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.
Dreamit Ventures’ accelerator has ditched the demo day, according to Chief Innovation Officer Steve Barsh. That’s not the only change the early-stage venture firm and accelerator has made of late.
Today, Dreamit unveiled a list of 25 new health and edtech startups launching from its revamped programs. A full list of those companies provided by Dreamit follows at the end of this post.
Image: https://techcrunch.com/
The National Academy of Inventors and Intellectual Property Owners Association released the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Patents Rankings, putting Drexel at 49th.
The list ranks Drexel 37th among U.S. institutions. This puts the University ahead of such prestigious institutions as Princeton (No. 54), Yale (No. 71) and Northeastern (No. 80).
Image: http://drexel.edu
A lot of stress is placed on the importance of science and technology skills for innovation in Australian enterprise and education. Innovation actually demands a cross-range of technical and non-technical skills, even more so in an age where the value of tech skills are diminished by the sheer number of people who posses them, a new report has found.
One of the critical lessons the Turnbull government may need to learn from the election is that talking up jobs and growth in the “economy in transition” may be good news for those best placed to benefit, but is bad news for those who can see themselves losing out.
Image: An implant made by Cochlear who are innovating in their marketing and customer service. — Dan Peled/AAP
When brands reach a certain number of followers, engagement starts to drop.
Social media marketing has become not only a fundamental interactive communication channel but also a pillar of distribution for the retail industry. As a key entry point of the online customer journey, many brands use social media to drum up engagement and purchases. Most brands, therefore, try to maximise their follower bases with the idea that the more followers they get, the more interaction they will inspire and the more their sales will grow.
In my years of working with entrepreneurs, I have heard many times the promise that their new idea will create the next Amazon or Apple, but I rarely hear the more important promise that the founder will practice all the good habits of winning entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. You see, I’m convinced that the entrepreneur makes the company, not the other way around.
Sure, power contributes to your ability to hit a home run, but it’s also the mechanics of how you swing that can take the ball farther. Many community and economic development initiatives throw a lot of money (power) at an issue without an understanding of the underlying issues and opportunities. A better approach is to use community input combined with real-time data to better understand the current local mechanics and what forms of investment (money and time) it will take to support change.
Image: http://fourtheconomy.com
I thought this was outrageously brilliant. Thanks to Andrew Hyde for sending it to me.
For a long time I’ve ranted against naming your startup community “Silicon Whatever.” Instead, I believe every startup community already has a name. The Boulder startup community is called Boulder. The LA startup community is called LA. The Washington DC startup community is called Washington DC. The Seattle startup community is called Seattle. You get the idea. I expect many people in the San Francisco startup community tire of being told they are in Silicon Valley, or maybe they enjoy the halo effect enough to overlook it.
Think back to the early days of MOOCs. Professors at Stanford and Harvard and other places were suddenly teaching really big classes, free. Hundreds of thousands of students at once were in those courses. It was an unprecedented giveaway of what had traditionally been the most expensive education in the world.
Back then, I met several students who were binging on the courses the way you might binge-watch a season of your favorite show on Netflix.
Last month, President Obama signed PROMESA, a law designed to help restructure Puerto Rico's crippling debt. But long before that, an accelerator based in San Juan called Parallel18 was working to improve the island’s financial prospects, one tech job at a time. Now the group is midway through mentoring its first class of startups that could offer promising employment opportunities for Puerto Ricans.
Image: http://www.fastcompany.com
Small business owners are facing a growing problem. More and more of them are receiving letters from companies demanding payment for alleged patent infringement. While there’s nothing wrong with companies exerting their intellectual property rights, many of these demands are coming from patent trolls — businesses that buy up intellectual property just to collect damages from alleged infringers.
Image: http://smallbiztrends.com
When Cambridge’s life science and technology luminaries gathered for an event at Trinity Hall college on Monday evening, guests only wanted to talk about two things: Brexit and Arm Holdings. Cambridge’s “Silicon Fen” has housed one of the UK’s most successful technology clusters for more than 40 years. But the £24bn sale of Arm to Japan’s SoftBank, marks the last — and the largest — of the city’s big four technology companies to move into foreign ownership. It highlights an issue that has concerned followers of British tech for a number of years.
