It’s become commonplace in America to accept the idea that the most promising entrepreneurs are generally young, white, elite males from Silicon Valley. All too often this is the face of ingenuity in our country, dominating magazine covers and TV and movie screens. But the truth is that great entrepreneurs come in all shapes, sizes, genders and colors – and many from what has become known as “flyover” country between our coasts.

Venture capital funding is at a two-year low. That might be a good thing.

After the heady days of 2015, when a whopping 25 companies were valued at a billion dollars or more between July and September alone, VC financing is resetting the pace, according to Venture Pulse, a report released Thursday. The report was compiled by CB Insights, which watches the VC market, and KPMG International, a consultancy.

Earlier funding levels were "irrationally high," CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal said in a statement. "That was not sustainable or healthy."

How do we know if state economic development incentive programs are working?

A recent report from the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness with contributions from Smart Incentives strives to help states answer this question. In this article we highlight a few key points from The State Economic Development Performance Indicators White Paper. You can also check out CREC's report summary here.

Getting rejected by one of the top hardware accelerator programs in the country is what got me in. Let me explain.

I had been conceptualizing Switcheroo for a while, and started working on the project full time about a year ago. Switcheroo is a simple, plug-and-play solution to reconfigure which lights turn on in a house with the existing switches, without WiFi or Bluetooth pairing, and without the need for an app.

Image: Alex Jones

Techstars is among the most prestigious accelerators in the world. It’s helped grow over 700 startups, 90% of which are still active or have been acquired. Graduates have collectively raised over $2 billion and have a total market capitalization of $5 billion, the accelerator reports.

Many entrepreneurs vie for one of the few spots in each “class” – but what does it take to get in?

Image: From left to right, Nanotech Galaxy CEO Alexandros Louizos, COO Jasjit Maggu and CTO Jacob Lindeman.

Interested in working for a university in the 21st century? Forget the Ph.D. -- work for an investment bank for a few years and you may just earn close to $14 million in 18 months for your “mediocre” performance, according to a recent Bloomberg article detailing the salary Harvard University paid its endowment chief. This is only the latest provocation for the rising chorus of doubt about whether it still makes sense to think of America’s elite private universities as nonprofit institutions.

Image: The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia - https://www.insidehighered.com

Ruth Hedges is from the early days of crowdfunding in the United States. Part of an original group of committed individuals who advocated on behalf of updating antiquated securities regulations, Hedges is a founding member of the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA); the group originally created to help push legislation across the line and legalize investment crowdfunding.  Since the very beginning, Hedges has hosted an annual event aiming to connect the diverse sectors of securities crowdfunding, alongside non-securities funding platforms, and this year’s gathering is predicted to be the biggest yet.  The Global Crowdfunding Convention (or GCC) kicks off in Las Vegas next week with many prominent names from this sector of finance.

Image: https://www.crowdfundinsider.com

The JOBS Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2012, allowing companies to acquire funding through online portals from non-accredited investors, which roughly accounts for 97 percent of the population in the United States. On May 16, 2016, Title III of the JOBS Act, also known as regulation crowdfunding, or equity crowdfunding, was the last section to be implemented by the SEC.

Today is the day I'm going to die was the thought permeating every crevasse of my mind on that warm Hawaiian afternoon last February. You see, I had just jumped awkwardly out of a plane and was hurling toward the ground at 120 miles per hour. Luckily for me, the parachute opened just fine, and I coasted safely to the ground. I was alive, and the thrill was worth every penny.

Image: Youtube

The future of technology startups is not exclusive to California and New York, and it will thrive in places like Denver, according to Steve Case. He knows a few things about entrepreneurship, having co-founded AOL in 1985. Case was in Colorado last week as part of a tour around the Southwest, called Rise of the Rest, to get acquainted with new companies and choose some to invest in with his firm Revolution LLC. It was Case's fifth Rise of the Rest tour in two years.

Image: AOL co-founder Steve Case, center, with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, left, and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, right, on October 4, 2016. (Revolution LLC)

The BMW Motorrad is designed to fit right into the near future, blending the analog with the digital experience and offering unprecedented safety features for the rider. 

