Chinese investment in the Puget Sound region is about to go beyond real estate.

A Chinese venture capital group wants to open an office in the Seattle area so it can invest in the region’s tech and biotech industries, the director of the city of Seattle’s economic development office Brian Surratt confirmed Wednesday.

Surratt declined to reveal the name of the firm but he believes it would be the first Chinese venture group to establish a presence here.

The confluence of cost and funding pressures, technology-enabled learning innovations and new paradigms of quality and teaching will continue to force higher education institutions to redefine their value. However, higher education institutions are unwilling to embrace new definitions of value and quality "as valid, even when they can see that customers increasingly prefer the new value offerings," notes a report from TIAA-CREF Institute.

Medicare and Medicaid, the two mainstays of government health insurance, turn 50 this month, having made it possible for most Americans in poverty and old age to get medical care. While the Affordable Care Act fills the gap for people who don’t qualify for help from those two programs, there are important improvements still needed in both Medicare and Medicaid.

Image: http://www.nytimes.com

There are plenty of reasons to rent a car, from leaving an unreliable car behind on a vacation to getting around a business trip. There is a real hidden danger when renting a car that you may not even realize. And this one action on your part could put you and your family at substantial risk.

The government must simplify the “excessively complex” schemes designed to assist collaboration between industry and universities.

This is according to a report commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and produced by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Dame Ann Dowling, president of the REA, said the complexity of existing public support mechanisms causes “frustration and confusion” among academics, meaning the UK is not “reaping the full potential” of connecting innovative businesses with the “excellence in the research base” at UK universities.

“Leadership” has historically referred to “industrial leadership” – the managerial styles and structures that served industrial firms well for a century. But the leadership of digital businesses in the post-industrial age is fundamentally different and is defined by five paradoxes. Understanding them can help digital leaders identify and develop the capabilities they will need to transform the firm from a traditional to fully digital enterprise.

With innovative digital companies bringing new business models and fierce competition to nearly every industry from telecoms to transport, traditional companies are under pressure to step up innovation if they are to grow and remain relevant. But to do so, they’ll need to attract innovative employees into their organisations and give these innovators the space and resources they need to do what they do best.

You can have all the free coffee in the world, but if you aren’t offering the types of benefits employees are really looking for, you will lose them to the competition quickly. That’s why we asked 11 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

“What’s one company perk or benefit you are offering that has actually been influential to attract top talent and is the reason why recent hires chose your offer over another?”

Wildlife officials at several New Jersey beaches have issued warnings after dozens of Portuguese Man o' Wars washed ashore.

The jellyfish-like creatures usually ride north on the Gulf Stream current, since they prefer the current's mild waters. Sometimes, however, strong winds can blow them closer to shore during their journey, which is probably how these guys got the invite to your beach day.

Image: GERALD HERBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Silicon Valley has come up with its own spin on the donor-advised fund. Palo Alto–based Legacy Venture, a fund-of-funds with $1 billion under management, channels investor dollars into Silicon Valley’s top venture-capital funds. Then, in a bit of one-stop shopping for the charity-minded, it funnels both the investor’s original capital along with any profits earned into the causes and charities that make his or her heart beat faster. Since investors are investing through their family foundation or an existing donor-advised fund, they get to keep the tax write-off.

Launch of World's First Open Innovation Programme to Educate Scientists PR Newswire

VIENNA, July 2, 2015

VIENNA, July 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Scientists may apply online until September 22, 2015 at http://www.openinnovationinscience.at for the 'Lab for Open Innovation in Science' continuing studies programme taking place in Vienna. 

Health sciences' two greatest challenges are the lack of incentives for investigating new research questions and the complexity of current research findings, according to a recent survey of international researchers and scientists conducted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG). These findings provided the impetus for launching the LBG's  Tell us! crowdsourcing project in their Open Innovation in Science initiative. This initiative invites patients, families, and professionals to actively contribute to the development of scientific research questions in the field of mental illness. Findings from this unique research approach will impact the world's first educational programme for the application of Open Innovation in science, known as 'Lab for Open Innovation in Science' (LOIS).

Millennials have been dubbed the “entrepreneur generation” — and rightfully so. More and more young people are forgoing a traditional corporate career and setting out on their own to build the next great company, and many are starting out right here in Philadelphia.

Even with the odds of success stacked against them, hard-working young people press on to pursue their vision and embark on the journey of turning an innovative idea into a thriving business. Sounds simple, but of course, starting a business from the ground up is easier said than done, and with any new venture comes challenges.

Your productivity is directly impacted by what you eat. If you want both your mind and body to perform at optimal levels then you need to practice good nutrition. 

It sounds great, but what does “good nutrition” mean?

With so much conflicting diet and health information online, it can leave you with more questions than answers most of the time.

Mashable's latest #BizChats Twitter chat discussed how employees can impress their boss and justify a promotion.

Over the course of an hour, @MashBusiness covered an array of questions, ranging from how employees can demonstrate successful leadership in the office, to the key questions employees should be asking their supervisor(s) in performance reviews.

There are many myths floating around the student startup ecosystem which can hinder the progress of some great ideas. Here we destroy some of them ….

Startup myth 1: Someone is going to steal your idea if you tell people about it

You probably could not even pay your top competitor to execute your idea – they have plenty of their own. So get out there and talk and test and validate. Execution is the key, not idea generation.

After testing the crowdfunding waters in the past with select projects, electronics giant Sony has finally taken the plunge into crowdfunding by launching its own platform – FirstFlight.

Though the platform’s an extension of one of its earlier programs and currently available only for its Japanese employees, Sony may well be on its rejuvenation path, especially when innovative ideas from here turn successful.

How can you avoid the pitfalls that destroy most entrepreneurs? Rob Kelly, a San Francisco-based Internet veteran who has started, sold, bought and, by his own admission, even bankrupted a business, says there are five major mistakes entrepreneurs of failed businesses make. If you avoid these mistakes, he says, your chances of creating a winning business go way up.

1. Failed entrepreneurs believe that "if you build it, they will come": Webvan is perhaps the most compelling example of a business that assumed tons of customers would flock to its service.

Political parties in the European Parliament have this week been examining the disruptive impact of the sharing economy and the increasing role of the digital sector in the economy, with MEP Kaja Kallas chairing an event organised by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe on the disruptive potential of the digital economy, while MEP Vicky Ford chaired a hearing on the Digital Single Market, organised by the European Conservatives and Reformists Group. 

If you don’t regularly read Steve Denning’s work, you should. He's one of the better writers on the future of work. In an article he wrote for Forbes last week, he starts by stating that the Agile product development method has gone mainstream, but poses the question as to whether it has now become a fad like so many other management theories. His conclusion is that Agile is not merely a fad because, “Agile and Scrum deal directly with current business issues in a way that the 20th century initiatives sidestepped. They give a direct voice of the customer through the product owner and give a voice to competence over authority.”

You're in your budding days as an entrepreneur. You wake up and stare at the blank slate of a day that lies before you. When you think about all that you have to do, the blank slate becomes a tangle of items that you don't know how to prioritize. Paralysis sets in and several hours pass before you realize that you've done little more than hang out on the Internet.

That's when the panic arrives. How in the world are you supposed to grow your business if overwhelm sets in every time you think about all that you have to do?

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com