Don Mattrick, Industry Chair for the #BCTECH Summit, knows how to create a successful BC-based business and make an impact on the world stage.

He was born and raised in BC and started his first company Distinctive Software Inc. in 1982 at the age of 17. After that company was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1991, Mattrick went on to become EA Canada where he became their President of Worldwide Studios. Following that he went on to run the XBox business, supply chain and hardware R&D at Microsoft for a number of years before heading to California to run social games company Zynga. Mattrick has also been identified as a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum.

Silicon Valley's Y Combinator has reached its Alphabet moment.

Last August, Google had become way more than a hub for internet searching, so it changed its corporate structure.

Google stayed Google, but its other side projects, like life sciences and cars, were spun out into their own sections under a parent company, Alphabet.

Deloitte today announced a strategic alliance agreement with AT&T aimed at accelerating the adoption of smart city technology across U.S. cities. The telco and global management consultancy, along with several other hand-picked alliance members, strive to enhance livability and improve the efficiencies of local governments through optimal use of today's technology.

"Substantial attention has been paid internationally to how new technological innovations can be used to solve the problem of modern cities. The combination of AT&T's mobility and cloud networking solutions seamlessly enable almost every aspect of the smart city vision," said John Levis, principal, technology, media and telecommunications practice, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "The company is helping to lead the future vision and pull together the most experienced and innovative companies to bring smart city benefits to fruition. We are honored to be part of this elite group."

Hmm. I bet the post title got your attention, but of course in this modern age of digital content we bloggers need headlines that pop through all of the noise and gain attention. It helps, of course, that I’m of the opinion that the headline (provocative or outrageous) has, as Henry Kissinger once said, the added benefit of being true.

Innovation, as practiced today in most corporations, is far too “easy” and commercialization is far too difficult. What if that statement were reversed? What if innovation was challenging and difficult, and commercialization were easy? Let’s explore, shall we?

Have trouble looking on the bright side? If so, it could be your loss. Successful people aren't all optimists, but one trait many of them share is the ability to see opportunity in unlikely places. Without a dose of optimism, we'd never try anything new, and our lives would remain perpetually stuck in the same place. Forward progress of any kind is predicated on it.

NEW YORK, NY – Seventy-seven venture-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) raised $9.4 billion in 2015, marking a 40 percent decline in dollars raised compared to 2014, according to the Exit Poll Report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).  For the fourth quarter, 16 venture-backed IPOs raised $2.2 billion, an 18 percent increase compared to the total dollars raised during the previous three-month period and up slightly compared to the number of offerings listed during the third quarter of 2015.  Ninety-one venture-backed M&A deals were reported in the fourth quarter, 26 of which had an aggregate deal value of $3.6 billion, decreasing 48 percent compared to the third quarter of this year.  For full year 2015, 372 M&A transactions were reported, with 84 deals combining for a disclosed value of $16.3 billion, the slowest full year period for venture-backed M&A since 2009.

Image: http://nvca.org

Physicist Enrico Fermi famously asked the question "Where are they?" to express his surprise over the absence of any signs for the existence of other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. Although many potential resolutions to this so-called “Fermi paradox” have been suggested over the years, there is still no consensus on which one, if any, is correct. The question of whether we are alone in the Milky Way (or in the universe at large) remains, however, one of the most intriguing questions in science in general, and in astronomy in particular.

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com

Google and Yahoo. IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Dell. Xerox. Apple and Microsoft. Intel, of course. And now Amazon.

Nearly all the biggest names in technology have footholds in the Portland area. What Portland doesn't have is a single big-name tech company of its own.

This isn't new. The Silicon Forest began to transform into an outpost economy in the 1970s, when Hewlett-Packard Co. and Intel established manufacturing sites in Oregon, and Tektronix began to peak.

Image: Photo by Mark Graves/The Oregonian

The December jobs report was a blowout. 

