The future of artificial intelligence may be moving closer to the present.

On Wednesday, the NYU Tandon School of Engineering will announce the launch of an accelerator-style program that will recruit five early-stage AI startups to the school's Varick Street Incubator. The city's first accelerator devoted to computer technology that imitates human intelligence, the AI NexusLab will connect the startups to the university's academic resources while providing the fledgling companies with the marketing and business expertise of a major venture capital firm.

An academic recently extolled the virtues of his university entrepreneurship course. Students loved the different teaching style and the focus on creativity and innovation.

I asked how many students had launched high-growth ventures because of the course. "Hardly any, but that's not the point," he replied. "You can't measure the success of entrepreneurship degrees by the number of start-ups produced."

The Internet of Things (IoT) is massive, and getting bigger by the day. As new applications come to light for these sensor-driven networked technologies, our world will become increasingly connected, and more autonomous.

IoT is the virtual Wild West of the technology world. Since it can include just about every “thing” we interact with on a day-to-day basis, the potential for new applications is boundless. In a largely uncharted category of technology, one thing is absolutely certain, that the world as we know it is changing.

As a small business owner, there’s a lot to consider in the first few months and years. Whereas larger organizations have the ability to absorb costs and spend their way to success, smaller brands rarely have this luxury. If you want to be successful, you’ll have to learn how to operate within your means by strategically approaching major business responsibilities.

The reigning theory in business has long been that “alpha” leaders make the best entrepreneurs. These are aggressive, results-driven achievers who assert control, and insist on a hierarchical organizational model. Yet I am seeing more and more success from “beta” startup cultures, like Zappos and Amazon, where the emphasis is on collaboration, curation, and communication.

Rebecca Wates became the American Cancer Society’s first crowdfunded scientist in June.

Back in February, the organization tried a different approach to raise money: It started a crowdfunding campaign to fund the work of young cancer researchers such as Wates, who works at the University of Kansas Medical Center. The online campaign made it easy to donate, and there was a running total of the money raised.

As a young entrepreneur, I always question the relevance of advice from older businesspeople. Though I certainly believe in learning from experience, I feel advice can quickly become outdated, especially in the current connected environment. Nowadays there are several new tricks we can use to manage our time more wisely and glean only the usable information.

To gather relevant tips, I recently spoke with Nathan Resnick, a 22-year-old entrepreneur who currently serves as the co-founder and CEO of Sourcify, a marketplace for the world’s top manufacturers.

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

One of the great promises of open government this decade has been that it can serve as a catalyst for a new civic-centered “innovation ecosystem.” This ecosystem, replete with successful startups and data-driven advancements in government operations, could not only enhance transparency, but spur replication and generate economic value for cities. In 2013, McKinsey and Company concluded that open data, in all its forms, had the potential to contribute $3 trillion a year of value across the global economy. This and other reports set off a wave of excitement, encouraging The Economist to declare that “the open data movement has finally come of age.”

Image: Bethesda, in Montgomery County, Maryland. - FLICKR/MATTHEW STRAUBMULLER

You probably know someone who owns an Apple Watch, or maybe you own one yourself. Is it a creative idea? Well, the multi-function watch was creative the first time it appeared in science fiction, but that was a long time ago. Technologically a watch with the Apple Watch functionality has been possible for a while, but firms have waited because they were unsure if it could become a success. If fewer and fewer people wear watches, because smartphones do the same job and much more, why make a watch?

Executives’ ability to see themselves from the outside and others from the inside, plays an important role in effective team formation

The strategy meeting was running smoothly. For days, the senior management team had been preparing intensely for their final presentations about a planned corporate transformation to the CEO. He was quite unpredictable. Would he go for their plan, or shoot them down?

Image: http://knowledge.insead.edu

For the 10th consecutive quarter, the venture capital (VC) industry invested $10 billion in a single quarter after investing $15.3 billion in Q2 2016, according to the MoneyTree™ Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Based on data provided by Thomson Reuters, the report highlights that “total venture dollars deployed to startup companies for the quarter increased 20 percent ($15.3 billion invested) and total deal count was down 5 percent (961 deals completed), compared with Q1 of 2016 when $12.7 billion was invested in 1,011 deals.” In comparison to this time last year, Q2 2015, dollars and deals are down 12 and 22 percent, respectively.

