The city of Longmont is rolling out a couple of new programs this year to assist small-business owners.

The new Business Start-Up Grant offers up to $2,000 to people who want to start a storefront business.

“It’s extremely meaningful, just because of all the hidden openings costs,” said Phil Bratty, who with his wife, Georgia, is opening The Simply Bulk Market at 418 Main St. in a couple weeks. Bratty was one of the first ones to apply for the start-up grant. “I don’t want to say they were all surprises, but when you think about things like setting up phone service, things like that, I just wasn’t prepared for some of those costs.”

Serendipity is a wonderful thing, but it’s no way to build an economy.

We can’t rely on dumb luck to connect the people, ideas and capital that will create the businesses of the future. We all love the stories of life-altering breakthroughs being pulled out of thin air.

We hold dear tales like that of Archimedes exclaiming “EUREKA” upon discovering that the volume of his body submerged in his bath must displace an equal volume of water, solving the previously intractable problem of measuring the volume of irregular shapes. But Archimedes’ “discovery” was no fluke. He was the leading mathematician of antiquity. He brought tremendous skill and background to this challenge before his eureka moment.

Japan aims to step up its recruitment of foreign students by increasing the number of courses taught in English, write SUZIEANA UDA NAGU and SHARIFAH ARFAH.

THE news that Waseda University in Tokyo had the most number of international students among Japanese tertiary institutions as of last year came as no surprise to those who are familiar with the university.

“I do feel as if I’m in a European country whenever I visit Waseda University,” says Norhana Rashid (not her real name), a Malaysian who resides in Tokyo.

She was responding to a report in Japan Today, a Tokyo-based online newspaper, that the population of foreign students in the country has reached a record 132,720 as of May last year — up 8,891 from the previous year.

The biotech industry raised a record $55.8 billion in 2009 despite hesitant stock and venture capital markets, as drug-company partnerships fed the cash-burning startups that develop new therapies.

That represents a jump of 85 percent over the $30.1 billion recorded in 2008, according to Steve Burrill, whose San Francisco firm Burrill & Co. is both an industry investor and analyst.

He said the 2009 results were driven by $37 billion in financial partnerships through which large drug companies license technologies or experimental remedies from biotech startups, a dynamic that enabled many small firms to survive a tough year. But it may ultimately limit their growth if they were forced to cede control over their most promising developments.

Investors are being offered tax breaks for going green with a new breed of venture capital trust (VCT) that invests in clean-energy companies.

VCTs are a type of fund that give investors 30% tax relief on new investments of up to £200,000, in addition to tax-free growth and dividends. They were created to boost growing companies, so they are a suitable match for the fledgling clean-technology sector, particularly as firms have been struggling to access bank finance.

The value of green VCTs has tripled from just £12.5m two years ago to about £37.5m now, according to Martin Churchill of Tax Efficient Review, an investment advisory firm.

You Are Invited
The Kauffman Foundation Presents
"The State of Entrepreneurship"
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

The National Press Club
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045

Please join us as the Kauffman Foundation presents an overview of entrepreneurship and the critical role it plays in our economic recovery. Carl Schramm, Kauffman Foundation president and CEO, will deliver a comprehensive address assessing the outlook for entrepreneurship in 2010, including the challenges facing new businesses and solutions for fueling job growth as part of the economic recovery.

Supporting America’s Breakthrough Energy Innovators

The U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy) invites you to the inaugural ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington DC, March 1-3.

Bringing together all the nation's key players in energy innovation: Research & Technology Leaders, VC Investors, Technology Entrepreneurs, Large Corporations, Policymakers, and Government Agencies.

A new idea . . . a new approach . . . a new technique . . . creative breakthroughs can come like a bolt of lightning, or in the whisper of a muse.

Or, sadly, not at all. Many of us would welcome any sign of creative inspiration.

"Creativity is the ability to give the world something it didn't know it was missing," said Daniel Pink. "Create something fundamentally new, like the iPod. You have tens of millions of people now who carry around an iPod. Eight years ago I don't think they knew they were missing an iPod."

Business travellers have voted online check-in as the ‘innovation of the decade’; followed closely by Wi-Fi, flat beds, notebooks and the Eurostar.

The top five innovations - hailed for immeasurably improving business travel since 2000 - were revealed in a survey of 2,400 business travellers by the Business Travel & Meetings Show, which runs 9-10 February 2010 at Earls Court in London.

The right leadership can inspire a team and an organization to greatness.

If leadership could be summed up in one simple thought, it would be setting an example for others to follow. It's an important concept, especially in tough economic times, when companies are struggling and employees are worried about their careers and their next paycheck. When uncertainty is pervasive and the future lacks predictability, employees need reassurance that their interests, as well as those of upper management, are valued and being protected.

"The only safe ship in a storm is leadership," says Faye Wattleton, president of the Center for the Advancement of Women.