The biker will not even require a helmet, or any other protective gear for that matter, as the bike, which also self-balances, will be able to suggest and make corrections in case of impending danger.

The bike is stripped down almost entirely, with most information provided to the rider via an augmented reality headset, called the visor. It shows speed, navigation and the rear mirrors. 

The Motorrad is part of BMW's Vision Next series, which celebrates the company's 100th anniversary.

Image: http://mashable.com

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has been shaking up the networking giant's technology innovation team. But the restructuring of Cisco's 25,000-member engineering team has led to numerous departures, including the recent exit of Chief Technology Officer Zorawar Biri Singh.

Singh is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of top Cisco innovators and engineers who have left the San Jose, Calif.-based company in recent years. Many have since started their own networking companies that now compete head-to-head with Cisco, including SD-WAN startup CloudGenix and networking startup Avi Networks.

Let’s be honest: One of the perks of working from home is that you can do it in your pajamas. The term "dress for success" need not apply when you can roll out of bed and be on duty in a minute or less.

I work from home, and I confess that my yoga pants serve as both my workout and work attire. I like to be comfortable while I write, but is my relaxed dress impacting my work?

Image: eff Sheldon via Unsplash

Bell Labs is historically one of the most productive R&D labs in history. A large number of the technologies we use today were invented there. Bell Labs scientists invented the facsimile machine, the first long-distance television transmission, the first binary digital computer, the transistor, the laser, cellular technology, the UNIX operating system and the first fiber-optic technologies. Fourteen scientists from Bell Labs have won Nobel Prizes, and the lab has even won Grammy and Emmy Awards.

A few years ago, resource strains were everywhere: prices of oil, gas, coal, copper, iron ore, and other commodities had risen sharply on the back of high and rising demand from China. For only the second time in a century, in 2008, spending on mineral resources rose above 6 percent of global GDP, more than triple the long-term average. When we looked forward in 2011, we saw a need for more efficient resource use and dramatic increases in supply, with little room for slippage on either side of the equation, as three billion more people were poised to enter the consumer economy.

Image: http://www.mckinsey.com

Innovation or get left behind, that’s how the saying goes. However, it is important to point out that organizations don’t innovate—people do. Empowering your employees (and partners) will yield greater innovative success if you can properly manage the following best practices.

Image: http://www.alleywatch.com

A native Nebraskan who now chairs Gallup in Washington, D.C. says the country must develop entrepreneurs to get out of its economic doldrums.

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton pulls no punches during a speech at the Platte Institute legislative summit.

“This economy is not in good shape and so you say, oh my God, how do we fix all this? We’ve been right here before,” Clifton tells the legislative summit.

Four out of five U.S. finalist cities in a global innovation/philanthropy challenge have seen their concepts take shape since the contest's launch in 2013.

The Mayor’s Challenge, sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies, has hundreds of cities around the world compete to define a problem and concoct fresh ideas to solve it, according to Bloomberg Philanthropies materials. Each year, cities from a new region compete to be selected as finalists.

Image: Rhode Island STate House in providence, R.I. Providence placed first in the 2013 Mayors Challenge. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

By now you’ve probably gotten the message: dietary fat is not the enemy. When you reach for low-fat salad dressing or fat-free snack foods, you’re not doing your health or waistline any favors. “We’ve focused on fat reduction for 40 years, and it’s sent us in exactly the wrong direction in terms of obesity and diabetes,” says Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

So which high-fat foods should be packing your plate? Start with nuts and vegetable oils, says Dr. Lydia Bazzano, a professor of nutrition at Tulane University.

From the scent of linoleum to the unopened café where equipment is still being unboxed, everything about the Williamson Campus of Columbia State Community College feels brand-new. And it is. The Tennessee school, located in a Nashville suburb, is the newest community college campus in the state.

But in August, a week before the first semester started, administrators were already worried about overcrowding. The three-building campus was about to welcome 1,800 students, far more than originally planned. In the run-up to the new year, college director of communications Amy Spears-Boyd was advising students to allow themselves plenty of extra time to get through the crowded campus.

Image: The Williamson Campus of Columbia State Community College admitted its first students in September. (Photos by David Kidd)