Predicting who'd be successful in running a business is important to many stakeholders:

• The person deciding whether to become self-employed. 
• The counselors, coaches, and even therapists who help people decide. 
• Job seekers. New businesses create jobs. 
• Society. Successful entrepreneurs create better goods and services, which benefit us all.

In predicting who'd be successfully self-employed, many rely primarily on quantitative research studies, for example, this meta-analysis. And in decades past, as a Berkeley Ph.D , trained to respect rigorous research design, I was among them..

Since 1984, TED has been the most trusted repository of ideas and inspiration on almost every possible subject – be it science, art, business or even global issues. These simple videos don’t just educate and inspire us but are also intellectually entertaining. They have made us realise that ideas have the potential to transcend all barriers, irrespective of gender, race and geography.

Image: TED.com

There’s long been talk in medicine about the need to listen more to the patient voice — and now that mantra is being taken literally.

Academics and entrepreneurs are rushing to develop technology to diagnose and predict everything from manic episodes to heart disease to concussions based on an unusual source of data: How you talk.

A growing body of evidence suggests that an array of mental and physical conditions can make you slur your words, elongate sounds, or speak in a more nasal tone.

From Wedl’s Hamburger Stand in Wisconsin to Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.

A few years ago, $20 seemed like a lot of money. However, these days, $20 can feel like nothing at all. You might spend $20 on your monthly gym membership or a movie ticket, sans popcorn.Luckily, there are still some things to do in the U.S. for $20 or less; you just need to know where to go. Here is a look at some of the coolest things to do on a budget in all 50 states.

Recently, the Harvard Business Review came out with an intriguing commentary entitled “The Unique Value of Crowdfunding Is Not Money — It’s Community.” In it, Ethan Molick — an associate professor at the Wharton School — states that crowdfunding platforms transform “the opaque and oligarchical market for early-stage fundraising into a more democratic, open one. Rather than relying on venture capitalists and marketers to try to project nascent demand for new innovations, creators can directly reach out to customers and communities to refine ideas and gauge interest.”

If robots are going to steal human jobs and otherwise disrupt society, they should at the very least pay taxes. That's the takeaway from a draft report on robotics produced by the European Parliament, which warns that artificial intelligence and increased automation present legal and ethical challenges that could have dire consequences.

The following topics will be under discussion:

• Knowledge creation, technology transfer, experience sharing, national and international cooperation, partnerships – key factors for the successful business development;

• Innovation management – how to manage the knowledge flow in the right direction, how to strengthen links between universities and industry;

• Experience in the creation and implementation of Regional Innovation Strategy (RIS) – smart cities, green energy, social innovation, etc.;

• Role of Universities in competence building for smart growth;

• Role of Science / Technology Parks and Business Incubators in setting-up new companies and acceleration of business development;

I’m not on Instagram, and I rarely use Pinterest. I’m on Twitter, but I’m not very active. My social media of choice is Facebook, where I have a personal account. I tell myself I use it to keep in touch with family and friends who live in other states, but mostly it’s my method of procrastination. I write a lot about productivity, and I’ve done stories about the shot of the feel-good hormone dopamine you get when you check social media and email, yet I didn’t realize how often I went looking for that fix until one of my main supplies was cut off. I had just taken 30 days away from television, and the experience was liberating. I thought a break from social media would be similar—and maybe even easy, but I was wrong.

Image: Oliur Rahman; App Photo: Sony Pictures ("The Social Network", 2010)

The traditional workweek is becoming obsolete.

Thanks to 24/7 connectivity, the boundaries between work and life are eroding, several studies have found. A survey from EY, a global assurance, tax, and advisory services organization, found that 64% of U.S. workers report they’re working two to four hours more a week, and one-third (36%) are on the job an extra five hours or more. No wonder satisfaction with work-life balance is sliding downward as well. Glassdoor’s most recent survey of employee feedback from about 60,000 company reviews revealed a drop in ratings from 3.5 (out of a possible 5) in 2009 to 3.2 this year.

The vote of the UK Electorate to leave the EU has politicians, economists, lawyers and commentators from all sectors speculating on what will happen next and over exactly what period. While it is unlikely that there will be a sea change in the short term, at least legally, it is certainly prudent to prepare for the unknown. Below we set forth some immediate considerations for US companies regarding funding, operations, intellectual property and employment law.

