In recent years, further declines in the cost of bringing new software products to market has continued to alter the world of financing early stage software companies in three fundamental ways: First, pre-seed stage valuations have fallen, even though later stage valuations have risen. Second, pre-seed stage investors have shifted the focus of their evaluation of companies from potential to traction. Third, accelerators have displaced angels as a key source of financing for pre-seed stage companies.

Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the world around us. This may look like a bold statement to many, but that’s the truth. From elevators to planes, there will be 30 billion connected devices in the next three years. Clearly, IoT is moving fast, and tech giants are taking bold measures to constantly push the boundaries of what can be achieved with the IoT.

Image: http://readwrite.com 

Sid Martin Biotechnology Institute (SMBI), the leading biotechnology incubator at the University of Florida, has been awarded the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award for 2017, the highest award given by the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA). InBIA is the world's leading organization for advancing business incubation, acceleration and entrepreneurship. SMBI was named Incubator of the Year among more than 7,500 incubators worldwide. The annual award, sponsored by the Friends of the University Science Center in Philadelphia, recognizes the top global business incubation program and includes a cash prize.

“I need a cheap logo for my new business,” read one message I spotted last week in a Facebook group for entrepreneurs. I chuckled to myself and went back to work. I’ve seen hundreds of posts like this from startup founders trying to bootstrap their companies and looking to take care of design issues on the cheap. This used to be me.

The graveyard of technology is riddled with failed products: remember the Apple Newton? Or Microsoft's Zune? How about Amazon's Fire Phone? And yet in Silicon Valley "failing fast" is heralded as a virtue and, sometimes, even failing slowly can have unforeseeable benefits. Cutting-edge products may die an embarrassing death, but they often also lay the groundwork for better, more well-timed ideas that flourish later on. This is a list of failures, yes, but failures that led to success or may yet still lead to something world-changing. That's why we've called these technology's most successful failed products. Like an experiment gone awry, they can still teach us something about technology and how people want to use it.

It isn’t often that the broad infrastructure that underlies industrial civilization undergoes a dramatic transformation. But just such a change appears to be happening now. As sensors spread through factories and warehouses, software predicts the need for maintenance before it is manifest, power grids and loading docks become intelligent, and custom-designed parts are produced on demand, the label the next industrial revolution is coming to represent this great wave of technological change.

Open communication and feedback are most often cited as qualities preferred in leaders by members of Generation X, the post-baby boomer generation, and Generation Y, “the millennials”. Generation Z, however, the generation born from 1994 onwards, has other ideas. This generation wants their leaders to be positive, according to the third part of “Generations”, a three-part study conducted by the INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute, Universum, the MIT Leadership Center and The HEAD Foundation.

If you’ve ever tried adopting one, you know that no productivity hack, habit, or routine is universal. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another. But that means it’s usually worthwhile to hear a lot of different ways other people organize their workdays, since it means more options for you to try on for size. And since the way you kick off your day and the way you wind it down can have a huge impact on how productive you are during the hours in between, Fast Company asked some top business leaders and execs to share their morning and nighttime routines. Here are our favorites.

Getting motivated is easy -- it’s staying motivated that’s difficult. Every entrepreneur (and most non-entrepreneurs as well) has looked up motivational tips at one point or another. So what is the best way to keep moving forward towards that goal each day? How do you work through the difficulty of grinding away at something difficult, even when you’re exhausted and drained?

Scientists and policy-makers have long argued that public investments in science have practical applications. Using data on patents linked to U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants over a 27-year period, we provide a large-scale accounting of linkages between public research investments and subsequent patenting. We find that about 10% of NIH grants generate a patent directly but 30% generate articles that are subsequently cited by patents. Although policy-makers often focus on direct patenting by academic scientists, the bulk of the effect of NIH research on patenting appears to be indirect. We also find no systematic relationship between the “basic” versus “applied” research focus of a grant and its propensity to be cited by a patent.

Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey founded WeWork in 2010 with the vision of building office spaces that served as communities.

They have grown into a $16 billion company with 110 facilities in 10 countries. Between 2015 and 2016, they grew from 40,000 to 90,000 members.

INSIDER Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Carlson sat down with Neumann and McKelvey at the Business Insider's 2016 IGNITION conference to discuss the growth of WeWork and what makes it so successful.

Image: Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey of WeWork at IGNITION. Business Insider 

One of Donald Trump’s loudest–and likely most impossible to fulfill–promises is to bring back coal jobs. He has made this appeal to people whose factory skills aren’t in demand anymore and likely don’t have the secondary education necessary to enter into other industries.

Whether or not more coal jobs are created, this need has started a conversation about laborers with different educational backgrounds. Silicon Valley should be a leader in this conversation. For years, the tech pipeline has been fed mostly from the same elite universities. This has created a feedback loop of talent and a largely homogenous workplace. As a result, tech continues to stumble when it comes to diversity.

Entrepreneur Khai Tran issued an invitation last spring to a program for start-ups, not sure how many would come. The event was in Camden. After hours.

His primary goal was to answer one question: “Is there a start-up crowd here?”

The answer was a decisive, albeit sweaty, “Yes.”

“We had 280 people,” Tran recalled. “One-hundred-fifty fit into the room legally.”

The air conditioning was on the fritz, not that it mattered. The over-capacity gathering that Wednesday evening spilled out of the meeting room and into the hallway and lobby of the Waterfront Technology Center on Federal Street. Those attending persevered through personal discomfort to take in a panel discussion, a pitch competition, and lots of schmoozing.

Image: Khai Tran ran a meeting for start-ups. “We had 280 people,” he said. “One-hundred-fifty fit into the room legally.” DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer 

In a perfect world, people would diligently reapply suncreen every couple of hours to protect their delicate skin from damaging solar radiation. But in reality, few people actually adhere to reapplication guidelines, and those who do hardly relish the task. To develop longer-lasting sunscreens, researchers are trying to answer a basic question: How do sunblock ingredients work?

Dreaming of retirement? Imagine yourself in New Hampshire. That's the best state to retire in, according to a new ranking from the finance website Bankrate.com. The project rates each state based on how ideal it is for retirees, measuring things like the cost of living, healthcare quality, crime and overall wellbeing. New Hampshire came out on top thanks to its second-best rating for seniors’ wellbeing, third-lowest crime rate and fourth-best healthcare quality, Bankrate said.

With the cost of entry at an all-time low, and the odds of success equally low, more and more entrepreneurs are starting multiple companies concurrently. This “parallel entrepreneur” idea has been around since at least the days of Thomas Edison, and for the new generation of entrepreneurs, who have been multi-tasking since birth, it’s probably not even a stretch.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com 

Donald Trump ran his campaign with the promise to manage the U.S. government like a business. In fact, he just announced that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will head up a “SWAT team” dedicated to making this happen.

Trump assumes, as do many Americans, that the country’s major problem is too much government. In my view, the United States is not suffering from too much government so much as from too much business all over the government. This president came into office to challenge “the establishment,” only to ensconce the country’s powerful business establishment in his cabinet, at the expense of Washington’s weaker political establishment.

Over the past month, Future Now has been covering the “grand challenges” we face as a society in a series of articles, videos and graphics. We polled a panel of people from various fields about the vital issues they believe deserve more attention – you can browse 50 of those responses below, which we’ll continue to draw on throughout this year. There’s a lot to digest in one sitting – so dip in, reflect, come back...

When President Trump proposed a cut of nearly 20 percent in support for the National Institutes of Health, many wondered how the administration would even attempt to find such reductions. The answer emerged in the congressional testimony last week of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who argued the government could save billions without hurting research by cutting back on the overhead reimbursements to colleges and universities.

Image: Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price - https://www.insidehighered.com

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania recently announced the winners of its annual innovation awards.

Recipients, who achieved success through the organization's assistance, will be honored May 9 at the iXchange event at Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University.

•The entrepreneurial achievement award, given to the company that best exemplifies ingenuity, hard work and innovation, will go to Core Business Solutions Inc. of Lewisburg, which helps small companies become ISO 9001-certified as quickly and easily as possible.

Image: The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania announced the winners of its annual innovation awards. (CHRIS KNIGHT/SPECIAL TO THE MORNING CALL)