The past three decades saw companies in developed economies make huge strides improving the productivity and organizational performance of an array of jobs. Aided by advances in technology and digital communications, companies automated, reengineered, and outsourced numerous tasks that had once required full-time, on-site employees. The trend, which began on production floors, moved next to offices, where a range of transaction-based jobs that could be standardized or scripted were automated, shifted to workers in low-wage countries, or both.

If you're going to challenge someone to a water gun fight this summer, it's best you don't take up arms against Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer who has created the world's largest Super Soaker.

Rober's 7-foot-long (2.1 meters) Super Soaker can blast out water at 272 mph (437 km/h), according to his YouTube video, posted July 11. (To date, the video has already amassed 1.2 million views.)

Image: Mark Rober with the colossal Super Soaker Credit: Mark Rober/YouTube

That’s the question we asked ourselves — and 50 diverse thought leaders — during a Kauffman Foundation design thinking session focused on removing financial barriers for under-capitalized entrepreneurs. We call this the “Moonshot” question. The Kauffman Foundation is working with entrepreneurs, policymakers, funders, philanthropies and others partners to collect innovative, testable ideas to change the system for investing in entrepreneurs.

Heard you and Jerry on CPR this morning, nice job! What struck me was your point about the gap between expectations in the role of CEO or startup founder, or investor – and the reality of depressive events/emotions that are often present – but no one gets to expose or relinquish. I felt this first hand in my experience, both as co-founder and later as CEO. I used to *hate* seeing people around town or whatever because they’d ask “how’s the startup going?” and usually extra commentary like “oh startup rockstar, and you must be killing it, etc…” and my answer was always “no, it’s fucking unbelievable hard, and anxious, and trying, and most of the time shit is more fucked up than you could ever imagine”.

The number of completed venture financings in the Republic has dipped to a new low for the past five years, according to the latest quarterly report on global trends from KPMG. Venture financing is when capital is provided by full-time, professional firms who invest in start-ups that have the potential to develop into significant businesses. The financier typically seeks board membership and equity in the company rather than repayment.

At least for now, surgeons can breathe a sigh of relief. It'll be 36 years until they're outperformed by robots in the operating room, according to AI researchers.

But while we have yet to see any completely automated jobs, there are plenty of jobs that are already on their way there.

Image: Army medicine 

SSTI’s annual conference will focus on building bridges for a better future by establishing new connections and wading through an uncertain political climate during a three-day conference filled with tips and insights. The agenda is now online at ssticonference.org and early bird rates are available. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., Sept. 13-15, will feature speakers on innovation, capital, policy, workforce, R&D, manufacturing and more. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to hear from top thinkers both on and off Capitol Hill and hack solutions to our shared challenges together during dynamic interactive sessions. If you are interested in bringing positive change to your community, we encourage you to explore the conference site and register early before the rates increase.

Once a predominantly blue-collar city, Pittsburgh today relies on a diversified innovation economy and a highly educated workforce. University-based research is focused on life sciences, information technology and robotics, which are major economic drivers for both the region and nation.

Despite a slowly shrinking population, the city’s multifamily market remains steady, bolstered by increased hiring in recession-resistant sectors—such as education and health services—which has had a ripple effect on the region’s economy, driving demand for apartments and office space. Most of the growth can be attributed to the two largest health-care systems, UPMC and Allegheny Health Network, as well as education institutions such as the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University and Robert Morris University.

Image: https://www.multihousingnews.com 

Artificial intelligence is gaining more interest as companies are beginning to invest heavily into the technology. This week, Google and Toyota both announced the launch of new venture capital funds to support growing AI startups.

Toyota announced the launch of Toyota AI Ventures, a new venture capital subsidiary that will provide early-stage financing to startup technology companies. As part of the launch, the company is investing an initial $100 million into the VC. The venture has already made three investments into Nauto, SLAMCore and Intuition Robotics.

Want to see the latest trends in US venture capital activity?

Check out the highlights in our datagraphic, featuring data from the 2Q 2017 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

Image: https://pitchbook.com 

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. is creating the Alexandria Center for AgTech, the first phase of a multi-tenant mega campus in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. 