People understandably get excited about new digital technologies, whether it’s the digital camera that is cheaper than developing rolls upon rolls of film, or the photo-sharing apps that – in turn — make your iPhone camera easier to use than your old digital camera.

New technology is so much fun that it can be easy to forget that new business models are what drive industries forward, and that old technology can still be valuable as long as it is paired with a smart strategy.

BioAdvance, the operator of a $50 million early stage life sciences fund that work with health-care entrepreneurs in the mid-Atlantic region, invested $2.9 million in companies and technologies targeting human health during fiscal 2016

The investments, according to a report released late Tuesday by BioAdvance, included nine new companies and technologies plus six follow-on investments of exiting portfolio companies.

Image: BioAdvance CEO Barbara Schilberg

Xconomy National —  With the Republican National Convention behind us and the Democratic convention in full swing, it seems like a good moment to ask how a Donald Trump presidency or a Hillary Clinton presidency might affect the prospects for high-tech entrepreneurship and business growth in the United States.

At this stage, both candidates have given major economic addresses, and both parties have published their platforms. So it’s becoming easier to see how a President Trump or President Clinton might approach questions of keen interest to entrepreneurs and investors, like the merits of the carried-interest loophole in the federal tax code, or how to handle visas for high-skilled workers.

The Marriott in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, offers a familiar scene to anyone who's ever set foot in one of the chain's properties. Guests are often in town for business and can be found at the lobby cafe grabbing a quick coffee before morning meetings or a glass of wine after work at the bar.

But look closer and you'll see details that stand out. Here and there on walls and tables are "beta buttons" and on iPads, "beta boards"—both instant-feedback apparatuses that allow customers to weigh in on every aspect of their stay.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com

The latest video from Risk Bites takes a four minute dive into what nanotechnology is, and why it’s important.  It was created as a primer for 5th graders – which probably means that there’ll be a lot of 5th graders at heart watching it!

It also takes a somewhat less than conventional approach to nanotech:

Every startup in Silicon Valley wants to be the next Facebook, with its one billion users, or LinkedIn, which just sold to Microsoft for $26 billion. And why not? Their business model is a beautiful thing: platforms (also known as two- or multi-sided markets) are asset-light and make money by sitting between different parties, controlling the market and taking a piece of every transaction. Consider Care.com, which connects parents and babysitters who would otherwise have trouble finding one another, and just as importantly, ensuring the reliability of the other party. If Care.com’s owners earn a hefty commission, they’re doing so by making the world a better place, one babysitter match at a time.

Performance appraisals are one of the most ubiquitous, and also one of the most unpopular, protocols in workplace. In fact, several companies have recently made headlines in their attempts to go about them differently. But amid these changes, how many organizations have ever taken a close look at how performance reviews actually operate in their own workplace, over the long term?

In March, two years ago, I walked out of Starbucks, with the very first check from an accredited investor. It was only $40,000, but it was enough to prove myself that I could actually make a decent living out of my startup. I had quit my full-time job that day after bootstrapping my startup for months with nothing, but the passion to turn my knitting website into one of America’s largest community and marketplace. You can say I have never looked back since. Although I have never studied entrepreneurship or finance, I could manage to enjoy the exhilarating entrepreneurial roller coaster ride because of my very, very thick skin. My friend, Scott Wilhelm has a different story to tell. He has netted little revenue for his professional sports mobile app and faced at least a hundred rejections

Image: https://www.industryleadersmagazine.com

An Israeli, Washington-based cybersecurity startup which uses big data, behavioural analytics and machine learning to automatically hunt down complex cyberattacks in real time has been judged by Juniper Research as the world’s top disruptive tech innovator. The firm – Cybereason – pipped Swedish ecommerce & “frictionless” payments vendor Klarna as Juniper’s number two “technology innovator and disruptor”, with London-based start-up what3words, which has launched a universal addressing system, in third position.