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.
The United Kingdom is known for being one of the largest tech hubs in Europe.
To visualize the depth and breadth of the UK’s tech scene, we used CB Insights data and analytics to create a periodic table of tech in the United Kingdom. The table below covers venture capital investors, accelerators, and angel investors. It also lists funded private companies in select industry categories that are particularly prominent in the UK, along with notable exits of UK-based companies.
Entrepreneurship is hard. When people ask how my company is doing, with a smile I affirm how great it’s going but what a rollercoaster ride it has been.
What they don’t know is that was code speak for there are more “down” days than “up” days. This is the life of the entrepreneur.
Following the money is one way to monitor the health of the Massachusetts innovation economy. And with local startups collecting $7.4 billion in funding this year — a 30 percent jump from 2014 — we’re in much better shape than the Patriots starting lineup has been for much of the season.
It's the most wonderful time of the year for retailers — and for "Shark Tank" investor Robert Herjavec.
He has consistently said that his favorite investment from the show is goofy holiday-apparel company Tipsy Elves. He invested $100,000 for 10% equity in the business two seasons ago in 2013.
Image: Columbia Pictures - Tipsy Elves partnered with Sony to supply the sweaters for the 2015 Seth Rogen comedy "The Night Before."
Recently in China, scientists genetically engineered a beagle to double its muscle mass. The scientists juiced up the aptly named Hercules by “editing” a gene called myostatin. While scientists have been able to edit genes for some time, the advent of a powerful tool called CRISPR has made gene editing — the insertion, deletion or modification of a gene in an organism — easier, cheaper and more precise. Although the case of the super-beagle raises potential ethical considerations related to the implications of inducing such dramatic changes in an animal, it also points to a broader set of issues that merit wider attention.
Image: This image shows the 46 human chromosomes, where DNA resides and does its work. (National Cancer Institute/Associated Press)
'European Entrepreneurship @ Stanford Engineering' (ME421) is pleased to announce our lineup of speakers and partners - founders, CEOs, investors, designers and tech transfer experts - for Winter 2016. As always, all sessions are open to the general public. Stanford students from all departments and schools, grads and undergrads, can enroll in ME421 for 1-unit credit, S/NC, no pre-requisites.
Effective innovation requires constant energy, creative friction, flexible structures, and purposeful discovery. Take this assessment to roughly gauge how well your organization does in each area.
At the end, you’ll see how you stack up against other test takers on HBR.org and receive feedback on what you can do to help your company become more innovative.
2015 was the year of the wearables, drones, 3D printing, virtual reality and more — but amid all this innovation, how do you distinguish fad from future staple? To put the question another way: What was the most important technology of 2015?
We asked CEOs, engineers, and innovators across the Pacific Northwest that question as part of our regular Geek of the Week feature. Continue reading to find out why they picked everything from brain organoids to good old-fashioned smartphones, and click on any name to read each person’s full Geek of the Week profile.
Image: http://www.geekwire.com
On an Instagram account called everydayclimatechange, the photographer James Whitlow Delano curates pictures that document causes and effects of global warming and responses to it.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com
The Delaware Economic Development Office is starting a new program to help boost developing businesses in the state.
DEDO has partnered up with 1M/1M, a Silicon Valley-based organization devoted to supporting developing entrepreneurs. 1M/1M's mission is to help a million entrepreneurs reach at least a million dollars each in annual revenue, in hopes of contributing a trillion dollars in global GDP and ten million jobs by 2020.
The result is an online mentoring program that will provide participating business leaders resources for growing their respective companies. DEDO announced their first three participants, who come from Thank Tank, Watchful Eye Security and VituMob.
When it comes to thanking your employees with gifts, branded pens and gift baskets are good, but there are more meaningful ways to show your appreciation. Here are five things you can do this holiday season to break from from the generic employee gift-giving pattern and try something different.
In September of last year, the University of California Board of Regents approved the creation of an independent venture fund that would launch with $250 million, and primarily invest in startups that emerge from UC research. Last week, the board named billionaire Sacramento Kings owner and entrepreneur Vivek Ranadivé as the fund’s leader.
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ONDON—U.S. venture-capital firms are increasingly looking to invest in European biotechnology companies, regaining momentum that was shaken after the global recession.
In a small but growing number of European deals this year, U.S. investors have played a role. The number of venture-capital rounds in Europe involving at least one U.S. fund climbed from a low of just five in 2011 to 21 in 2014, according to data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal from venture-capital database VentureSource. Last year’s toll, through November, came to 17.
Image: http://www.wsj.com
At our firm, ff Venture Capital, we didn’t aim to go to Canada, but ended up there anyway.
We’re a New York based early-stage venture capital firm. Since 2011, we have invested in four Toronto-based startups as well as one Ottawa-based company, out of 60 active companies in our portfolio. We are aware of only one other U.S. seed-focused investor with as many investments in Canada.
One of my biggest goals for 2016, outside of growing my company, involves improving my health. Rather than wait until New Year's to make an official resolution, I've started early: As part of my personal fitness journey, which includes a strict diet and workout schedule, I 've purchased a new standing desk.
While mentoring a very sharp young entrepreneur the other day, it occurred to me that most founders and small business owners are in business without any real idea of what it takes to be a winner. That’s why they follow the Richard Bransons and Mark Cubans of the world -- so they can understand how a successful person thinks.
If you're trying to buy happiness, science has some clear advice: it's better to spend money on an experience rather than the latest iPhone. New research suggests the same is true for gifts. If the goal is to make the recipient happy, you'll have better luck with an experience. So why do most presents fit in boxes?
The year is ending.
The year is beginning.
This happens around this time on a regular basis. Each and every time it does we’re all inundated by people telling us how to review the year now ending and prepare for the year to come. Some talk about personal growth and renewal. Others urge reflection on your business and preparation for what is ahead. A lot of advice is ladled out on how to survive the parties and keep your waistline from expanding.
It’s been an eventful year, from surprising finds in space and on Earth to technological innovations and its perils to developments in biology. In fact, there were so many newsworthy science and technology advances and occurrences that we couldn’t just limit our year end’s list to the usual ten entries and instead kicked up to 11. Call it a ten-plus-one list.
