The prospect of urban innovation excites the imagination. But dreaming up what a “smart city” will look like in some gleaming future is, by its nature, a utopian exercise. The messy truth is that cities are not the same, and even the most innovative approach can never achieve universal impact. What’s appealing for intellectuals in Copenhagen or Amsterdam is unlikely to help millions of workers in Jakarta or Lagos. To really make a difference, private entrepreneurs and civic entrepreneurs need to match projects to specific circumstances. An effective starting point is to break cities into four segments across two distinctions: legacy vs. new cities, and developed vs. emerging economies. The opportunities to innovate will differ greatly by segment.

Image: FROM THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Devil’s advocates tend to pop up just when a project is about to launch. The idea has been validated and vetted, and then the devil’s advocate threatens to derail the whole affair with a volley of last-minute questions that appear to undermine the core rationale. Champions of the project are often blindsided, fumbling for a defense of what they thought was obvious.

The world is full of man-made wonders -- monuments and structures that, though they seem at first beyond our capabilities, we somehow find a way to build. There are ancient and medieval wonders like the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Wall of China, as well as contemporary ones like the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, which juts a staggering 2,717 feet above the Arabian Peninsula.

For Subhajit Mandal, global experience has opened up a world of career opportunities. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, a switch to Singapore gave him executive credentials.

“The ability to speak foreign languages breaks barriers,” says the senior manager at LumenLab, the innovation center of MetLife, the world’s largest life insurer.

Image: Globalization has fuelled a demand for international executive talent

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SHARE For Cures (SFC), a new Washington, DC-based non-profit that makes it easy for individuals to access and securely share their health data with researchers, announced today a new partnership with BioHealth Innovation, a Maryland-based innovation intermediary focused on connecting health technology innovators and entrepreneurs with government agencies and corporations.

The symbolism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to southern Ontario last week was tremendously important for his government because it gave important signals about its industrial strategy.

Trudeau toured the Toronto-Waterloo innovation corridor, announcing funding for a few key projects and opening Google’s shiny new Canadian engineering headquarters in Kitchener. And throughout the tour, he spoke about how important innovation is for the Canadian economy.

Image: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the new Google Canada development headquarters in Kitchener, Ont., on Thursday. (CP) - http://thechronicleherald.ca

Are you a successful leader? This is a difficult question to answer: No matter how good you think you are, the only evidence of leadership is whether people follow you. Self-serving bias distorts your perception of your own successes and failures. Even if you’re incredibly self-aware, you may have trouble with an objective assessment because your direct reports may only appear to be following — they don’t get an option to be physically present — and not every company conducts rigorous engagement surveys or 360-degree reviews.

When I was about to turn 40, I started working out regularly after years of inactivity. As I sweated my way through cardio, weights, and dance classes, I noticed that exercise wasn’t just changing my body. It was also profoundly transforming my brain—for the better.

The immediate effects of exercise on my mood and thought process proved to be a powerful motivational tool. And as a neuroscientist and workout devotee, I’ve come to believe that these neurological benefits could have profound implications for how we live, learn and age as a society.

VC has not been productive outside Silicon Valley. To make VC more productive, more ventures need to be brought to Aha. A sure way to bring more ventures to Aha and grow more successful ventures is to train better entrepreneurs.

Outside Silicon Valley, venture capital has not been productive because the focus is misplaced. The focus outside Silicon Valley is on developing funding sources when it should be on developing world-class entrepreneurs.

Most states are gaining residents, but a few have lost population in recent years. None are seeing major losses, but it looks as if some states' populations will continue to stagnate or slowly decline in the years to come.

The latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates indicate that the nation’s overall population grew by about 2.5 million over the 12-month period ending last July.

Image: http://www.governing.com

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. .

Il professor Piero Formica, fondatore dell’International Entrepreneurship Academy (www.intentac.org), è Senior Research Fellow dell’International Value Institute (www.ivi.ie) presso la National University of Ireland (Maynooth, Dublin) e dirige un laboratorio di sperimentazione di startup innovative presso il centro di imprenditorialità (EDEN www.eden.nuim.ie) della stessa università. È anche professore presso l’ISTEC di Parigi e le Università di Tartu in Estonia e di Tehran in Iran. È “Erudite Scholar” dell’Università di Calicut in India. Nel 2014, è stato nominato membro del comitato scientifico di SCENT-School of Entrepreneurship presso l'Università degli Studi di Padova in Italia.

