There is a lot of uncertainty about the state of the private, high-growth technology markets and the venture capital markets that underpin them. On the one hand innovation is clearly at an all time high unleashed by smart phones, fast telecom networks, social networks that spread commerce and the fact that we are all one click away from buying things on Amazon, Apple, Google or PayPal.

I want to make you aware of a unique opportunity that may be of interest to you and your greater network. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Commercial Service is coordinating participation in the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest Industrial Trade Fair, to be held in April 25-29, 2016 in Hannover, Germany. This year, the United States is the official partner country for the first time and therefore will offer substantial visibility to U.S. based exhibitors who participate in any of the five trade shows, including one for Research and Technology, as well as an Investment Pavilion.

The Research & Technology trade show would be a great platform for U.S. Exhibitors, including Large and Start-up Companies, Academia, Technical Institutions, and Labs, to present their research activities in these fields .

People who manage to get a lot accomplished each day aren't super human, they've just mastered a few simple habits. Some may be easy to guess: Keep your desk organized and aim for around eight hours of sleep a night. But others, like taking a mid-day nap or complaining, might surprise you.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com

In two weeks, the industry's seen two very different panels discussing women in tech. One was a setback—while the other pointed the way forward.

I'm not sure if I should even count the Salesforce-sponsored Women's Innovation Panel at last week's Dreamforce conference as an occasion where people discussed women in technology. Lauren Hockenson from the Next Web has already deftly eviscerated the event, which included the weird, insulting scene of Oprah sidekick Gayle King questioning the paternity of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's children.

Image: http://readwrite.com 

Can aging be slowed by using gene therapy to make permanent changes to a person’s DNA?

One Seattle-area woman says she has tried exactly that. Her claim has entangled some high-profile American academics in a strange tale of do-it-yourself medicine that involves plane flights to Latin America, an L.A. film crew, and what’s purported to be the first attempt to use gene therapy to forestall normal aging.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

Communication is not only verbal but also includes mimics and gestures. Therefore, you should be careful about how you use your body when expressing yourself if you don’t want to create any conflicts between your body language and the point you are trying to make. Below you can find the most common body language mistakes to avoid at work in order to give a professional image to others.

First Data, Simon Property Group, Ping An Insurance, and Wipro are just a few of the large corporations globally that recently launched venture units to invest in startups. And they’re far from alone.

In the first 8 months of 2015, more than 50 corporate VCs have already made their first investment, including Twitter Ventures and Workday Ventures, according to CB Insights data. That puts 2015 on pace to overtake 2014, when 70 new corporate VC units globally made their first investment.

Image: https://www.cbinsights.com

When it comes to capturing venture capital funding Maryland tops the region in both deals and dollars. In a ranking of all 50 states and D.C., Maryland ranked No. 11 in venture capital funding in the third quarter of 2015. It ranked No. 7 in its share of nationwide deals during the same time.

The number of young women completing engineering and technology programs has dropped significantly in the past 30 years. As a result, women are generally underrepresented in technology-related jobs, especially in technical positions and at leadership levels.

The not-for-profit organization Girls Who Code (GWC) was founded in 2011 to improve these numbers. The organization’s goal is to expose a million young women to computer-science education and training by the end of 2020. To achieve that objective, GWC is partnering with US universities, elementary and secondary schools, and large corporations to sponsor after-school clubs and summer immersion programs for girls in grades 6 to 12.

MARK MURO: Regional tech leaders and city economic-development people keep asking: How can we keep more of the beneficial growth of homegrown innovation gains local?

Too often, technology insights fly out of local research centers and university labs and into the global production system with no stop for job creation anywhere near to home. The result is a missed opportunity—both for nations and local places but also tech companies, which may be losing out on the powerful synergies of co-located innovation and growth.

No matter how popular and beloved your brand may be, its survival depends on your organization’s ability to adapt. Postmortems on companies like Blockbuster Video and Borders Books have pointed to issues with organizational structure, capabilities, and technology. But at the center of those corporate demises is the failure to innovate. Through more than a decade of innovation training with the world’s top organizations, I’ve isolated five innovation nightmares that, if course-corrected early enough, don’t have to result in imminent doom.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2015/10/16/5-business-innovation-nightmares-and-how-to-avoid-them/

I wish I could say that I knew exactly what our business should have been from the start. However, as with most entrepreneurs, the evolution of the business model for our new family business Entrepreneurial Mind, LLC has been a journey. We have made several major changes in our business model, what author and entrepreneur Eric Ries refers to as pivots.

Questions arises on the effectiveness of strategies by government and private grantmaking organisations which focuses narrowly on financing and training of entrepreneurs without regard to the broad context of entrepreneurship, which in contrast, it is believed that entrepreneurs perform best in environments that are connected, dense and diverse. The bank of industries (BOI) in Nigeria…

Virginia Tech wants to encourage students to be innovative and entrepreneurial and brought in the support of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to lend his support this week at the launch of the new Innovate Venture Lab. The lab, under the umbrella of the Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, will provide a place for student entrepreneurs to come and build up their ideas into startup companies as part of a larger, school-wide effort to boost Virginia Tech's profile as a hub of innovation.

Image: Image via Virginia Tech

G. Nagesh Rao ’04 is ready for some “pretty awesome endeavors” as one of 10 recently announced USA Eisenhower Fellows.

Rao, who earned his M.S. in Legal Studies at Albany Law, will give his passport a workout during a four- to five-week agenda. In a statement, the EF program said its fellows “will meet with experts in their respective fields, with the goal of exchanging ideas and information” in countries such as Spain, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Northern Ireland and Japan.

Image: http://www.albanylaw.edu

The business world is changing ever more rapidly these days. If you see a need or a big opportunity but don’t act fast enough, the opportunity will pass or a competitor will get there before you do. Customers and opportunities don’t wait. If your startup culture doesn’t include a sense of urgency, your probabilities of long-term success are miniscule.

Some of you may remember MySpace, which came early to social media, but lost the lead to Facebook by evolving too slowly, many analysts say. Other examples often mentioned include Hashable and MapQuest. A sense of urgency won’t save a bad idea or the wrong team, but the good news is that it will fail faster, allowing people to move on quickly to more productive opportunities.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - An upcoming Securities Exchange Commission rule about equity crowdfunding doesn’t interest some Oklahoma venture capital agencies.

“We tried crowdfunding a couple of years ago without much success, so I don’t think it will be part of our strategy going forward,” Cameron Mackie, vice president at Emergent Technologies LP, told The Journal Record (http://bit.ly/1OxNPW8 ).

Are you thinking of approaching an angel investor to put money into your start-up or to help you scale up?

Before you start contacting local angels, you should understand what they look for so you make sure you are approaching the right angel groups and providing them with the information they need to make a “go” investment decision.

Every new business dreams of becoming the premier brand in their space, like Starbucks is to coffee, and Apple is to consumer electronics, but they have no idea how difficult that is to achieve. In fact, only 100 of the 10,000 multimillion-dollar consumer companies around the world can claim to be an “apostle brand” – one that inspires enduring trust, loyalty, and endorsement.

We’ve seen several worrying signs regarding global economic growth as we enter the last quarter of 2015.

First, capital flows are changing.

Money is expected to flee from emerging economies, as the liftoff in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve is around the corner.

Many emerging countries have spent too much amid massive inflows of low-cost US dollar