Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Let’s be honest.
Being an entrepreneur is stressful. Yes, I know I sound like Captain Obvious, but it’s true.
Every day, you work to earn more customers, keep your current customers happy, all while managing the other aspects of your business. It’s not easy, is it?
But everyone deals with stress, right?
California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), the nation’s largest statewide public policy and business solutions organization representing California’s leading life sciences innovators, and OCTANe, Orange County's life sciences and technology accelerator organization, today announced a formal alliance to strategically accelerate the growth of Orange County’s life sciences sector.
“We are thrilled to further extend our statewide resources and capabilities into Orange County to intensify the investment and innovation in their life sciences cluster. California’s life sciences ecosystem, as exemplified in and around Orange County, is driving the economy and delivering life-changing medicines and technologies that benefit overall health and well-being,” said Sara Radcliffe, President & CEO, California Life Sciences Association (CLSA).
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. –Today the Baker-Polito administration announced a $5 million grant to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to establish the UMass Amherst Data Science/Cybersecurity Research and Education Collaborative, a public-private partnership designed to accelerate data science innovation in the Pioneer Valley region of Western Massachusetts. The Commonwealth’s investment will help drive the commercialization of new products and ideas, train a leading data science workforce and support collaborative regional economic development activities.
Image: http://www.umass.edu
At some University of Mississippi residence halls, there is a tradition of making dormitory rooms worthy of interior design magazines. That tradition went public Wednesday when photos of one room went viral -- and quite a debate followed. The room in question belongs to two new students at the university: Abby Bozeman and Lindy Goodson.
Image: https://www.insidehighered.com
When start-ups begin, it’s akin to Joseph Campbell’s mythical hero’s journey. Instead of battling hydras and gorgons alone, entrepreneurs often help each other face obstacles like entrenched markets, financing and abject fear of failure.
It is a symbiotic relationship that makes sense to Shradha Agarwal and Rishi Shah, both 31 and co-founders of ContextMedia, a health care media company in Chicago.
Image: Shradha Agarwal and Rishi Shah are co-founders of ContextMedia, a health care media company in Chicago. They made a point of financing and mentoring other start-ups. Credit Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times
From researchers at MIT's Media Lab comes DuoSkin, an on-skin interface that lets users control their mobile devices.
The stylish circuits are made from skin-friendly gold leaf material and are applied with water like a traditional temporary tattoo.
Fusing connectivity, wearability and fashion, these devices could change the technology world.
Image: http://mashable.com
The new chief innovation officer of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. says the entrepreneurial community in Indiana is already contributing to a recently-announced $1 billion initiative to boost innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the state. Ian Steff says his goal is to let innovators know Indiana is committed over the next 10 years and beyond to provide the tools to take their ideas to the next level.
Image: http://www.insideindianabusiness.com
A new global ranking shows that Europe and the United States continue to be the world leaders in innovation, and suggests that Latin America and other emerging regions will have to engage in “innovation diplomacy” to succeed in the new world economy.
Before we get into what “innovation diplomacy” means, let’s take a look at the Global Innovation Index released by Cornell University, the France-based INSEAD business school and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization.
Image: http://www.miamiherald.com
To borrow from the Prime Minister, there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian university. But to grasp the research opportunities linked to China's big innovation push our universities need to be equally innovative and forward-thinking.
Policy and structural shifts are moving the economy of Australia's largest trading partner into a new phase of expansion built less around "assemble" operations and more on ground-breaking science and technology.
Image: http://www.afr.com
Public school spending varies dramatically from one part of the country to another. New York is the biggest spender, doling out more than $20,000 per student each year, counting teacher salaries, support services and all the other costs associated with public schools. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Idaho and Utah spend only about one-third as much.
Image: http://www.governing.com
A consistent charge against the patent system is that it denies the poor access to critical medicines. This belief led the UN Secretary General to launch his High Level Panel on Access to Medicines that is supported by groups like Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM). The Panel is to “review and assess proposals and recommend solutions for remedying the policy incoherence (emphasis added) between the justifiable rights of inventors, international human rights law, trade policies and public health in the context of health technologies.” As our State Department observed, this focus “suggests predetermined outcomes” blaming health problems on patents. Fortunately, two recent responses critically examine the theories driving this anti-patent crusade.
Many of us watched recently as Delta Airlines cancelled hundreds of flights day after day. Thousands of Delta’s passengers were the victims of these cancellations, waiting stranded, some for days. Delta initially said they grounded flights due to a utility electrical failure. I felt sorry for the passengers and at first I also felt sorry for Delta for experiencing a major problem seemingly beyond their control.
As an entrepreneur or business owner, you need to focus on things that move you and your company forward. Time is money. Vision, leadership, and sales must take priority. If you’re not focused on these key tasks, your business will die. It’s not a question of if, but when.
For you to be able to concentrate on these things you need to become an expert in delegating, elevating, and empowering the people on your team to do jobs, take on tasks, and step into leadership roles now. You will need to develop the skills of a ninja in these areas.
FedEx took the shipping world by storm about forty years ago, growing to become the defacto shipping leader, unseating UPS and DHL. But, then after thirty years of strong growth they began to lose their mojo. In 2003, in a reaction to UPS’ acquisition of Mail Boxes Etc., FedEx announced they were buying Kinko’s, a large United States based copy center chain. For me this showed that FedEx was beginning to lose its way, and it appears their connection to customer expectations and the current capabilities of technology is failing. For a company based on the promise of speed, FedEx is becoming increasingly slow.
Image: http://bradenkelley.com
Every summer, the travel industry and others release statistics on how many vacation days Americans leave on the table. Foregoing compensation seems silly, yet there are rational reasons people might not want to travel.
It costs money, and while research shows people derive happiness from anticipating their vacations, and we post happier tweets the farther we venture from home, travel stress can quickly quash the bliss. Just ask any of the tens of thousands of people stranded in airports across the globe during Delta's computer system outage.
Image: Flickr user Ellen Munro
Everyone hits a crossroad from time to time. We get stuck in a state of indecision on a problem that seems to have no correct answer, and at times, it can be maddening.
The most important decisions, whether in work or in life, never really seem to fall in the black or white. They linger in the gray, where they can remain for a dangerously long time. The journalist Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance."
Image: Flickr user Dragan
I read an article in WIRED the other day about the LaFerrari, the world’s most coveted supercar, and one particular sentence stuck out. As writer Jordan Golson plainly stated, “When it comes to this car, you don’t choose Ferrari. Ferrari chooses you.” Well, ladies and gentlemen, the same philosophy may very well apply to Reg A+.
Image: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com
I
t’d be hard to choose two words that feel less descriptive of life inside a large organization than “lean” and “startup.”
And yet the lean startup methodology, born in Silicon Valley as a way for startups to tune in to customer needs with limited resources, has been gaining major momentum inside big companies like General Electric, Alaska Airlines, Telefonica, 3M, and W.L. Gore. When my publication, Innovation Leader, surveyed 170 executives who work in R&D, strategy, and new product development roles at large public companies, we found that 82% said they’ve already deployed some elements of the lean startup approach.
Image: RAMAZAN BALAY
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Public Employees’ Retirement System says that venture capital was its worst-performing asset over the last five years, even as it pares back its investment in the space from 7 percent in 2012 to 5 percent now.
The nation's largest pension fund, which manages about $303 billion, eventually wants its VC allocation to be only 1 percent of its total investment portfolio — and given its recent performance, it's easy to understand why, Bloomberg reports.
