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.
Exactly who invented the wheel — and exactly when — will likely be debated long into the future.
But regardless of the actual origins of that familiar rotating circular component, one thing remains true: the wheel hasn’t changed much over the years. Sure, wood is no longer the preferred material for construction and most applications now feature a chunky rubber wrapping, but the general design is largely untouched.
Image: http://motorburn.com/
Ever since the phrase “viral video” became part of the English lexicon, business owners have been excited about the idea of having one. After all, what business owner or marketing manager wouldn’t kill for a video featuring his product that’s seen and shared by millions of people?
Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
If you send a tweet to a stranger asking them to retweet it, you probably wouldn’t be surprised if they ignored you entirely. But if you sent out lots of tweets like this, perhaps a few might end up being passed on.
How come? What makes somebody retweet information from a stranger? That’s the question addressed today by Kyumin Lee from Utah State University in Logan and a few pals from IBM’s Almaden research center in San Jose.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/
Innovation policy is about the challenge of contributing to the wide objectives such as employment, sustainability and economic growth. How to approach such a task? The answer is simple but the effort complex: Aim for a strong innovation eco-system. Referring to the case of the IMP³rove Euromed Project the article suggests four systematic steps on how to establish an effective, innovation inducing eco-system.
Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The more I read the news, the more it looks to me that four words are becoming obsolete and destined to be dropped from our vocabulary. And those words are “privacy,” “local,” “average” and “later.” A lot of what drives today’s news derives from the fact that privacy is over, local is over, average is over and later is over.
By: Garrison Moore and Robert Bowman
“A recession is when you lose your job; a depression is when I lose my job.” Harry Truman
Unemployment - wanting a job, looking for sustaining work, and receiving repeated rejections – is for most people one of the most difficult experiences in life. Not only do the unemployed lose potential income but the sense of powerlessness and shame gen- erated by this experience can leave permanent scars. For the young, seeking a job is the first test of adulthood. Having gainful work provides a primary attachment to society.
The sheer scale of the recent Great Recession exposed long simmering issues about the value of a college education. It seemed something fundamental had changed in the economy and the workplace.
In the US, many entrepreneurs see grants as “free money,” since they are not loans and don’t have to be repaid. A grant is not an equity investment, so the entrepreneur doesn’t have to give up a stake in the company either. Typically they can be used to fund product development and commercialization that would otherwise require outside investors.
Image: Wikipedia
Big corporations are putting more money to work in startup companies, another sign that things are heating up in the startup ranks.
According to a report by CB Insights, corporate venture capitalists sunk over $3 billion in 129 deals during the first quarter, up 73 percent on a sequential basis.
Google Ventures was the leading investor in the first quarter, placing cash into twice as many startup companies as second place finisher Intel Capital. Google also has been ramping up its M&A efforts, just today announcing plans to purchase Divide, an Android startup that was backed by Google Ventures and others. The company’s YouTube unit also is said to be close to buying video game streaming service Twitch for upwards of $1 billion.
Image: http://www.geekwire.com/
The Irish Government has unveiled a €172m venture capital fund for investing in innovative Irish companies in the life-sciences sector. Lightstone Ventures is partnering with Enterprise Ireland and the National Pension Reserve Fund to manage the fund.
This is the third investment by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland under the Innovation Fund Ireland programme.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Bain Capital LLC’s venture arm is seeking $625 million for its latest fund as the industry enjoys the best market for initial public offerings since the late 1990s dot-com bubble when co-founder Mitt Romney was helping lead the private-equity firm.
Bain Capital Venture Partners 2014 LP will mostly invest in infrastructure software, health-care technology and other technology companies that serve businesses in North America, according to marketing documents viewed by Bloomberg News. It can also back consumer-focused firms, including those in e-commerce.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
This week, the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) opened the application process for its University Innovation Fellows program for U.S. college and university students.
The University Innovation Fellows, a national community of students in engineering and related fields, are leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future. To accomplish this, the Fellows advocate for lasting institutional change and create opportunities for students to engage with entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, design thinking and venture creation at their schools.
Image: http://epicenter.stanford.edu/- The University Innovation Fellows at their annual meeting in Silicon Valley in March 2014.
