Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, aiming to support his argument that the government should continue spending to bolster the economy, will this week announce details for 125 million pounds ($200 million) of venture capital for low-carbon businesses.

The first slice of money from the Innovation Investment Fund, announced in June, will be awarded Jan. 26, the prime minister said in a podcast on his official Web site today.

The most striking feature of Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency was the amazing, young, Internet-enabled, grass-roots movement he mobilized to get elected. The most striking feature of Obama’s presidency a year later is how thoroughly that movement has disappeared.

In part, it disappeared because the Obama team let it disappear, as Obama moved to pass what was necessary — the economic stimulus — and what he aspired to — health care — by exclusively playing inside baseball with Congress. The president seems to have thought that his majorities in the Senate and the House were so big that he never really had to mobilize “the people” to drive his agenda. Obama turned all his supporters into spectators of The Harry and Nancy Show. And, at the same time, that grass-roots movement went dormant on its own, apparently thinking that just getting the first African-American elected as president was the moon shot of this generation, and nothing more was necessary.

As a young girl, Brett Anitra Gilbert wanted to be a doctor.

Her dream came true, in a way: She earned a doctorate in entrepreneurship.

Now, the assistant professor of management at Texas A&M University has won a 2010 Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Fellowship in entrepreneurship research and $50,000 to support her work.

Gilbert, 34, researches the effect of geographic clustering on new ventures. That means she studies whether bunches of similar businesses in one region, such as Silicon Valley, help or hurt the creation of companies and technologies.

She's one of five junior faculty members named as Kauffman fellows and the only one from a Texas school. Kauffman's 2-year-old program is designed to recognize and nurture university scholars involved in cutting-edge research in entrepreneurship.

Contests can be a great way to get recognition for your small business in addition to the big prizes. Check deadlines closely. Our latest list of competitions and awards for entrepreneurs includes an extended deadline and several that are ending in January 2010. This listing is updated every two weeks and brought to you as a community service by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

As locals and University officials wait for the New York State Court of Appeals to determine the fate of Columbia’s planned Manhattanville expansion, a guest commentator for the Center for an Urban Future think tank is calling on the University to increase the economic benefits of the project.

In a policy brief released on Thursday, David Hochman—an expert in technology-based economic development—said Columbia should amend its project plan to include more emphasis on private-sector jobs, as opposed to jobs exclusively within the University.

While it is “unquestionably a project of transformative scope,” Hochman wrote in the brief, “the Manhattanville plan has included no discernable emphasis on jobs other than in the university itself and in retail or service businesses that mostly offer low wages and limited advancement potential.” He compared Columbia’s plan to the expansion models of other universities—such as Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—in which, he said, commercial researchers “operate cheek-by-jowl with new academic space, sparking the growth of a sustainable regional technology cluster and the creation of jobs that pay relatively well.”

The UW Office of Technology Transfer is changing its name to the Center for Commercialization, or UWC4C, thus better reflecting what its leader sees as its expanded role at the University.

"I think a name conveys a lot, and I hope this one conveys a proactive, full-service group of commercialization experts committed to long-term relationships with UW researchers," said Linden Rhoads, vice provost and executive director for UW Technology Transfer.

University Tech Transfer was largely created by the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. Under the terms of that act, intellectual property coming out of federally funded research -- which previously had gone back to the federal government -- was allowed to remain with the research institution, provided the research institution followed certain rules. After it was passed, tech transfer offices sprang up at universities across the country to handle intellectual property and pursue licensing opportunities for it.

Since 1980, however, the practice has continually evolved, and the UW office has been striving to find successful models for supporting researchers with their commercialization goals.

"With the support of the University's senior administration, our office is building on and learning from our past successes," Rhoads said. "We are challenging ourselves to provide unparalleled service to UW investigators."

Those who are readers of IPWatchdog.com on a regular basis are familiar with the jousting that goes on in the comments between myself and a core group of patent believers and those who are, shall we say skeptical of the value of patents and would prefer that patents simply not exist, or at least not exist in certain areas, such as software. Without getting into that debate directly here and now allow me to observe that if you are an independent inventor, start-up or small business one successful way to responsibly move forward is to pattern yourself on successful companies. There is no mileage in following the lead of a company in decline, so lessons can be learned by observing successful companies and weaving together a strategy that will lead to market success. Perhaps no other company today so aggressively pursues patents on core technologies and products than Apple, and they enjoy enormous success. So why not take a page from the Apple playbook? Innovate, patent, commercialize and dominate.

