venture capital funds.
Image: http://www.bizjournals.com
DreamIt Ventures is raising a $30 million fund to further support its portfolio companies.
The five-year-old early-stage startup accelerator has raised $10 million so far, said managing partner Karen Griffith Gryga, who is raising the fund. The raise will go toward follow-on funding for the nearly 130 companies that have graduated from DreamIt’s programs in Philadelphia, New York City and Austin. (DreamIt’s latest program, DreamIt Health Baltimore, will launch in January 2014.)
Image: http://technical.ly
500 Startups, a seed investment and accelerator firm, has some investors on board for its ambitious new fund, but its success could depend on rounding up some big players.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based firm has closed on some commitments for its third fund, which is aimed at $100 million, and is using the pool to back the current batch of startups in the firm’s accelerator, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
By 2015, adults aged 50 to 75 will make up 40 percent of the adult population. That has been a significant trend that has influenced the type of technologies startups are developing. A report by Start Up Health and the AARP revealed that investment in digital health companies that include technology of interest to Americans in the 50+ market rose 28 percent in the past year to $928 million by the end of the third quarter this year. But which categories attracted the most investment or saw the most deal activity? Here are a few indications.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33953321@N00/345466397
Many of us spend a lot of time trying to boost productivity by clearing off our desks, walking while we work, working out at lunch and deploying a host of other hacks to make the most of our days.
Those are all great strategies, but what may bring us the ultimate success--in work and life--isn’t simply a matter of rearranging files and appointments. It’s about mental strength. As Angela Duckworth, winner of this year’s MacArthur Genius Grant, discovered, self control and grit--the tenacity to set a goal and see it through, are excellent predictors of success.
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Is working from home a blessing, or a curse?
That's what we wanted to find out last week. So we put out a call on Facebook and Twitter asking for your input. Many of you, after all, have experienced both sides of the coin.
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Creative Korea 2013 is a convention launched in a move to bring together creative ideas, creative people, and creative venture businesses. It is based on the theory that knowledge-based capital, such as creative ideas, skills and technology generated by individuals and small businesses are a key driver for today’s fast-growing society. With the rise of social media platforms, such intangible assets are increasingly becoming a dominant force for building up a new era of Korean economy.
Image: http://www.koreaittimes.com
