The Government will facilitate and do whatever it takes to ensure that the world's best start-up ecosystem is in India, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said here yesterday.   Addressing the Start-Up India States Conference, Ms Sitharaman said the gathering of entrepreneurs, innovators, thought leaders and change catalysts was aimed at finding avenues to establish and foster relationships between all stakeholders of the start-up ecosystem.

When starting a tech company, it can be tempting to make venture capital a priority, but finding it shouldn’t be what drives your business decisions. I knew I wanted to bootstrap my business, BuySellAds, so that I could follow my own goals. By following these next few tips, I was able to achieve success for my business without raising VC money. Here’s how you can too.

NEW DELHI: The startup ecosystem in India is witnessing a major shake up as around 50 percent of young entreprenuers who went ahead and set up their own ventures in the last two years have already closed down.

According to data colated by research firm Xeler8, since June 2014, around 2,281 Indian startups had begun operations. However, of these 997 have already closed down — a failure rate of close to 50 per cent.

Eyes are considered to be the most powerful human sense. The equivalent technological tool is an intelligent video camera that can observe, analyze and act on provided information. This technology is know as Intelligent Video Analytics or Video Content Analysis.

Vendors such as Cisco and IBM are key companies in the market. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are only beginning to integrate intelligent cameras. Here are some examples of IoT platforms that are already using this innovative tech and the potential future market segments.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report on Entrepreneurial Financing was published earlier this month. The document is a global snapshot on the state of entrepreneurial endeavors around the world. Produced by a team of researchers from Babson, Oxford and the University of South Africa, Capetown, this recent study affirms that the financial crises had a profound effect on the economic and entrepreneurial landscape. Unfortunately, new obstacles have been created and access to finance is “one of the most serious problems for business in many economies:

Image: https://www.crowdfundinsider.com

As the CEO of Crowdfunder, a leading equity crowdfunding platform + venture fund, I see firsthand how the ability to reach thousands of Institutional and individual angel investors online through equity crowdfunding is transforming startup fundraising and early stage venture capital.

Unfortunately, the highly anticipated “boom” of access to non-accredited investors, namely regulated under Title III, is a bit of bust. I wrote previously about how Title III Crowdfunding Will Disappoint Entrepreneurs.

ina48 is a robotic head that looks and speaks like a person—it moves its lips and runs conversational software. Although the robot isn’t alive, it’s hard to say there is no life at all in Bina48. In conversation, it sometimes says surprising things. Google’s director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, says it’s “wonderfully suggestive” of a time when computers really will think and feel.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com/

The world’s richest man and his wife write an open letter every year in which they ponder the opportunities for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic foundation. Last year, they wrote about inequity.

This year, inspired by a question from high school students—“What superpower do you wish you had?”—they wrote separate letters to students, with rather charming annotations in the letters’ margins. Melinda answered, “More time!” and wrote about recognizing, redistributing, and reducing the unpaid work that women do, especially in the poor world.

In this era of accelerating change, business-as-usual is the enemy of every business, new and old. Yet it’s an easy rut to fall into, and a tough one to break out of. Every business needs to “reach for the stars” on a regular basis, in much the same way the President Kennedy challenged a nation to put a man on the moon in an impossible timeframe more than fifty years ago.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, has warned that the UK risks losing its lead in medical research after leaving the European Union. 

The Swiss group called for Britain to move quickly to replace European regulations with rules that give patients access to innovative treatments or else risk delays in developing crucial medicines. 

The future of local drug regulation was "my biggest worry in the UK", said Severin Schwan, Roche's chief executive. 

Image: http://www.swissinfo.ch

Walking to your gate is for chumps.

Moving through an airport can be a hassle. Between security, crowds and endless lanes of concrete flooring between you and your gate, it can be an exhausting way to travel.

Modobag, a ridable suitcase, aims to give your feet a break by allowing you to zoom past the slow walkers so you can make it to your plane in record time with minimal effort.

Bill James, the factory watchman turned baseball historian and statistician, once observed, “There will always be people who are ahead of the curve, and people who are behind the curve. But knowledge moves the curve.”1 Some companies are discovering that if they employ the latest in data analytics, they can find, deploy, and advance more people on the right side of the curve—even if the results at first appear counterintuitive.

Over the past decade, big data analytics has been revolutionizing the way many companies do business. Chief marketing officers track detailed shopping patterns and preferences to predict and inform consumer behavior.

The information sector may have glamour and manufacturing, nostalgia appeal, but the real action in high-wage job growth in the United States is in the vast realm of professional and business services. This is not only the largest high-wage part of the economy, employing just under 20 million people at an average salary of $30 an hour, it’s also one the few high-wage sectors in which employment has expanded steadily since 2010, at more than 3% a year, adding nearly 3 million white-collar jobs.

European venture capital (VC) funds raised a record amount of money in the first half of 2016, but the amount of capital being invested in technology start-ups in the region has plummeted, with deals in the U.K. and Ireland hitting a five-year low amid uncertainty surrounding Brexit, new data on Thursday showed.

Investors in Europe raised 6.6 billion euros ($7.28 billion) across 34 VC-focused funds, a 63 percent year-on-year increase, and the highest amount in a six month period on record, according to Pitchbook, a data and research firm that looks at the VC and private equity markets.

Image: http://www.cnbc.com 

It’s probably happened to you. A team initiates a new big idea. Perhaps it’s to make communication easier for everyone in your global organization. Or maybe it’s to take your corporate profile into the stratosphere. Whatever the goal, by the time the idea is ready to launch, the team is exhausted but thrilled to finally reap the rewards of all their hard work.

Then the lawyers step in, ask questions, and kill the project — or reduce it to a shadow of its potential.

More of us are working in organizations employing a mix of freelancers, contractors, consultants, and full-timers, explains Jonathan Younger, coauthor with Norm Smallwood of “Agile Talent: How to Source and Manage Outside Experts.”

The University of Pittsburgh’s startup company engine kicked into overdrive with record licensing revenue and number of patents awarded during the past year.

Pitt’s Innovation Institute reported the creation of 13 startup companies for the year ending June 30, up from two companies created during the same period five years ago. Licensing revenue rose 19 percent for the five-year period to $7.3 million, up from $6 million.

You may have seen references to Idaho’s “triangle of innovation,” a statewide initiative of the Idaho Technology Council. It’s the name connecting the three distinct regions of the state — southwest (anchored by Boise), north (Coeur d’Alene) and east (Pocatello/Idaho Falls).

There are robust tech-based activities in each of the regions, and the goal is to reach a point where the collaboration statewide moves beyond names or labels and creates a truly integrated, borderless innovation economy.

Image: Jay Larsen: Idaho Technology 

Another day, another sobering statistic about the gender gap in the workplace.

Although women have more than quintupled their representation among patent holders since 1977, only 7.7% of more than 520,000 patents were applied for by a female inventor in 2010 (the most recent year gender was tracked by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Image: Barbara S. Askins via Wikimedia Commons; Josephine G. Cochran Dishwashing Machine, US 355139 A 

Your boss granted your time-off request, and now you’re counting down the days until that much-needed getaway. You might already be on vacation in your mind, but there are a few bases that absolutely must be covered at work before your body actually leaves the building.

Ensuring that your projects and duties are thoroughly taken care of in your absence is a hallmark of a responsible employee. Not only will you have the peace of mind that there’s no mountain of work awaiting your return, but your coworkers will thank you for not having to scramble to deal with deadlines you forgot to mention were in the pipeline.