When we think of Albert Einstein, we inevitably conjure up images of the icon rather than the man. We see Einstein with his wild hair and his tongue sticking out or Einstein as a playful old man, riding a bicycle. We remember his cheerful confidence and his easy comfort with his own genius. He wasn’t always that way.

The younger Einstein, the one who actually came up with the ideas that established his place in history rather than the world famous scientist he became, was far different. Reeling from chronic unemployment and a troubled marriage, he was working as an obscure clerk in a patent office when he changed the world.

Image: http://innovationexcellence.com

Your bags are finally unpacked from that hometown holiday trip, your bank account is still reeling from all of those Secret Santa parties and–as glorious and fleeting as a Fourth of July fireworks show–your “new year, new me” diet has already flickered out.

It’s mid-January, and winter still has a lot more cold and darkness left to give. So while you might still be feeling the sparkly flow of optimism that comes with the New Year, there’s just as good a chance that the winter blues have officially set in.

JOHANNESBURG — Murad Ebrahim turned on the shower in his gym locker room. The newly-installed showerhead delivered a gentle stream, then shut off shortly after.

“Two-minute showers,” said Ebrahim, 39, a publishing house executive. “You barely get to soap your body.”

In the shower stalls in his Cape Town gym, buckets catch excess water that doesn’t go down the drain. When they fill up, the gym gives them to customers for flushing toilets.

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Amazon is one step closer to breaking ground on its second North American headquarters, which has been nicknamed HQ2.

This week, the company shared that from a massive group of 238 bids, it whittled down the group to just 20: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas; Denver; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Miami; Montgomery County, Md.; Nashville; Newark; New York; Northern Virginia; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Raleigh, N.C.; Toronto and Washington, D.C.

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Asking the 'crowd' to pay for Canadian science

Catherine Scott studies black widow spiders at the University of Toronto. She needed a field assistant because it's dangerous studying venomous spiders at night. But the lab's science grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council didn't cover it. So she launched a campaign on a science crowdfunding site and raised the $6,000 she needed.

2017 saw a rebound in overall VC funding, approaching dotcom-era amounts. This was fueled by continued investor enthusiasm over the venture asset class, including new late-stage growth funds. The sectors that showed the largest growth were those in the business and financial services and healthcare sectors. In 2018, I expect VC investments levels to remain high, but several developments will impact the ecosystem.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is disrupting businesses, governments, and consumers and transforming how they interact with the world. Companies are going to spend almost $5 trillion on the IoT in the next five years — and the proliferation of connected devices and massive increase in data has started an analytical revolution.

To gain insight into this emerging trend, BI Intelligence conducted an exclusive Global IoT Executive Survey on the impact of the IoT on companies around the world. The study included over 500 respondents from a wide array of industries, including manufacturing, technology, and finance, with significant numbers of C-suite and director-level respondents.

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Today Amazon announced that it’s whittled down more than 230 applicants to a shortlist of 20 places where it will build a second headquarters, dubbed “HQ2.” With up to 50,000 new high-skilled jobs and $5 billion of investment at stake, the contest has been fierce, with cities, counties, and states all competing to offer a $530-billion company what’s likely to be an extraordinarily lavish package of tax incentives.

Image: Flickr user Peter Alfred Hess

SSTI is excited to announce Salt Lake City as the site for the 2018 Annual Conference, which will be held Dec. 3 through 5, with the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative (USTAR) as the host partner.

“We are excited to bring the conference to Salt Lake City, and we think attendees will have a lot to learn from the growing technology hub,” said Dan Berglund, president and CEO of SSTI. “Many places are struggling with ways to grow their innovation economies and Salt Lake City has been able to turn those struggles into positive growth that people will be able to learn from during the conference.”

Smart spending and a focus on future-oriented priorities, such as innovation and education, will be key to create more jobs in the next decade.

There is no room for losing another decade, national and EU representatives concurred in January during a high-level conference on the EU’s next multi-annual budget for 2020-2027.

Image: Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Creţu and Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger, during a press conference last year. Oettinger said that the only two areas that would not suffer cuts in the next MFF are Horizon 2020, the EU's research programme, and Erasmus. (European Commission)

As companies increasingly fund innovation centres, new research shows that their effectiveness may be limited. However, rather than being inherently poor ideas, their failures may well reflect a lack of integration of innovation units with wider organisational outcomes, with key barriers such as culture, vendor engagement and governance holding back their true potential.