Immigration may be controversial, but the world would be a poorer place without it.

The world is facing the biggest global refugee crisis since the exodus of 800,000 Vietnamese boat people following the Vietnam War.  This has made migration a political hot potato in Europe and in the American presidential election campaign. But much of the fearmongering often drowns out the huge benefits of migration. Economists agree that skilled migrants contribute significantly to growth, job creation, entrepreneurship and innovation. This is why Syrian refugees, many of whom are skilled, are receiving European visas quickly.

The floodgates are not yet open, but New Mexico may finally be emerging from a six-year venture capital drought thanks to renewed vigor at the State Investment Council to embrace private equity programs.

Last week, the SIC approved the establishment of a new $20 million “fund of funds” to help finance seed and early-stage investments in startups around New Mexico. The money will be channeled into micro funds statewide that, along with matching dollars from private investors, could raise $40 million or more for the growing slate of companies emerging from New Mexico’s business accelerators, incubators and other programs.

Ontario's Minister of Finance has approved new rules that will prevent non-accredited investors from putting more than $2,500 into a crowdfunded business.

On Jan. 14 the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announced that Ontario Minister of Finance Charles Sousa had approved Multilateral Instrument 45-108 Crowdfunding (MI 45-108).  If crowdfunders wish to qualify for a prospectus exemption, the new rules place limits on the distribution period, the total amount of money that may be raised, and the amount that purchasers may buy. Issuers are also required to make their crowdfunding distribution through a single funding portal.

Image: http://insurance-journal.ca

The $1.5 trillion spending measure that just passed in Congress is particularly good news for the National Institutes of Health, which will see its budget increase by $2 billion, or 6 percent, the largest increase in over a decade.

In recent years, the agency, and the research universities across the country that receive significant funding from it, have struggled with funding cuts and a failure to keep up with inflation that has hindered their work.

Create a kayak-sharing program to explore Miami’s waterways. Train kids to monitor environmental conditions in Detroit. Ignite entrepreneurship in Philadelphia through the power of hip-hop. Encourage St. Paul residents to engage in placemaking — on their own front lawns.

Image: An initiative to connect Philadelphia’s immigrant communities through cooking classes at the city’s Reading Terminal Market is one of 158 finalists announced today in the Knight Cities Challenge. (Photo by Eugene Kim)

It’s no secret: innovation is difficult for well-established companies. By and large, they are better executors than innovators, and most succeed less through game-changing creativity than by optimizing their existing businesses.

Yet hard as it is for such organizations to innovate, large ones as diverse as Alcoa, the Discovery Group, and NASA’s Ames Research Center are actually doing so. What can other companies learn from their approaches and attributes? That question formed the core of a multiyear study comprising in-depth interviews, workshops, and surveys of more than 2,500 executives in over 300 companies, including both performance leaders and laggards, in a broad set of industries and countries (Exhibit 1).

DETROIT — The car world is changing. Rapidly. It is still a place of glitz and glam, highlighted by shiny, elegantly sculpted metal and lots of talk about horsepower and speed. But if you concentrate on that, the stuff of automobile shows worldwide, including the 2016 North American International Auto Show underway here at the sprawling Cobo Center, you are likely to miss the fundamentally profound changes taking place.

Despite being one of the most successful and well-known entrepreneurs in the world, Richard Branson says the most important things he has learned have come from his own failings.   In a revealing blog post, Branson details three keys things that he took away from failed attempt and how they can apply to your startup.   “I’d like to shine a light on how embracing failure is crucial for driving a business forward,” Branson writes.

Image: http://www.startupsmart.com.au

Does being an entrepreneur seem like a dream job? If so, make sure you separate fact from fiction instead of buying into these myths surrounding the entrepreneurial lifestyle:

Working your own schedule.

Although technically you’re not chained to a desk all day like you would be in an office job, being an entrepreneur does not mean you get to freely create your work schedule. Many people incorrectly assume entrepreneurs can spend the day however they please as long as they fit in little bits of work here and there.