Image: http://www.ft.com
The only thing certain about the global economy is uncertainty. Thanks to political unrest, terrorist attacks, and the repercussions of Brexit, caution is the dominant mindset of investors in every market, according to the latest quarterly global report on venture capital trends published jointly by KPMG International and CB Insights.
This is the fourth consecutive quarter where investors pulled back despite a total $27.4 billion invested across 1,886 deals—seven of which were in the $1 billion unicorn range. After a high at this time last year, the total number of deals declined an additional 6% from the first quarter of 2016.
Image: Flickr user Mark Kelly
A Dutch company is one step closer to making flying cars a reality in Kelowna.
After sending the PAL-V One, a proof-of-concept vehicle, into the skies back in 2012, PAL-V has now released the first image of the PAL-V LIBERTY, a commercial version of the One.
"For the design of the PAL-V LIBERTY our design team partnered with a leading Italian design agency," said PAL-V CEO Robert Dingemanse in a statement. "We have implemented significant safety and ergonomic upgrades to our vehicle."
Image: http://www.castanet.net
The annual Great Colleges to Work For survey was administered March 14 through April 15 and compiled by ModernThink LLC for The Chronicle. All survey-related content in this issue, including college presidents’ statements about what makes their institution a great place to work, was provided by ModernThink, which drew institutional data from the colleges and the U.S. Department of Education.
Image: http://chronicle.com
While it looks as if funding for startups moved slightly higher in the last four months, there’s a big catch.
According to a new report from KPMG International and CB Insights, global deal activity for venture capital-backed startups continued a decline in the second quarter after hitting record levels one year ago. In fact, at the current rate, deal activity will just barely top 2013’s numbers.
Image: http://mashable.com
Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have long allowed individuals to support start-ups in exchange for pre-buying a ticket or early prototype of a product, but not for equity. Accredited investors—with a net worth of over $1 million or who earn over $200,000 a year—have their own platforms and can invest in companies through sites like AngelList.
However, new rules enacted last May allow average people to invest in start-ups through crowdfunding sites that reward investors with equity. The rules usher in a new era of crowdfunding that is accessible to individuals of all economic backgrounds.
Image: https://www.crowdfundinsider.com
Medical science and bio technology has given second chances to so many lives, especially in the form of prostheses. Gone are the days where your life was over if you lost a limb or two. So to honour this achievement in human endurance and scientific method, we’ve made a list of ten body parts that could theoretically be replaced if lost.
Heart muscles
According to WHO (World Health Organisation), more people lose their life every year to heart disease than any other disease. Influencing factors such as stress and an unhealthy lifestyle could cause your heart to give in.
Image: http://memeburn.com
Deloitte, the business advisory firm has been busy collaborating with a diverse range of start-ups and SMEs to understand the headaches faced by entrepreneurs and their management teams. They found some of the top challenges include having access to robust, real-time financials, getting investor ready and accessing data analytics to support and inform key strategic decisions.
One of the biggest mistakes young entrepreneurs make is not being honest with themselves about the type of entrepreneur they are.
In general, most entrepreneurs fall into two camps: the first is “fundamental” entrepreneurs, those who like to build companies for the long-haul; the second group is “speculative” entrepreneurs, those who seek to exploit fleeting market opportunities.
People always ask me questions about entrepreneurship. Questions like:
As I was giving a speech to a room of recent immigrants on ‘Starting Your Own Business,, a tiny South Asian woman asked me if it was too late for her to start a business at 89 years of age. Pondering this, I asked her if there were children on the street where she lived in Vancouver. When she said there were many, I suggested an after school care program for older kids. Bring in two or three and make a business out of it. She called me a few weeks later and told me she had started her little business at a spritely 89 and was invigorated by the kids.
