Walter Isaacson has the rare knack of turning out instant classics. His Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007) was a superlative study of one of the world’s renowned scientists while his Steve Jobs (2011) was a memorable portrayal of one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. In The Innovators:How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Isaacson moves from studying single personalities to a team of pioneers who were instrumental in ushering in the information age.

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"Don’t boil the ocean," Terry said as he slapped a tall stack of papers on my desk. "Just tell us what we need to know."

I was staring at a serious problem. To help our firm win a multimillion-dollar consulting contract, I had five days to tell my new boss everything there was to know about airline bankruptcies. Problem was, I didn’t know the first thing about airline bankruptcies.

There has been significant growth and development in the South African entrepreneurship and venture capital ecosystem over the past five years as evidenced by numerous new investment funds and government initiatives as well as high-caliber incubators and accelerators emerging on the scene. All are committed to furthering the growth prospects of commercially viable entrepreneurial ventures in South Africa. Notwithstanding the challenges that still exist for entrepreneurs and SMEs, this is an exciting period for the industry and progress is being made to increase funding opportunities.

Oculus’s researchers are looking beyond headsets that let you see virtual worlds. In hopes of making virtual reality feel even more immersive, they’re now working on technology that could let you feel virtual objects and tell what direction they’re coming from.

HapticWave, a project from Oculus and Facebook, does this by using a circular metal plate set atop a ring of electromagnet actuators to send vibrations to your bare hand, which is placed in the center of the plate. A headset and audio help the illusion along, says Ravish Mehra, a research scientist at Oculus.

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In the last two years, diversity practices at major Silicon Valley tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been held under a microscope. The big question everyone seems to be asking is "Why are these companies overwhelmingly made up of white men and what can be done to cultivate more diverse talent?"

To address Silicon Valley’s continued failure to both hire and retain workers of color, a small market of recruitment tech and workplace collaboration applications have cropped up to show them the way—and profit in the process. Call it the "diversity market."

When exactly did a robot or a software application start gunning for your job?

Was it when Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn announced in May that it had replaced 60,000 factory workers in China with robots?

Was it when fast-food giant Wendy’s announced that same month that it would replace cashiers with automated kiosks for taking customers’ orders at its restaurants?

Or was it when global shoemaker and sports apparel firm Adidas said in late 2015 that it would pilot a new automated manufacturing process in a facility called a Speedfactory?

One of the most intriguing public discussions to emerge over the past year is humanity’s wrestling match with the threat and promise of artificial intelligence. AI has long lurked in our collective consciousness — negatively so, if we’re to take Hollywood movie plots as our guide — but its recent andvery real advances are driving critical conversations about the future not only of our economy, but of humanity’s very existence.

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As automation technologies such as machine learning and robotics play an increasingly great role in everyday life, their potential effect on the workplace has, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. The discussion tends toward a Manichean guessing game: which jobs will or won’t be replaced by machines?

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Do you have what it takes to innovate? I'm not talking IQ, degree, or job title.

I'm talking the curious confluence of behaviors that come with the territory of being someone who turns top of the line ideas into bottom line realities.

With a stronger economy and a growing number of women of child-bearing age, Americans should be producing offspring at a healthy clip. But the most recent data suggest that this is not happening, as the birthrate in 2015 dropped to a historic low. A new study from the University of New Hampshire suggests that these trends have resulted in 3.4 million fewer births since 2008, based on the pre-recession fertility rate, or roughly 15 percent fewer births than would have occurred at the 2007 birth rate.

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Living around people with opposing political viewpoints affects your ability to form close relationships and accept other perspectives – and may even change your personality, finds a national study led by a Michigan State University scholar. The findings also could help explain why so many Americans are moving to areas that suit them politically, further segregating the nation into “red” and “blue” states, said William Chopik, MSU assistant professor of psychology.

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Robotic suitcases that follow the owner like a puppy, smart baby feeding bottles that monitor food intake, soil testers for potted plants that send out smartphone alerts about the growing environment – they’re all examples of Chinese innovation. More and more novelties from China’s most innovative companies are now entering mainlanders’ life as many embrace new lifestyles. But a lot of innovative products are being released in a hurry, at the expense of quality, industry insiders and consumers have warned.

After nearly seven years writing this blog, I’ve decided to start work on a book about innovation. While there is certainly no shortage of great innovation books on the market, I feel strongly that the time has come for a different approach and I think there is much I can add to the discussion.

The problem, as I see it, is that most of the literature tends to be narrowly focused on a particular approach, leaning heavily on either a single organization’s experience or a limited set of case studies. These can be very helpful if they happen to describe a problem you’re trying to solve, but absolutely useless when they don’t

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When I started out as a public speaker, I had to hustle to find gigs. I sent cold emails, reached out to old friends and former colleagues, and submitted proposal after proposal to conferences.

But today, 90% of my speaking opportunities come from people who reach out to me first. And one of the best ways I've learned to make that transition is by using LinkedIn strategically. Even if you have your own website, your LinkedIn profile will often rank higher in search results when event organizers start doing their research. Here's how to make sure they find you.

I’ve noticed that most young entrepreneurs are more socially conscious today than ever before, which is a great trend. Unfortunately, some are so focused on this principle that they forget that every business, even non-profits, have to practice the basic principles of capitalism (build a business model to make money) to cover their costs to do good things another day.

In 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) enacted new rules for the regulation of crowdfunding platforms operated by firms authorized by the FCA. At that time, the agency committed to carrying out a full post-implementation review of the crowdfunding market and regulatory framework in 2016. That process has commenced and will soon identify whether further changes are required for UK crowdfunding industry.  As part of the review process, the FCA has published a research document as a point of discussion with industry leaders and other interested parties.  Crowdfunding references debt, equity and other securities including peer to peer lending.

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Uber Technologies, Snapchat and other unicorns snagged the most funding from venture capitalists in the first half of 2016 as the industry sets the pace for another record year. In total, venture investors plowed $40 billion into American startups during the first half of this year, according to a report last week from PitchBook Data, an amount that puts the investments on track to match the $79 billion from venture firms in 2015.

Nobody is born an entrepreneur. Different people take different paths to achieve success, and there is no set-in-stone instruction for becoming one. Entrepreneurs take on a number of different roles and these roles can vary depending on what field you choose to enter.

While there is no perfect guide to entrepreneurship, there are a few steps that should be taken before beginning the endeavor, however. As with most forms of success, one way to achieve your goal is by avoiding mistakes. Following these pieces of advice could prevent you from starting off your life as an entrepreneur on the wrong foot.

John Lemp started his own lawn-mowing business at the age of 14 before building websites and a search engine called Gatewaytothenet -- and he hasn't slowed down since.

In the early 2000s, Lemp created a marketplace where visitors could share instructional videos and build community sites. This eventually lead to his biggest success, or his “baby,” Clickbooth, which outsources monetization via social or affiliate marketing.

LEGO has earned the right to celebrate. Not only are kids playing with more mini LEGO people than there are human beings on the planet but in 2015, they were nominated by Forbes as the most powerful brand in the world. For a company which was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2004, the toy maker has made an amazing turnaround. They restructured, hired a new CEO, and forged more licensing partnerships than ever before. Most importantly, they discovered the secret to some of the world’s most successful, low risk innovation strategies.

These strategies helped LEGO create a powerful brand envied by every other company in the world. However, successes like these are not, and need not be, restricted to global companies with billions in revenue.