Up-and-coming technology companies are no longer racing to list their shares on public markets. A massive increase in late-stage venture capital has enabled many start-ups to reach valuations of more than $1 billion while remaining in private hands.

Will the tech unicorn go the way of the dodo? It depends on a number of factors. In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partners David Cogman and Kara Sprague talk with McKinsey’s Simon London about why dozens of billion-dollar technology start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are choosing not to go public—and whether the unicorn phenomenon is cyclical or here to stay. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

CIOs, business executives, and board directors need a shared language to discuss IT performance in a fast-changing environment. Here’s a framework for those conversations.

Historically, boards have had a hard time assessing and discussing information-technology spending and capabilities. They associate IT with endless reviews of mammoth, years-long transformation projects or complex explanations by the CIO of ever-changing technologies and system requirements. And they try to decode the CIO’s reports using their first language, which is centered on traditional cost-related metrics, such as head counts and bottom lines.

Silicon Valley is known across the globe as the cradle of tech innovation. Currently, it’s home to startups and the establishment, from Apple and Google to Uber and Slack. More hopefuls beat a path to this locus in the hopes that the cluster effect will bolster their chances of success.

But analysts at Expert Market, a U.S.-based B2B marketplace, posit that Silicon Valley may not be the best place to live and work, even if your dream is to be in the tech industry. Turns out, they weren’t the only ones exploring alternatives.

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."

With Penn State’s recent announcement of the next six communities to receive seed-grant funding through its Invent Penn State initiative, the University’s economic development effort has grown to include 13 hubs for innovation spread across Pennsylvania.

Penn State Altoona, Berks, Great Valley, Schuylkill, Shenango and York were announced as the second wave of grant recipients during a special event at the Capitol in Harrisburg today (June 20).

Envisioned as a way to leverage the University’s size and broad research strengths to help drive job creation, economic development and student career success, Invent Penn State debuted with an introduction by President Eric J. Barron in January 2015.

Image: http://news.psu.edu/

The Great Rebellion is on and where it leads nobody knows.

Its expressions range from Brexit to the Trump phenomena and includes neo-nationalist and unconventional insurgent movement around the world. It shares no single leader, party or ideology. Its very incoherence, combined with the blindness of its elite opposition, has made it hard for the established parties across what’s left of the democratic world to contain it.

After a lengthy chat about the ridiculous high cost of new glasses, four friends from the Wharton School of Business decided to launch their own eyewear retailer company in February 2010 called Warby Parker.

Named after the two characters found in Jack Kerouac’s unpublished journals, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker, the neophyte brand set out to prove that glasses need not be expensive.They began selling glasses for $95, and in four weeks, sold out all of their available 15 styles and gathered a wait list of about 20,000 customers.

Image: http://nextshark.com

The presumptive Democratic nominee for US president, Hillary Clinton, has introduced the first substantive discussion of science and technology policy issues into the election by releasing a technology and innovation plan on 28 June. The plan includes a proposal to grow the research budgets of key science agencies like the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Clinton notes that US federal funding for research and development (R&D) as a share of the country’s GDP is lower than before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. She says increasing funding for these research agencies is key to ensuring that America continues to lead the world in areas like green energy and high performance computing. Clinton also vows to make technology transfer easier and more efficient as president, and she supports setting aside a small portion of federal research budgets for commercialisation capacity building and accelerator grants.

Have you heard of the 40-Year-Old Intern? Or the 50-Year-Old Intern? These are people returning to the workforce after a career break for child care, elder care, or other personal reasons by taking an internship like you might have had out of college or graduate school.

Professional mid-career internships operate on the same principle as any other internship: they provide employees the opportunity to be evaluated on an actual work sample instead of a series of interviews by an employer that might want to hire them. Part work, part training, and part exposure to a company culture to see if there is a match, professional internship programs are short-term, non-binding work arrangements that provide a testing period. For employers or hiring managers that view hiring from the return-to-work pool as a riskier proposition, this trial period lowers the perceived risk.

Over the last decade, the early-stage funding environment has dramatically changed. There are now myriad financing options that founders can consider as they look to build their companies. Nearly 70,000 companies received funding through angel networks and 3,000 through venture capital firms annually, according to CB Insights.

On the most recent episode of Ventured, we spoke with Qasar Younis, Chief Operating Officer of Y Combinator (YC), about the early-stage funding landscape and how entrepreneurs can best navigate the waters of raising capital today. Here are some takeaways from our discussion.