Innovation has been a mainstay of the business environment for centuries, offering potential edges, whether in terms of customer engagement, cost reduction or new offerings. Creating the conditions in which innovations happen has become increasingly pressing, as technology enables a whole new operational model for many groups. However, organisations which fail to link their adoption of innovations to concrete business needs could be at risk of wasting resources without actually improving results.

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An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) nicknamed “Little Ripper” deployed an emergency flotation device to save two struggling swimmers Wednesday, in what local authorities are calling the first ever drone surf rescue.

When a beachgoer alerted lifeguards to swimmers apparently caught in heavy surf off Australia’s Far North Coast, they were fortuitously piloting a rescue drone as part of a new equipment trial, NPR reports.

Image: http://time.com

Walter Isaacson is a gifted storyteller. A career journalist who has steered both Time magazine and CNN, Isaacson has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein. His latest biography, published last year, looks at the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Isaacson, now a history professor at Tulane University, recently visited Wharton to be interviewed by his friend and management professor Adam Grant as part of the Authors@Wharton speakers series. Grant has also written several bestsellers, including Give and Take and Option B, which he co-authored with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Image: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett sees a big split in how blockchain-based digital cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are viewed on Wall Street versus in Silicon Valley. On the East Coast, the idea of a cryptocurrency replacing a fiat currency is still met with skepticism. But in the Valley, they seem “all in.” In this opinion piece he offers his views on this corner of fintech.

I spent the first week of the New Year with a great group of Wharton undergraduates visiting many of our tremendous alumni in the San Francisco Bay Area. To say it felt very different from the East Coast is an understatement. And I am not talking about missing the “bomb cyclone,” which we did.

It’s been over a year since I started working at a startup. I was one of the hardest years in my career, and one of the most fulfilling in my life, in that I've learned more than at any other job I have ever had.

The biggest lesson I took away this past year came from my boss, who told me, “Fail and fail fast”. For a person who is extremely self-critical and was pre-programmed to avoid failure at all costs, this advice seemed counter-intuitive, if not crazy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new technological frontier over which companies and countries are vying for control. According to a recent report from McKinsey, Alphabet invested roughly $30 billion in developing AI technologies. Baidu, which is the Chinese equivalent of Alphabet, invested $20 billion in AI last year.

Companies aren't the only ones investing time, money and energy into advancing AI technology -- a recent article in The New Yorker reported that the Chinese government has been pursuing AI technology aggressively in an attempt to control a future cornerstone innovation.

A business card is a piece of your company’s direct marketing plan. It typically includes a person’s name, phone number, email address, website and company. While the exchange of business cards might seem outdated in today’s digital world, it is still almost a ritual. People feel more intimately connected with a business and its representatives when they engage in eye contact and actually exchange physical cards. Sending contact information via email or text is convenient, but it is also extremely impersonal.

Image: https://smallbiztrends.com

SEATTLE — Like a college applicant waiting for that special message in the mail, officials in Boston got what they wanted on Thursday: a cryptic four-sentence note informing them that the city made the finals in its bid to host Amazon’s second headquarters.

“We would like to move Boston forward in the process so we can continue to learn more about your community, your talent, and potential real estate options,” Holly Sullivan, an Amazon executive, wrote in the note. “Please email me back with available times for a call so we can discuss next steps.”

Image: Indianapolis made the list of finalists, which favored cities in the Midwest, South and on the East Coast. Credit Stacy Able for The New York Times

Since Amazon narrowed its list of potential locations for a second headquarters on Thursday from over 200 qualifying regions to just 20 finalists, colleges in those lucky cities have become more hopeful that they might reap the benefits if the huge company comes to town.

If you're anything like me, you're a wanderlust. You seek greener pastures in far-off destinations. You live to travel. And your laptop and phone are your office. Thoughts of sugary-white-sanded beaches and shimmering turquoise waters beckon and call your name. Sure, it sounds alluring to become a digital nomad, doesn't it? But, what does it take?

Well, if you're looking to roam free as a bird, you're not alone. A recent study by the New York Times found that most industries are embracing remote work. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be self-employed. Far from the contrary. You can, in fact, become a digital nomad while working for another company.