On one page, you’ll see an illustration of kid scientists assembling multi-eyed orange creatures. On another, an amicable blue furry creature leads a march of kids and an alien. At first glance, these look like pages from a normal children’s fantasy book. Look again and you’ll realize these are all characters on a journey decorated with HTML tags.

The Wonderful World of Creatures & Code (WWoCC) is an A-Z style book with the purpose of introducing kids to code. But it’s not available for purchase just yet. It’s currently on Kickstarter until Oct. 31 with a goal of $25,000.

Image: JASON HEGLUND - http://mashable.com

Venture capitalists spread $16.3 billion over more than 1,000 technology, media, healthcare and other companies in the U.S. from July through September, driving a seventh straight huge quarter for start-up investment.

Barring an absolute collapse in investing this fall, 2015 would mark the biggest year nationally and in Southern California for venture capital investment other than 2000, when the dot-com boom reached a peak, according to the MoneyTree Report released Friday by consulting giant PwC, the National Venture Capital Assn. and Thomson Reuters.

Blink and you just might miss this samurai swordsman slicing a 100 mph fastball cleanly in half.

While everyone around him is in awe, the samurai, whose name is Isao Machii, calmly strides away after the epic stunt like it's no big deal.

But then again, for someone whose other superhuman feats include halving arrows and BB gun pellets, maybe this is a regular occurrence.

As if being a samurai wasn't cool enough already.

SINGAPORE: The Republic's research and development (R&D) in science and technology is still at a nascent stage, said Mr Lim Chuan Poh, who is chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

In an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia, he added that many local scientists have relatively young careers and the sector needs to remain open to foreign talent who can help develop the field.

Every now and then, a study crosses my desk that causes me to assault my assumptions on almost everything I thought I knew. And a just-released report by Boston-based membership organization Innovation Leader did exactly that. The upshot: I assumed that the practice of innovation was further along than it now appears to be. Let me explain.

“Innovation Benchmarking Report 2015” gives us an unusually frank window into the state of innovation practice in 198 companies. So I contacted Scott Kirsner, co-founder of Innovation Leader and lead author of the report, to get his take. Excerpts from our conversation:

Image: http://www.innovationexcellence.com

Tired of your old job? Looking for a new environment? There are many reasons to leave your home country in search of greener pastures, but picking where to go can be an overwhelming decision. Job opportunities, salary, quality of life, safety, and childcare are just a few of the factors to consider.

The California Life Sciences Institute (CLSI), the non-profit partner of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), today formally joined forces with the Bay Area BioEconomy Initiative (BAB), a non-profit organization committed to strengthening the life science economy of the San Francisco Bay Area by fostering innovation and collaboration.

Founded in 2013, under the leadership of Tony Coles, Una Ryan, and Matthew Hudes, BAB has worked with industry, universities, investors, medical centers, health insurers and payors, high-tech companies and government to advance several key strategic imperatives to support the Bay Area life sciences industry. As a result, BAB has emerged as a new model for cross-disciplinary collaborations.

Even more than usual, fragmented and redundant digital healthcare innovation threatens to frustrate the innovation ecosystem. Dave Francis of RBC Securities put it well: “There are a lot of zombie digital health start-ups that get $1.5 million and a customer from a regional health system, and go no further.” He spoke at the October, 2015 Health 2.0 Conference.

People have told me no more times than I can count. No, that idea won’t work. No, I d on’t want to buy your product. No, I don’t want to invest in your company.

Rejection is a part of life, especially an entrepreneur’s life, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Even after building a couple of billion-dollar businesses, I still get rejected. No one likes being told no — especially me — but no just might be the most important word an entrepreneur can hear (and say).

I had earlier discussed a key aspect of a firm’s business model and value proposition that could make it enormously valuable. However, even the greatest business model cannot deliver extraordinary returns without an exceptional team at the helm. In this post, we will delve into what makes an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur : determination.

But why determination? Let’s hear from both sides of the table, shall we?

Elon Musk (If only one person deserved being called an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, it could well be him) has this to say on the subject:

“Starting a company is a very tough thing. There’s a friend of mine, Bill Lee, whose phrase is ‘starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.’ So you should certainly expect that it’s going to be very hard. It’s going to be harder than getting a job somewhere by a pretty good margin and the odds of you losing the money that you invested or your friends invested is pretty high. I mean, those are just the basic facts. So if you don’t mind things being really hard and high risk, then starting a company is a good idea. Otherwise, it’s probably unwise. It will certainly stress you out. So I think you have to be pretty driven to make it happen. Otherwise, you will just make yourself miserable.”

