Employers have long wanted to know how their workers spend their time. New office surveillance technology is now making the task far easier.

Recommended for You Patent Office Hands Win in CRISPR Battle to Broad Institute AI Software Juggles Probabilities to Learn from Less Data As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened “The Relentless Pace of Automation” India Now Has the World’s Worst Air Pollution Bloomberg reports that an increasing number of companies are outfitting offices with sensors to keep track of employees. These sensors are hidden in lights, on walls, under desks—anywhere that allows them to measure things like where people are and how much they are talking or moving.

Coal’s role in American electricity generation is fast diminishing. A few large coal-mining companies declared bankruptcy last year, and several coal power plants have been shuttered. The biggest loss in all this has been felt by the tens of thousands of coal miners who have been laid off. But despite the U.S. president’s campaign pledges, those jobs are going to be hard to bring back. Besides competition from natural gas and cheaper renewables, coal mining, and mining in general, is losing jobs to automation.

The Geneva Convention, signed by war-weary nations in August 1949, now binds 196 countries to protect civilians in war zones. Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, argues that the U.S. and other countries now need to draw up a digital equivalent to protect civilians and companies caught in the crossfire of constant cyberwar.

In recent years, computing and security companies have uncovered or been the victims of malware and network attacks that appear linked with military or intelligence agencies. Smith told an audience at the world’s largest security conference Tuesday that international diplomacy is needed to mitigate the negative effects on private companies and citizens.

Abu Dhabi’s diversification strategy rests in part on laying the seeds of future industries overseas while preparing for their reception at home.

Economic diversification has long been a top priority for resource-based economies. From Canada to Australia, economic diversification away from natural resource dependency continues to occupy the minds of policymakers. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is no different in this regard. The country has various economic vision strategies and plans all aimed at changing the industrial and economic structures of the economy. However, in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, a new economic diversification policy experiment has been underway for some time now. Through a government investment arm called Mubadala, Abu Dhabi has pursued a diversification strategy that turns economic development models upside down.  

Over 70% of previous attendees surveyed say that CONNECTpreneur is the "Number One" tech and investor event in the Mid-Atlantic region! DCInno calls CONNECTpreneur "The Best Networking Event in the region" and a "NETWORKING JACKPOT" of the area's TOP Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, CXOs, Angels, and VCs. Presented by Tech 2000 and LORE Systems, this UNIQUE EVENT is like NONE OTHER in our region, because of the high quality of our attendees, speakers and presenters. And YES, the networking is unprecedented!

Program Highlights:

• We expect 350 business leaders, including 175+ CEOs & Founders, as well as 65+ angels & VCs 
• Fireside Chat with CEO and Investor MICHAEL BRONFEIN 
• All-Star Panel of Venture Capital Investors 
• SHOWCASE of Emerging tech companies 
• Heavy NETWORKING before, during, and after the event The venue is the Hilton Baltimore in Baltimore, MD (Inner Harbor)

Drive value for your genomics startup. Apply to Illumina Accelerator’s next funding cycle today!

Illumina Accelerator is the world’s first business accelerator focused solely on creating an innovation ecosystem for the genomics industry. During the six-month funding cycle, each startup will gain access to seed investment, access to match funding through the $40 million Illumina Accelerator Boost Capital, access to Illumina’s sequencing systems and reagents, a subscription to Illumina’s NextBio translational genomics database, Illumina’s Genologics Clarity LIMS software, as well as business guidance and fully operational lab space in the San Francisco Bay Area.

TRENTON, N.J. (February 14, 2017) – The Board of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) acted today to expand support of small business growth in Garden State Growth Zones (GSGZs) through the creation of the Business Lease Incentive (BLI) and Business Improvement Incentive (BII) programs.

The BLI and BII programs are designed to support the growth of retail and services in GSGZs by providing grants to street level new and expanding businesses. The effect of these programs will be maximized by concentrating these grants in designated corridors consistent with each city's development plans. The programs will be launched on a pilot basis and capitalized with a total of $3 million. Of that, $1 million will be available per year over the three-year life of the programs, evenly divided and reserved for projects in the legislatively-created GSGZs, which include Trenton, Camden, Paterson, Passaic and Atlantic City.

Most just call it BBQ Fest. On paper, it’s the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest — the biggest pork barbecue competition in the world. And here in Memphis, it’s a city-wide holiday.

It’s four days, 250 cooking teams, and a whole mess of BBQ on a half-mile stretch of the Mississippi River. This year, Start Co. is throwing our own startup spin on it with a swine-fueled booth right smack in the middle of it all.

Today, the old ways of running a workplace -- annual reviews, forced rankings, outdated competencies -- don't get the intended results. Leaders must gain scientific insight into employees' evolving wants and needs and learn how to build an exceptional workplace.