We built it. With our bare hands. A space where do-good dreams come true.
One popular formula to growing companies is creating a “hockey stick” effect: launch your company, build a buzz, grow a user base, meet with investors, show your impact, and take on the partner with the best resources to grow your vision. My friend and advisor Graham Hill, Founder of LifeEdited, first told me that, yet I had different ideas.
Image: http://www.forbes.com - Left to right: Marissa Feinberg, Jennie Nevin. Credit Parris Whittingham.
Filling an open position in your organization is a lot like dating: Once you find the right match, you want to do everything in your power to keep that person around. And just like in the dating world, your perfect candidate has the right to walk away if he or she isn't satisfied with what your company has to offer.
A few years ago, when unemployment was high and job opportunities were scarce, a company didn't have to work as hard to retain its best employees. But the tides have shifted as the economy continues to improve, and employers now must vie for the attention of today's top professionals.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
It’s difficult for most people not to start feeling warm and fuzzy any time the words “road trip” are mentioned. In an instant, memories of breathtaking scenery, forgotten faces and incredible soundtracks come flooding in.
No matter how old you are, chances are those two words will make you feel young again, even if it’s only for a few moments.
Image: http://motorburn.com
“Scratch your own itch,” is one of the most influential aphorisms in entrepreneurship. It lies behind successful product companies like Apple, Dropbox, and Kickstarter, but it can also lead entrepreneurs predictably to failure.
This approach to entrepreneurship increases your market knowledge: as a potential user, you know the problem, how you’re currently trying to solve it, and what dimensions of performance matter. And you can use this knowledge to avoid much of the market risk in building a new product. But scratching your own itch will lead you astray if you are a high-performance consumer whose problem stems from existing products not performing well enough – in other words, if the itch results from a performance gap.
Image Courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
(CNN) -- Lily Warren was just 8 years old when she decided to start her own business with her younger sisters.
The girls had already visited a marketplace for young business owners and opened their own bank accounts at the Young Americans Bank in Denver, which touts itself as the world's only bank designed for kids.
"There were tons of young entrepreneurs selling what they made. It was a really cool place," said Lily, now 13.
Image: cnn.com - Lily Warren, right, and her two younger sisters, Chloe and Sophie, have been in the beeswax business since 2009. The Littleton, Colorado, sisters make lip balm and lotion bars using the beeswax left over from their parents' hives. They call themselves the Sweet Bee Sisters.
Brandon Cowan is the stereotypical entrepreneur: young (he's only 20), male, a university drop-out (twice), and someone who put everything on the line to pursue his vision.
“I started my company when I was 16 years old with no experience or idea of how to make an app, no venture capital. I just had the passion to make things happen,” says Cowan, the founder of Crazy Dog Apps, which has developed four top 100 smartphone apps over the past four years.
Image: http://www.theage.com.au - Jo Schneider says being a female entrepreneur gives her an advantage.
Centuries from now, a large swath of the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to be gone, its hundreds of trillions of tons of ice melted, causing a four-foot rise in already swollen seas.
Scientists reported last week that the scenario may be inevitable, with new research concluding that some giant glaciers had passed the point of no return, possibly setting off a chain reaction that could doom the rest of the ice sheet.
Image: Muir Glacier at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska is among the many worldwide that are disappearing. Muir, left, as seen in August 1941, and photographed in August 2004. Credit W. Field; B. Molnia/U.S.G.S., via Glacier Photograph Collection
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, has called for a global agreement to promote healthy eating habits, saying "unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco."
Speaking in Geneva on Sunday (18 May) ahead of the conference ‘Towards a Global Convention to Protect and Promote Healthy Diets’, De Schutter said that since the world has come together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed.
Image: Get them while they're young. (Joe 13/Flickr)
Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, is spreading across the globe, and while a vaccine could be developed, there’s little commercial incentive to make one.
The deadly virus was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Since then, infected people have turned up in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The first cases arrived in the United States this month, beginning with two infected travelers returning from Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, authorities reported the first person-to-person transmission within the U.S., most likely from a face-to-face conversation.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/ - Emerging infection: MERS virus particles are shown in yellow in this colorized electron microscope image.