Located at 354 East Cornwallis Road, which Alexandria recently acquired, the Alexandria Center will be adjacent to the company’s 6 Davis Drive, creating a collective development of the two campuses to form a one million-square-foot mega campus. 

A new startup accelerator program based at the Johns Hopkins University’s FastForward East will target companies developing health and fitness technologies.

Hopkins is teaming up with the University of Maryland, Plank Industries, Brown Advisory and the Abell Foundation to launch the 16-week program, called M-1 Ventures, in September.

“I see all these accelerators out there and they’re cool,” said Paul Singh, an angel investor who will lead the program. “But particularly when it comes from an investor’s standpoint, I think what a lot of these companies need is a vertical accelerator.”

Image: Johns Hopkins University's FastForward East is located at the medical campus in East Baltimore. (Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun 2016) 

Even though I love technology, I always cringe when an entrepreneur starts an angel investor pitch to me by touting his new technology. They have forgotten that new technologies are perceived by most customers as causing more pain than the problems they eliminate. I chastise these startups to highlight the solution created by the technology, rather than the technology.

I usually get pushback about the success of all the great technology companies, like Intel and Apple. Let me be clear – technology and market-driven need not be mutually exclusive! The best companies find a way to drive the market with a solution based on their technology, rather than push their new technology as the solution for the marketplace.

Last week, we challenged readers to draw the outlines of all 50 states and Washington, D.C. from memory, and then graded each attempt using an algorithm to measure how closely each submission resembled the correct shape. Based on over 2 million submissions, we are now able to measure which states were the hardest and which were the easiest.

While some of the results were what we expected, other states were surprisingly confounding. As you might guess, the easiest state was Colorado, where 93% of participants scored at least a 'B' and usually an 'A' or 'A+'. (Colorado is almost a perfect rectangle when one uses the common map projection used in Web applications.)

Image: http://time.com 

Building a successful business is a bit like climbing a mountain: it’s an uphill battle most of the way, but the view from the top is pretty spectacular.

Persistence is a necessary part of achieving a summit, and it’s also vital to creating your success as an entrepreneur. If you doubt the importance of persistence, ask yourself what kinds of goals people dream of. Do they yearn for the ones that are easy to accomplish or the ones that are hard work but offer huge payouts?

A giant iceberg breaking off Antarctica is a disconcerting sight, but it's also fascinating to watch.

One of the largest icebergs ever recorded finally broke free from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in northwest Antarctica, U.S. and European agencies monitoring the region confirmed on Wednesday.

The 2,200-square-mile block is about the size of Delaware (or twice the size of Luxembourg) and contains a volume of ice twice the size of Lake Erie.

Image: http://mashable.com 

Each year we identify 50 companies creating new opportunities by combining important technologies and business savvy. Some are large companies that seem to be growing ever larger, like Amazon and Apple. Others, like IBM, or General Electric are old-guard giants betting on technology renewal. And the list is full of ambitious startups like SpaceX, which is changing the economics of space travel with reusable rockets; Face ++, a pioneer in face recognition technology; and additive-manufacturing firms Carbon and Desktop Metal. For additional perspective on the list, which starts below, please see our essay, "It Pays to Be Smart." 

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com 

If you want to illustrate the long-term decline in US economic dynamism, this Axios chart is a good way to do it.

From Axios reporter Kim Hart: “The birth rate of new companies collapsed with the Great Recession, and the number of firms that opened during the recovery period is lower than that of any other post-recession period.”

Image: http://www.aei.org/ 

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's top medical technology companies are turning to robots to help with complex knee surgery, promising quicker procedures and better results in operations that often leave patients dissatisfied. Demand for artificial replacement joints is growing fast, as baby boomers' knees and hips wear out, but for the past 15 years rival firms have failed to deliver a technological advance to gain them significant market share.

LONDON (Reuters) - One of the biggest icebergs on record has broken away from Antarctica, scientists said on Wednesday, creating an extra hazard for ships around the continent as it breaks up. The one trillion tonne iceberg, measuring 5,800 square km, calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica sometime between July 10 and 12, said scientists at the University of Swansea and the British Antarctic Survey.

Image: Larsen-C Ice Shelf crack as of March 3 2017. Credit: O.V.E.R.V.I.E.W. Flickr (CC BY 2.0)