The Center for Global Prosperity (CGP) at the Hudson Institute is pleased to present the 2016 Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances. Over a ten year period, the ninth edition of the Index reports on the sources and magnitude of global philanthropy from developed and emerging economies to the developing world. As in previous editions of the Index, private financial flows—including philanthropy, remittances, and private capital investment—continue to grow and surpass government aid. In addition to the magnitude of the developed and emerging economies’ total economic engagement with the developing world, the 2016 Index highlights the new partnerships and infrastructure that support philanthropic giving around the world.

Budgets are first and foremost policy documents. They detail the policy directions and the priorities that an organization deems important. Through that lens, let’s look at Governor Malloy’s budget proposal released on Wednesday.

At the 10,000 foot level, here are the policy directions and priorities that I take away from the Governor’s proposal:

A record number of biotechnology, life sciences and other tech-related companies with a presence in New Jersey stand to benefit from private investments spurred in part by tax credits approved by state officials last year — a sign the Garden State continues to serve as the nation’s medicine chest.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority announced Tuesday it has approved 251 applications from “angel investors” who are eligible for state income-tax credits to help offset the more than $96 million in private funding they funneled to Garden State tech firms during 2016 — the highest annual total since the program launched three years ago.

Xconomy Texas —  San Antonio — What’s the best way to build a startup? Bootstrap it, raise little or no VC funding, and (ideally) sell it for hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars, according to two venture capitalists.

That’s what they did at least. Andrew Farquharson, now the managing director of InCube Ventures in San Jose, CA, was the chief operating officer of Almeda, CA-based Operon Technologies when it sold to European nucleic acid company Qiagen in an all-stock deal worth around $110 million in 2000. Farquharson and his co-founders tried, but failed, to raise venture funding and instead were able to bootstrap.

The very practice of management no longer works.

The old ways -- annual reviews, forced rankings, outdated competencies -- no longer achieve the intended results. The best American organizations are discovering the old ways aren't right for the future.

The American workforce has more than 100 million full-time employees. One-third of those employees are what Gallup calls engaged at work. They love their jobs, enjoy their teams and customers, contribute, have great ideas, believe in the mission, feel their job uses their strengths -- and they make their organization and America better every day.

There are literally thousands of state and local incentive programs, many of which are – at least on paper – intended to help people in need or places that have been left behind. Here are several ways in which incentives are designed to achieve the goals of inclusive and equitable economic development.

People-based strategies

The Policy Agenda for All-In Cities from PolicyLink proposes several strategies for equitable economic development that can be connected to incentive policies, programs, and practices. A set of those strategies is intended to encourage activity to create good jobs and connect residents to those jobs through workforce training and local hiring practices. Incentives are often expected to achieve just those objectives. 

According to Bill Ruh, the underpinnings of our industrial society will be profoundly changed by 2020. Every form of large-scale machinery will be suffused with sensors and software controls, all more and more interoperable. Increasing productivity, raising profits, eliminating waste, ensuring environmental quality, and improving manufacturing processes will all be automated activities, functions of a kind of ghost in the machine. There will be at least 1 billion more digital electric power meters than there were in 2015; more than 100 million lightbulbs will be connected to the Internet, turned on and off by sensor or smartphone; and machines produced by just one company, GE, will generate a million terabytes of data per day, much of it in the form of operational statistics that adjust machines to make them more efficient every day they are in use.

Image: Photograph by Matthew Septimus

Welcome to the fifth edition of the U.S. Chamber International IP Index, “The Roots of Innovation.” This year’s index recognizes the indispensable role of intellectual property (IP), in facilitating innovative and creative activity on a socially transformative scale.

Each economy in the Index presents a unique IP profile. As this Index has grown from 11 economies in its first edition to 45 in the current publication, it has become exceedingly clear that just as elections matter, so do IP policy choices. These choices are not simply a matter of East versus West, developed versus less-developed, or rich versus poor. Rather, the Index represents a broad spectrum of sovereign policy choices. Those choices have important consequences for each economy’s innovative and creative success, and for the collective welfare of all the world’s citizens.

Companies once deemed “too big to fail” are increasingly exposed to failure. The threat of disruption is everywhere. Startups are taking on the Goliaths in every market. Scores of malls across the United States are in collapse. Many household brand names are losing ground or even shutting completely. Regardless of industry, businesses face digital Darwinism, the evolution of technology and markets. Disruption is just a matter of when, where and why. To compete, executives must make tough decisions but more so, they must look to new horizons for new insight and direction. Whether companies thrive or cower in the face of digital Darwinism is a choice.

Image: http://www.innovationmanagement.se

The Australian Government injects around $10 billion each year on research and development for science and innovation, according to Innovation and Science Australia (ISA).

But much of this research is failing to see the light of day, says ISA chair Bill Ferris.

“As a nation we’re good at creating knowledge but simply not good enough at transferring or applying,” Ferris said in a statement.

You have grand ambitions: to start a business, to write a book. But chances are you work long hours, or household responsibilities consume your days. By the time you finish all you have to do, you have no energy for anything you want to do beyond turning on the TV.