Starting a business can be difficult, even when the economy is booming. But being a business owner during an economic recession can be downright terrifying. In order to ensure the long-term success of your business, it's important to consider how viable it will be if you hit tough times or the economy takes a turn for the worse.

The following 14 business types are sustainable from bull to bear markets and everything in between.

The OECD has published a revised version of its Innovation Strategy – The Innovation Imperative: Contributing to Productivity, Growth and Well-Being. The report calls on governments to stop policies that unduly favour incumbents, given that young firms are crucial in driving innovation, job creation and growth. With the digital economy and the sharing economy changing the business landscape by allowing new ideas and business models to emerge, it is more urgent than ever to give young firms the means to experiment with new technologies and organisational models. The report also calls on policy makers to think long-term, to provide more grants and fewer tax incentives, and to learn from experience through greater monitoring and evaluation. Furthermore, the report calls attention to the role of skills, an open and competitive business environment, access and participation in the digital economy, and the need for countries to adapt policies to their specific national and sector challenges.

Thanks to the on-demand economy—a term so sweeping it's become almost meaningless—you can summon a massage, a dog walker, a Starbucks latte, a handle of whiskey, or legal advice with a few taps on your phone. A new crop of startups wants to make it just as easy for businesses to find temporary workers.

These "on-demand labor" startups, which offer more automated, efficient versions of traditional staffing agencies, say that they are adding more jobs to a well-established part of the labor economy.

Affinity investing to develop communities has incredible intrinsic value, however its value by the numbers should not be overlooked: angels investing through affinity groups produce some of the strongest results in the early-stage technology sector. There are two parts to the reason why: one, the critical importance of investing through a network and, two, the positive correlation between affinity and meaningful assistance. Excitingly, New York City affinity angel networks are pioneers in this area, and it should help grow Silicon Alley for the foreseeable future.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue is launching two statewide initiatives to help Indiana entrepreneurs and established companies license and commercialize Purdue's patented innovations and create a strong relationship with Purdue. The initiatives will support entrepreneurship and technology transfer, officials announced Thursday (Oct. 15). The initiatives, called Purdue Innovation-X License and FoundryX, will provide Indiana entrepreneurs and companies with additional incentives to stay in Indiana or conduct their primary research in the state. "Creating job opportunities for Hoosiers continues to be one of our highest priorities,” said Indiana Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann.

The Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute released a report that says Kansas City needs more venture capital for its biotech industry.

Just how much venture capital? That is up for debate.

Wayne Carter, Life Sciences Institute CEO, said $100 million is the common amount thrown around in conversation regarding Kansas City’s need, and while “it’s a good place to start, it’s not enough,” he said.

“Saying we need $100 million in venture capital funding is not the end game,” he said. “We need to create an entire ecosystem of funding.”

You might have never heard of Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, but in the late 1920’s he was more famous than Mickey Mouse.

Oswald’s story began when Walt Disney and Ubbe Iwerks—Disney’s star graphic artist—moved to California. Disney and Iwerks had made a name for themselves in Kansas making animated shorts, but when the cartoons proved to be less profitable than they expected, they decided to move west. In Tinseltown, the duo gave birth to Oswald, who became the new darling of the silver screen.

When you meet with investors, your first instinct is simple: Close the deal and cash the check as quickly as possible. After all, startups need money and investors have it, so why do anything other than convince them your business has a lot of potential but needs a lot of funding?

Finding the right investor is about more than wooing the person with the deepest pockets. It’s about finding someone who believes in your vision, understands the challenges ahead of you and has the business acumen to help you succeed.

SAN FRANCISCO—Over the past decade, tech-startup incubator Y Combinator has invested in and cultivated hundreds of fledgling companies, including highfliers like Airbnb Inc. and Dropbox Inc.

Now, with money rushing into Silicon Valley, the seed investor known as YC is aiming to cash in on its influential name and investor network by doubling down on its hottest startups. It raised a $700 million venture-capital fund in late September aimed at expanding ownership stakes in its most successful companies and helping cash-intensive businesses that might have trouble raising funds elsewhere.

Image: http://www.wsj.com

Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg are on a mission to make history. To prove a point about the power of clean technologies and renewable energy sources, they are piloting the Solar Impulse 2 plane around the world using absolutely no fuel.

The plane, which is powered by the sun, weighs 5,071 lbs. (2,300 kg) and has a solar panel-covered wingspan of 236 ft. (72 m). Solar Impulse 2 set the record for the world’s longest solo flight at 4 days, 21 hours, and 52 minutes earlier this year while traveling from Japan to Hawaii.

Image: http://time.com