Canada is at a crossroads. Look one way and you’ll see enormous opportunities presented by the Digital Revolution. The other way is business as usual. But in fact, that’s not even an option. If we stand still, Canada’s future prosperity is at risk. There is an urgent need for our country to move beyond extracting natural resources and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the knowledge-based economy.

WASHINGTON — The National Institutes of Health will get a $2 billion funding boost over the next five months, under a bipartisan spending deal reached late Sunday night in Congress. The agreement marks a sharp rejection of President Trump’s proposal to cut $1.2 billion from the medical research agency in the current fiscal year.

Vitamin D and exercise make a good couple, according to new Johns Hopkins research that finds a link between the two factors in improving heart health.

The study found that Vitamin D and exercise working together seem to do better than either on their own for protecting the cardiovascular system—and reducing the risk of events like heart attacks and strokes.

Startup numbers have surged, and so have VC investments, according to data released earlier this month by Dow Jones VentureSource. But that’s not necessarily good news.

I’ll get to the downside in a minute. First, let’s take a look at the data and the causes for the surge. According to the VentureSource data, in January 2004, there were just 5,350 venture-backed companies in the U.S. By March 31, 2017 that number had ballooned to 16,064. While I expected an increase, the magnitude surprised me.

Shortly after Paolo Melo graduated with his Ph.D. from MIT, he co-founded doDOC, a startup that helps life science and pharmaceutical companies streamline communication.

Melo grew up in Portugal. He's not an American citizen, he only came to the United States for grad school; but he wanted to stay in Boston because he thought it was the ideal place to grow his infant business.

It is March 2017. Square, the small business payments startup founded in 2009, is hiring for its customer support operation in St. Louis. Fintech startup Greensky, founded in 2006, is expanding in Atlanta. Seattle-based Zulily, the ecommerce startup founded in 2009 and bought by QVC in 2015, is hiring for its fulfillment center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on the site of Bethlehem Steel’s former main plant. Venture-funded Thread International, based in Pittsburgh, is staffing up its headquarters to help turn recycled plastics into fiber and yarn. Total Quality Logistics, a freight brokerage founded in Cincinnati in 1997, has 26 positions open in Ohio, 11 in Florida, and more elsewhere.

It’s a whole new world out there in the workplace. Millennials want work that matters, and don’t care for hierarchies. Boomers are coming back to work, but because of their experience, they may be insulted by constant feedback. All prefer more flexible hours, the chance to work from home, and the traditions of lifetime loyalty to one company no longer apply.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com 

Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship is pleased to announce the winners of the inaugural Startup Challenge: Twine, founded by Wharton MBA students Joseph Quan and Nikhil Srivastava (both WG’17). The Showcase took place on April 28 on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Twine makes internal mobility within a company seamless by recommending the best employees to fill open roles, helping companies to boost retention and significantly reduce hiring costs by efficiently hiring from within.

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

Entrepreneurship is all about having the right attitude that changes the outlook towards the chosen career and its impact on the personal, professional and social aspect of life. What makes an entrepreneur different from others is a firm belief in themselves and a habit of challenging the status quo.

All successful entrepreneurs start by asking themselves three important questions: why they want to be leaders? (i.e. their belief) how do they want to lead? And what they want their efforts to lead to?

What sparks paradigm-shifting innovation in any business? It’s a special mix of entrepreneur and company, regular in every respect except for having the courage and foresight to make an idea happen that was supposed to be impossible. As an entrepreneur in a startup, how do you know if you have this potential, and what are the steps to get from an innovation to a revolution?

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com 

What is the linkage between international test scores and economic growth? From the Washington Post:

In plain English for jittery American policymakers: International evidence shows that successfully raising test scores will produce significantly higher future GDP growth. But those who are “out learned” will be overtaken. How much growth? These projections suggest quite a bit. In the case of a country currently performing at the OECD mean that successfully raised its test scores to the level of top PISA performers through 20 years of aggressive reforms, its GDP would be 5 percent greater.

But here is a related issue: The US never seems to score particularly highly on these tests. Yet we are a rich country always pushing the technological frontier. What gives? Why don’t we pay a price for what seems like a mediocre educational system?

DALLAS, April 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ When Johnathan Holifield, a former running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, took the stage at the annual Council on Foundations pre-conference program on April 23, he laid out a game plan for the future of the U.S. economy that intrigued foundation leaders from across the country.

Holifield is the author of a new book, The Future Economy and Inclusive Competitiveness, which lays out a vision and framework to develop a national economy built for America's 21 st century multicultural society. Holifield's strategy calls for investing in a national economic infrastructure built on new community systems that are inclusive of women, minorities and rural populations to bolster America's global competitiveness.

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Manila (CNN Philippines Life) — It might be a bit odd that a government agency dedicated to exports, investments, and product development is mandated to develop the country’s creative community, but that is exactly why the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has mounted the ASEAN Creative Cities forum in time for the regional leaders meeting hosted by the Philippines. The forum is an opportunity to hear experts from the creative industry and exchange practices and benchmark standards on how to build hubs that can also sustain the economy.

One year after a comprehensive Crunchbase report found that 7 percent of partners at the top 100 venture firms globally are women, female venture capitalists say they still have a long way to go to catch up to their male counterparts in the industry.

Kate Mitchell, who co-founded Foster City, Calif.-based Scale Venture Partners in 2000, is one of two female partners in the firm, which is currently investing out of its $335 million Fund V that closed in Q1 2016. As the co-chair of the National Venture Capital Association’s Inclusion and Diversity Task Force, Mitchell is painfully aware of the underrepresentation of women in the venture capital industry.

Ann Arbor, MI-based Renaissance Venture Capital Fund announced this week that it has invested in Austin, TX-based Next Coast Ventures. The fund-of-funds, which puts money into out-of-state VC funds to help entice them to invest in Michigan startups, did not disclose the amount of the investment.

Chris Rizik, CEO of Renaissance and Detroit/Ann Arbor Xconomist, says his team first met the folks at Next Coast, which primarily invests in early-stage software and IT companies, about six months ago. The initial meeting went so well, Renaissance invited Next Coast to Michigan to participate in an immersion session.

Imagine adding a part-time job to your already crazy schedule. Turns out your friendly neighborhood triathlete has. Training for an Ironman—a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2 mile run—requires a minimum of 20 hours per week for six months, the equivalent of adding a part-time job to the athlete’s schedule. Even a marathon with its relatively lower physical demands still necessitates four or five hour-long runs, speed training sessions, and at least one 10-plus mile run weekly.

A good-looking university does much more than attract potential students. Handsome quads, manicured footpaths, and photo-worthy architecture are often utilized (and appreciated) by everyone in town, including tourists. Even if you finished your degree decades ago—or have no interest in academia—the beautiful college campuses scattered across the United States are worthwhile destinations for travelers. 

Eugene, Ore. is usually best known as the home of the University of Oregon and the birthplace of Nike. Now it can add another bona fide to that list: It is one of the least economically segregated areas in the country. The word "segregation" is typically associated with people of different races and ethnicities. But a recent report by the Urban Institute, a Washington economic and social policy think tank, also examined 100 major metropolitan areas to see how divided they are by neighborhoods of different income levels.

It is not too often that the leader of a Fortune 500 gives you an insight into how their company achieves competitive advantage in the marketplace in a letter to shareholders, instead of launching into a page or two of flowery prose written by the Public Relations (PR) team that works for them. The former is what Jeff Bezos tends to deliver year after year. This year’s letter is particularly interesting.

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