Last year was rough for small businesses, and no one knows for certain whether 2010 will be much better.

But there are definitely a few promising trends you should watch out for in the new year.

Ben Parr, an editor at Mashable, shares a few of his small-biz predictions for 2010 over at OPEN Forum:

CES is all about innovation.

3D TVs, touch screen PCs and interactive video games are the stars of the show here.

They're the heavy weights.

The must have gadgets that every nerd and techy worth their salt rushes out to buy.

The appeal of those items is obvious.

President Obama announced $2.3 billion in tax credits under the Recovery Act on Friday, in an effort to further dozens of clean energy initiatives.

The goal: To become a leader in green tech innovation while creating manufacturing jobs on American soil.

In remarks on the economy Friday, the President said he's concerned the U.S. is being outpaced by foreign competition in clean energy innovation.

If you live in Luling, Texas, (population 5080) you don’t need another list of the top trends for big city dwellers. You want to know what’s happening in the small towns. It’s different. You’re more worried about the Citizens State Bank, than Citibank. With those differences in mind, here are the top ten trends for rural small businesses and small town entrepreneurs in 2010.

1. Census 2010 – Population counts are critical for government programs, grants, and more for a decade. Smart small towns and counties will be actively finding ways to get everyone counted. Watch for town meetings to answer questions, and a whole bunch of canvassing. Your small town business will be indirectly affected by the results for ten long years.

Reporting from Las Vegas - The giants of the electronics industry made the big splashes at the Consumer Electronics Show, as usual, with towering displays, celebrity spokespeople (Taylor Swift sang for Sony, live and in 3-D) and invitation-only soirees.

On the far opposite end of the scale were boutique or just plain small companies, a few of which were even of the mom-and-pop variety.

Sometimes, that's where the fun stuff resided at CES, with products that varied from highly inventive to downright wacky.

It seems that 50 out of 50 states claim “bio” as their next industry. In Northeast Ohio, we already know we’re a healthcare hub, but this decade, we’ll become a biomedical business hub. We will build on current clinical and business hubs of excellence in Imaging, Orthopedics and Cardiovascular, capitalizing on the work started by groups such as BioEnterprise, the Austen BioInnovation Institute and Cleveland Clinic’s Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center. Many Northeast Ohio manufacturing companies are already diversifying their customer/industry mix to manufacture medical devices. This will exponentially increase by 2020. By fully launching a Cleveland Plus biomedical business attraction program in 2010 that blends VC attraction, clinical/research global expertise and Third Frontier, the Northeast Ohio region will make this biomedical business growth a reality.

Requests for Applications:

SBIR Phase II Bridge Awards to Accelerate the Development of Cancer Therapeutics, Imaging Technologies, Interventional Devices, Diagnostics, and Prognostics toward Commercialization (R44)
(RFA-CA-10-009)
National Cancer Institute
Application Receipt Date(s): March 01, 2010
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-CA-10-009.html

Limited Competition for the Continuation of the Pediatric Acute Liver Failure Study Group (U01)
(RFA-DK-09-505)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Application Receipt Date(s): March 15, 2010
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-09-505.html

[editors note: There are lots and lots of them on the original article.]

We'd like to change the title of this article to "Great Places to Think about Innovation."

1. Sri Lanka
For a quarter century, Sri Lanka seems to have been plagued by misfortune, including a brutal civil war between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority. But the conflict finally ended last May, ushering in a more peaceful era for this teardrop-shaped island off India’s coast, rich in natural beauty and cultural splendors.

The island, with a population of just 20 million, feels like one big tropical zoo: elephants roam freely, water buffaloes idle in paddy fields and monkeys swing from trees. And then there’s the pristine coastline. The miles of sugary white sand flanked by bamboo groves that were off-limits to most visitors until recently are a happy, if unintended byproduct of the war.

New media technology promises new opportunity for local economic development in Columbia.

In partnership with the Regional Economic Development Inc., Reynolds Journalism Institute has launched an "economic gardening" initiative aimed at locally cultivating a culture of innovative entrepreneurship centered on growing new media opportunities. By pursing a multi-faceted collaboration between business and academia, local leaders hope to nurture the growth of new media innovation and entrepreneurship in Mid-Missouri.

While visiting the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2010, held in Las Vegas, the United States first chief technology officer was told that governments often acted as a block in the path of innovation. While also receiving praise for the role that America played in the field of science and technology, Aneesh Chopra was also made aware of the fact that there were numerous areas of science that were much better off without government rules being imposed on them for political reasons.

“When it comes to innovation there's a lot the government can do, and there's a lot they should not do. The government doesn't spur innovation or entrepreneurship. The government often gets in the way,” the President of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Gary Shapiro, told the American official. The consumer industry head runs the group that organizes CES, the largest such event in the world annually.
Over the years, numerous technologies we currently use have been introduced at this show, including, among others, the BluRay Disc, the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), the HDTV, the Camcorder, and many, many others.