The US economy added 292,000 jobs in the final month of 2015, capping a year that saw the economy add 2.7 million jobs while the unemployment rate fell to 5%. 

But for signs that the labor market is significantly tightening look no further than the unemployment rate for Americans with the least amount of formal schooling. 

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

America has been known as the land of opportunity for as long as I can remember. It’s the one place in the world where if you bare down and work your nose to the grindstone, you can make a better life for your family and yourself.

And while all Americans are hardworking, there’s a certain part of the country that takes the Puritan work ethic to the extreme — the great Northeast.

Image: http://www.zippia.com

When I first email Chris Bailey, the man behind popular productivity blog A Life of Productivity, to set up an interview, I am greeted with an auto-reply that reads, "As I hunker down on a few important projects, I’m only checking my email once a day, at 3 p.m. EST."

It’s the first indicator that I’m dealing with a productivity mastermind.

When tech clusters grow and become more successful by nurturing a strong start-up and scale-up culture, enabling infrastructure and attracting talent, the success can often have a side effect. As witnessed in clusters like London, Berlin and Bangalore, it also drives up the cost of establishing a business, pushing up rents and driving out cash-strapped startups to satellite cities or towns.

Image: http://www.thenextsiliconvalley.com

It is widely considered that diversity is an important part of nurturing innovation. Research from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management suggests that even if people from different backgrounds have exactly the same skills and knowledge, diverse teams may still do better than more homogeneous ones. Based on this premise, it is conceivable that London could have an edge over Silicon Valley, according to a recent survey, which suggests London’s diversity is considered an advantage.

Image: http://www.thenextsiliconvalley.com

When a new year begins, pundits and commentators all over the world try and forecast the top trends for their industry or sector. In this article, we highlight the 10 predictions for 2016 from UK based innovation charity, Nesta, which works with partners and on projects around the world. In its reflections on the potential innovations and their impact on the world’s challenges or opportunities, it is clear that it is based on the continuing pervasive role of mobile and digital connectivity, on the cloud and internet, the collected data and analytics.

Image: http://www.thenextsiliconvalley.com

From Stanford to MIT, California's Silicon Valley to Manhattan's Silicon Alley, Kansas City to Austin, the U.S. nurtures innovation better than anywhere else in the world. And this week in Las Vegas, you can see firsthand the output of innovation at CES 2016 – the world's gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies.

Image: An autonomous aerial vehicle unveiled at CES International in Las Vegas. - http://www.usnews.com

This week the Honourable Chrystia Freeland announced a $50-million handout called CanExport. In his coverage, Terry Dawes mischaracterized my positions that we need to stop subsidizing private sector risk and make investments in 21st Century infrastructure if we want to spur innovation and improve productivity in Canada.

I hear people giving financial advice all the time. Most of them aren't rich. 

Those who are rich would disagree with what many charlatans preach. The other day, I came across an article proclaiming, "Skip your lunch, don't buy expensive coffee, cut your hair less often." This is a horrendous way to live your life and it promotes poverty. It's smart to be thrifty, but you don't want to be cheap. You should never do anything that will deprive you from your joy.

The new year brings new ideas, new ventures and a fresh start. But it also brings new challenges and struggles to overcome to achieve these new goals.

Related: 50 Inspirational Quotes to Motivate You

Kickstart your own new year with a little motivation to get you started breaking through barriers and reaching your objectives in 2016:

Motivation can be hard to come by, especially in the face of challenges or difficult work. When you’re thinking about implementing that new idea, or starting that new company or beginning that new regimen -- this is the new year, after all -- it’s easy to talk yourself into procrastinating. Or worse, avoiding your goal altogether.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, we've seen the unveiling of Chevy's electric car, heard Ford say it plans to go big on self-driving technology, and learned that General Motors bought a big stake in a ride-hailing app.

In other words, the auto industry is starting to sound a lot like those Silicon Valley upstarts that want to change the world.

Image: Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider