A new renewables marketplace in Australia makes small-time energy moguls of homeowners, in order to make use of their solar hardware to smooth erratic supply and demand.

The Guardian reports that the government-backed initiative, called the Distributed Energy Exchange, will allow homeowners and businesses to effectively rent out their solar generation and storage capacity. Smart devices will enable a building’s hardware to, say, offer up spare battery capacity when excess power is available somewhere on the grid.

There was a remarkable moment during Donald Trump's historic address to Congress last night. The president, attacking what he called a "slow and burdensome" regulatory process at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), highlighted a heart-rending story about Megan Crowley, a young woman suffering from a rare medical disorder who was among the speech's attendees. (Notably, the address was delivered on the night of Rare Disease Day.)

The key economic factors impacting the value potential of any business include Capital, Cost & Control.  Understanding the meaning and purpose behind each of these words will have a direct impact on vision fulfillment, value realization, and personal satisfaction.  It is imperative to slow-down and take the time to understand the implications of each of these words.  Sometimes entrepreneurs can get ahead of themselves in the pursuit of start-up capital and unnecessarily give-away too much.

“My team has a time management problem,” leaders often tell me. For example, an executive might say that their teams aren’t moving the needle on important projects, yet staffers seem busy and stressed. “Time management” becomes a catchall solution to this problem, and they want to hire me to offer tips and techniques on things like prioritizing and using their calendars better.

What we soon uncover, however, is that the root of their team’s problems is not managing time, but managing attention. And these attention management issues are due not to a skills gap on the part of the employees, but to a wider cultural problem unintentionally reinforced, or at least tolerated, by senior leadership.

Industry, Development, Academic and Research Partners Sought to Launch Innovation Campus to Amplify R.I.-Based Research and Accelerate Job Growth

The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (RICC), in partnership with the University of Rhode Island (URI), will soon begin requesting proposals from industry, academic and research partners to develop, program and occupy a transformative Innovation Campus. Beginning in spring 2017, potential partners will be invited to submit initial responses, with a request for proposals to follow from the RICC in summer 2017.

The Commerce Corporation envisions successful applicants being partnerships of private industry and universities in addition to URI. Development partners will be required to meet or exceed the state's investment from bond proceeds. Respondents will be offered access to technical assistance workshops to guide concept development. It's expected that a development partner(s) will be selected by early 2018.

Image: Gov. Gina Raimondo  (Public Domain Image)

Immigration has become a toxic subject. In the United States, President Donald Trump is trying to ban or block the entry of refugees and of people from Mexico and parts of the Middle East. Other nations, from the United Kingdom, France and Germany to Australia and Thailand, face political pressure to curb numbers of incomers.

Anger at the erosion of national competitiveness is the root of the rage in the United States, in my view. Increasing financial inequity, changing racial and ethnic demographics and a widening knowledge gap between technology haves and have-nots are other factors. Immigrants and global trade have become the scapegoats.

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is now accepting submissions for its 2017 edition of the Federal Laboratories & State and Local Governments: Partners for Technology Transfer Success publication.  

The State & Local Governments (S&LG) publication showcases the significant regional value that comes when state and local government entities and federal laboratories form strategic partnerships. Help us raise awareness about the impact federal labs can have on their surrounding areas by submitting your laboratory’s S&LG success stories for publication!  

The FLC S&LG Committee encourages multiple success story submissions per region or agency. For examples of previously published success stories, view the 2015 S&LG publication.

Celebrate Your Organization’s Excellence in 2017!

Each year, UEDA members compete for our prestigious Awards of Excellence, which recognize outstanding, leading-edge higher education projects and initiatives promoting economic development and engagement. Never content to rest on our laurels, however, last year saw a significant revamping of the Awards program to reflect UEDA’s ongoing research on economic development and engagement in higher education. We hope you will join us!

Of all five scenarios proposed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for the way forward after Brexit, the real scenario is Number 3: “Those who want more do more,” which is another way of saying that the EU will be multi-speed, EURACTIV.com was told.

The Commission published today its White Paper (1 March) on the future of the EU-post-Brexit.

Image: Jean-Claude Juncker (European Parliament/Flickr)

The NHS has been a godsend to the British people since its introduction in 1948 – with the free healthcare it has provided ensuring hundreds of millions of people have been able to live longer and healthier lives.

Such is the impact of the scheme, a tribute was paid to it during the opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympic Games – an honour reserved for only the most impactful and important moments in a host nation’s history through the ages.

Humans are resilient, hardworking creatures. And there's perhaps nowhere where that's more evident than in the tiny village of Oymyakon, Russia, regarded by most as the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth. Related: A major storm is sweeping across the US — and it'll bring a white Christmas to these states Temperatures average around -58 degrees Fahrenheit during the winter months, with the record low reaching -96.16 degrees Fahrenheit in 1924.

Many high-performance organizations remain passionate about Vilfredo Pareto, the incisive Italian engineer and economist. They continue to be inspired by his 80/20 principle, the idea that 80% of effects (sales, revenue, etc.) come from 20% of causes (products, employees, etc). As machine learning and AI algorithmic innovation transform analytics, I’m betting that next-generation algorithms will supercharge Pareto’s empirically provocative paradigm. Here are three important ways that AI and machine learning will redefine how organizations use the Pareto principle to digitally drive profitable innovation to levels beyond conventional analytics.

San Francisco: When Brandon Schatz learned in December 2012 that Kansas City, Kansas had become the first city in the nation to get Google Fiber, a superfast Internet service, he started making plans to move his nascent sports photography business there. The day after Christmas, he drove the 165 miles from his home in Springfield, Missouri, to check it out. By 1 February, he had settled into his new house. By 4 February, he was connected to the network.

Every year, IdeaScale honors the emerging leaders in the innovation space by inviting their customers to share their best practices. In 2016, first place winners included the City of Calgary, Oak Ridge National Labs, and the National Cancer Institute. IdeaScale reviewed their stories and documented the top lessons learned and summarized them in this infographic.

Bottom-up innovation is fueled by many ideas initiated by employees, as opposed to top-down innovation, which is fueled by a strong vision - often by the company’s founder. Bottom-up innovation leaders are entrepreneurial, supported by management’s emphasis on creativity and a can-do culture, and often share these eight attributes. Everyone in the innovation blogosphere recognizes that innovation proceeds through two complementary modes: top down and bottom up.

The Daily Record has named BioHealth Innovation Inc., (BHI) President and CEO Richard Bendis a 2017 Influential Marylander. Mr. Bendis is one of 51 Influential Marylanders who were selected by the publication for their significant contributions to their respective fields and leadership in the state.

In the heady rush of building and running a new business there are many demands on an entrepreneur’s attention. Is the website up and running? Is the business’s name registered? Are the accounts set up?

Among the million and one things that need to be done to become your own boss, it’s understandable that some things may slip through the cracks or put off for another day.

uture employees expect a seamless virtual office and new levels of flexibility.

Only 3 percent of working professionals currently use any kind of virtual reality (VR) applications in their workplaces. But 30 percent say VR will revolutionise their work in the coming decade, according to the second part of a three-part study conducted by the INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute, Universum and The Head Foundation.

For the first time ever, the World Health Organization has drawn up a list of the highest priority needs for new antibiotics — marching orders, it hopes, for the pharmaceutical industry.

The list, which was released Monday, enumerates 12 bacterial threats, grouping them into three categories: critical, high, and medium.

Image: JANICE HANEY CARR/CDC - Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one bacterium on the WHO's list of highest priority needs for new antibiotics.

Despite West Point Military Academy’s rigorous selection process, one in five students drop out by graduation day. A sizeable number leave the summer before freshman year, when cadets go through a rigorous program called “Beast.” Beast consists of extreme physical, mental, and social challenges that are designed to test candidates’ perseverance.