A few weeks ago entrepreneur Valer Pop, CEO of LifeSense Group told his startup story to us at the High Tech Campus. After having a successfull career at Holst Centre, Valer decided to start his business with just a small idea: solving unwanted urine loss. He was working on this idea at Holst Centre, but after meeting co-founder Julia Veldhuijzen, Valer and she decided to start up their own business and create specialized medical underwear to help 400 million women worldwide.

Image: http://www.openinnovation.eu 

People on the autism spectrum are getting the support and skills they need to break into the tech industry. And it's all thanks to a new program for autistic people, by autistic people.

A new startup called Coding Autism, which launched earlier this month, is developing a school in Los Angeles to teach autistic people coding, web development, and software engineering skills. 

Deloitte's annual Tech Trends report identifies the critical developments that are likely to disrupt UK and global businesses in the next 18 to 24 months.

Image: http://www.computerweekly.com 

Would-be angel investors often have many questions about getting into the world of investing in start-up companies. One of their most common questions is what stage in the development of start-ups – idea, pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series B, Series C and so on – should they invest.

Best Stage for Angels to Invest

Recently I asked this question of several experienced start-up investors: John Ason, Dave Lambert, Bill Payne, David S. Rose, and Eric Ver Ploeg. Collectively, these experts explained that angels should invest at the pre-seed stage.

A record warm Arctic winter has spawned a tourism boom in a tiny Canadian town.

Sightseers and selfie-snappers are flocking to Ferryland, Newfoundland, to watch enormous icebergs drift off the Southern Shore. 

The town of 500 residents has seen bumper-to-bumper traffic in recent days. Its two lone restaurants would theoretically be packed — that is, if they opened before late May, when the tourism season normally begins, CBC reported.

Image: http://mashable.com  - From Video

Evan Savage, one of the organizers of Saturday’s March for Science in Toronto, looks at what’s happening south of the border in the U.S. and is reminded of what Canadian scientists faced under the previous Stephen Harper government, specifically cuts to science funding and the alleged muzzling of government scientists.

“We’ve seen this playbook before,” Savage said, “this playbook of, let’s go after the people who work on the environment, who work on climate, who work on science in general. Let’s cut their funding; let’s tell them they can’t speak. And we have also seen that it can work to raise our voices as scientists, to stand up and say, ‘This is not OK.’”

Image: https://www.insidehighered.com 

If you thought your thoughts were safe, think again: social media giant Facebook has confirmed it is developing technology to read your mind and send what's inside directly through the internet.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced during the company's F8 developer conference in San Jose this week that it is working on a "direct brain interface" that will allow users to communicate "using only your mind".

When meeting an investor for the first time, entrepreneurs face a lot of pressure to make a favorable impression quickly. In many cases, this tends to make people talk too much in an attempt to appear confident, knowledgeable and articulate.

It also makes them forget to ask questions and qualify the investor’s interest and fit.

Looking for an investment? You're in luck: Chevy Chase-based venture juggernaut New Enterprise Associates is wrapping up its latest $3 billion fund.

The venture firm has completed a “first close,” which means NEA has finalized its capital commitments and can now make investments. The firm can still raise additional money and will probably conduct a final close in a matter of weeks, according to sources familiar with the company’s fundraising efforts.

Innovation Depot, a thriving downtown Birmingham business incubator, saw 17 companies graduate last year, a record number. Their wings didn’t take them far away – most of them located nearly, contributing momentum to the city’s growing innovation ecosystem.

Image: http://www.madeinalabama.com 

A payment card featuring a fingerprint sensor has been unveiled by credit card provider Mastercard. The rollout follows two successful trials in South Africa. The technology works in the same way as it does with mobile phone payments: users must have their finger over the sensor when making a purchase. Security experts have said that while using fingerprints is not foolproof, it is a "sensible" use of biometric technology.

Image: http://www.bbc.com/ 

Five years ago, Clover Health COO Wilson Keenan got his first job in product management. Before that, he was a line cook. It wasn't his only work experience, but it's what stood out to the man who hired him, Jim Patterson — then Chief Product Officer at Yammer, now CEO of cannabis technology startup Eaze. In fact, it fit into a broader hiring philosophy Patterson subscribes to: chefs and soldiers make excellent product managers.

INDIANAPOLIS - A prominent Republican leader says Indiana "absolutely" has the potential to draw more venture capital dollars to Hoosier companies. The problem is figuring out how to do it, particularly when the issue is primarily a function of the private market. "It's really not our business to run a business or to pick and choose winners and losers," said Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley (R-20). "We've had some success. But there are a lot of opportunities to do a lot more, and that's what we're trying to figure  ut. How do you do more and do it right, so that the taxpayer feels comfortable with what you're doing." 

New Report Cites University Research Funding, Technology Transfer as Catalysts for Economic Growth

LOS ANGELES, April 20, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Milken Institute today released a new report ranking more than 200 universities across the United States for their prowess in developing basic research into new technologies, products and companies – a process known as "technology transfer."

Building a startup is hard work for low pay, it’s risky, and it requires total responsibility to make it work. Yet, many entrepreneurs are the happiest people I know. On the other hand, I know many unhappy individuals who are always partying, have minimal commitments, and little responsibility. I suspect the real parameters of happiness have eluded these people.

I’m a big to-do list person. I’ve probably been making daily to-do lists on yellow Post-its for close to 15 years now. Every night before I go to bed I pen a bulleted list of all the things I need to accomplish the next day. However, inevitably, at the end of the next day I usually have a few items that aren’t scratched off the list. Those items get added to the top of tomorrow’s to-do. Yet the same thing happens the following day: I move a few uncompleted items to tomorrow’s list . . . and repeat the next day . . . and the next.

In the two years after Lew Cirne founded Wily Technology in 1997, he assembled an experienced executive team, hired 50 employees, and raised two rounds of VC funding. But he also had to relinquish three of five board seats to his investors, who promptly decided that Cirne should be replaced by a CEO with a stronger business background. CA eventually bought the firm for US$375 million — a far larger haul than Cirne could have brought in, as he admitted. But the founder was still chagrined about the early decisions he made that led to his ouster.

A group of Australian marine scientists believe that altering clouds might offer one of the best hopes for saving the Great Barrier Reef.

For the last six months, researchers at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the University of Sydney School of Geosciences have been meeting regularly to explore the possibility of making low-lying clouds off the northeastern coast of Australia more reflective in order to cool the waters surrounding the world’s biggest coral reef system. 

Image: A scientist surveys bleaching damage on the Great Barrier Reef. TANE SINCLAIR-TAYLOR | ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE CORAL REEF STUDIES 

Greater Washington is so much more than a political “swamp.”

But that's the label a group of life science companies and nonprofits — led by Gaithersburg-based MedImmune — said Wednesday they are still fighting against as they try to sell the year-old BioHealth Capital Region brand.

Expatriate assignments are notoriously difficult. They require major professional and cultural adjustments, both coming and going, and those transitions are as tough on families as they are on employees. When people go home after working abroad, they often experience decreased job satisfaction, sometimes even depression. As a result, repatriate turnover is alarmingly high — up to 38% in the year following return.