It is hard to characterize Apple as anything other than wildly successful, as indicated by their market dominance and copy-cat products that seek offer substitutes for the iPod and iPhone. So if a highly developed patent strategy is appropriate for Apple, why wouldn’t a patent strategy that fits within your budget be a bad idea for you? The short answer is that if patents work for Apple they can work for you too. Stop thinking that Apple is in a different league and start remembering that like Microsoft, Apple was at one point just two guys. The dynamic duo of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and the dynamic duo of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, are but two illustrations of the American dream. Starting off small and growing into a mega-giant corporation. In the tech sector these stories are real, and in all cases innovation is followed by proprietary protection.

The year 2020 seems far away.

But when we consider how much we need to achieve over the next decade, 2020 will arrive in a blink.

Arizona is a state of independent thinkers. Yet, when polled, most of us agree on key issues. We value our communities, treasure our natural resources, and want the best for our state: a first-rate education system, access to good, stable jobs, and infrastructure that supports current and future residents.

With our economy struggling, these may seem like lofty goals, but they are not. These are achievable if we invest wisely in our future and put our differences aside.

MOSCOW, January 23 (Itar-Tass) --The modernisation of the Russian economy is possible but will require an overhaul of legislation, ROSNANO head Anatoly Chubais said.

“Corporate legislation is outdated and is not consistent with innovation economy requirements,” he said a conference entitled “Russia and the World: Challenges of the New Decade” in Moscow on Saturday.

He stressed that these controversies caused Russia to lag behind technologically. “Labour productivity is 29.4-29.5 percent compared to America. By the share of enterprises engaged in technological innovations, we are behind not only Britain or the U.S., but also Estonia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and some other countries,” he said, adding that as far as the investment activity rating is concerned, Russia is 51st of 130 countries.

The term business-person and entrepreneur are sometimes used interchangeably although they mean different things

An entrepreneur is a person who conceptualizes, initiates and materialize a business process which is entirely unique and original. In other words an entrepreneur is someone who starts a business from a fresh idea and makes it work or applies an existing idea differently.

Merriam-Webster defines an “entrepreneur as a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.” The key words here are initiative and risk.

While bull markets and easy financing are critical for strong M&A, another important factor is government action. For example, the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 led to a surge in M&A activity, as the government allowed competition in local and long-distance communications.

This is why President Obama's recent statement on finance reform is so important, especially to the private equity and hedge fund sectors. He declared: "No bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund." Symbolically, Obama gave his speech during Goldman Sachs' (GS) earnings call, where the company reported profits of $4.79 billion. The main growth driver was from its trading and principal investment activities (which amounted to $6.41 billion in revenues). It's these kinds of activities that Obama considers too risky for federally-supported financial institutions.

Download the full presentation here:  http://www.usinnovation.org/files/IUCCAnnualMeeting11410.pdf

Give scientists more incentives to innovate.

Is America no longer the land of innovation? Everyone from tech billionaires to Times columnists is sounding the alarm, and everyone has his own diagnosis of the problem: innovators kept out of the country by H1-B visa quotas and bureaucracy. Poor science education in public schools. Even U.S.-style health care has been implicated. Would-be entrepreneurs, the thinking goes, can't act on their breakthrough ideas because they feel tethered to middle-management jobs and the health benefits that come with them.

In one way or another, these diagnoses all focus on the inspired innovator as the source of new ideas. Perhaps this isn't surprising, given the stories of innovation that seed our imagination—Newton discovering gravity when an apple bonked him on the head, Archimedes having his eureka moment while soaking in the tub. If the problem is indeed a shortage of innovators, then policy prescriptions that expand the genius pipeline through imports or home-grown development make a lot of sense. But as the saying goes, genius is 99 percent perspiration—Newton and Archimedes also logged countless days and nights producing the theories and inventions that followed from their moments of inspiration.

This is where towns/cities focus on job creation through local small businesses rather than trying to lure an existing business to move there. I’m [Author] looking for a list of curent projects.

The State of Florida has invested in Economic Gardening and launched the Florida Economic Gardening Institute and is deploying the program in six regions through a pilot program. The areas participating include Orlando, Naples, Ft. Lauderdale, Sarasota, Tallahassee and Jacksonville. check out www.GROWFL.com

Somewhere along the line some marketer coined the term “point of difference” when advising companies how to stand out and we’ve been running with it ever since. We hear it at every turn – in order to attract customers SMB owners need to establish a POD and what separates them from their competitors out selling similar services. They need to find what makes them unique. Some call it an angle. To me, it’s always been about creating experiences that customers will remember, want to talk about and remain loyal to. It’s about creating something that stands out and has meaning.

In my last post, I described the trend among angel groups in the US to fund more angel-only deals, primarily because of the changing world of US venture capital. I did so without really describing the characteristics of angel-only deals.

Perhaps I should start by describing angel deals. Oh…I did that in the January 6th New Zealand Herald. See What Start-ups Need to Know to Speak the Language of Angels.

Angel-only deals are startups that can achieve positive cash flow and grow organically using capital raised from angels without any follow-on venture capital investment. Since angels rarely invest more than $1 to $1.5 million in total in any deal, these are startup ventures that can achieve positive cash flow with less than, say $2 million, and usually less than $1 million in equity investment.

I [Marty Hoffert] write to propose a high-level briefing, perhaps at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Pre-Conference Workshop on March 1 at the Gaylord Convention Center in DC, on space-based solar power (SBSP); and, as a possible specific example, a near-term ARPA-E funded project to test it by laser beaming of solar energy collected in orbit from the International Space Station to collectors on Earth (see attached). Longer term, but soon, a laser SBSP demonstrator in geostationary orbit could be deployed. If successful, there are many plausible business plans for commercialization, at least as much as for terrestrial solar, with which space-based solar would logically can co-evolve. Even now, a California company, Solaren, has signed a proprietary agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric to deliver 200 megawatts of electricity from space to their grid by 2016. And whereas, for technical reasons relating to large space components needed for "first power," we don't think their microwave beaming approach is the way to go initially, the technology needs to be taken seriously.

To commemorate its 100th birthday this year, Kent State University commissioned a study to quantify its impact on the region's economy.

One figure it revealed at a gathering of 100 alumni and business leaders Thursday: $1.9 billion.

That's the average annual added income of Kent State's eight campuses and its alumni — and is the equivalent of 1.5 percent of the Northeast Ohio economy.

The report, titled ''Prosperity By Degrees: The Economic Impact of Kent State University on Northeast Ohio,'' examines it as an investment and engine of growth and prosperity.

They say that the only common trait among successful entrepreneurs is that they were raised in families headed by successful entrepreneurs, where kids watched first-hand as someone believed in their own ideas, had the courage to take a risk, rode the cash-flow roller coaster, and enjoyed it enough to succeed.

Today, the National Women's Business Council, which advises the Small Business Administration, estimates that in 2008 there were 7.2 million majority-owned, privately-held, women-owned businesses in the United States, employing 7.3 million people and generating $1.1 trillion in sales. It's estimated that women are starting businesses at twice the rate as any other group of entrepreneurs.

Adeo Ressi’s Founder Institute is going international. This Spring, the startup mentorship program will be expanding to Singapore, Paris, Los Angeles, and Denver, meaning that the Founder Institute is now active in nine cities worldwide. Interested entrepreneurs can apply starting tonight, with an early application deadline of February 15 2010 and a final deadline of February 28. These four new programs will start simultaneously this spring.

Ressi, who founded the program, says that the Founder Institute is the first incubator program to expand beyond the United States (though there are other entrepreneur-focused programs like Seedcamp). As the Institute grows, it comes closer to Ressi’s goal of training 1000 founders a year. Conservatively, he think that this year the nine programs in aggregate will graduate over 700 founders and 500 companies, though he wouldn’t be surprised if the tally is more like 750 companies.