As part of the Energy Department's commitment to drive clean energy innovation and boost American industrial competitiveness, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Dr. David Danielson today announced the launch of the Manufacturing Innovation through Energy and Commerce (MITEC) pilot in four states—Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia. The program will provide small businesses access to the advanced tools, technology transfer expertise, and research capabilities of the Energy Department's national laboratories and to the technical assistance and business development resources of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which is a program within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The world’s developing economies have dominated purchasing power economic growth over the last 35 years, according to the most recent gross domestic product (GDP-PPP) per capita data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This article summarizes economic growth for three periods, including from the earliest IMF data (1980 to 2015), the intermediate 2000 to 2015 period and the more recent 2010 to 2015 timeframe. The full data is available on the Demographia website, at http://www.demographia.com/db-imf2015.pdf.

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There’s an old saying in neuroscience: neurons that fire together wire together. This means the more you run a neuro-circuit in your brain, the stronger that circuit becomes. This is why, to quote another old saw, practice makes perfect. The more you practice piano, or speaking a language, or juggling, the stronger those circuits get.

The ability to learn is about more than building and strengthening neural connections. For years this has been the focus for learning new things. But as it turns out, the ability to learn is about more than building and strengthening neural connections. Even more important is our ability to break down the old ones. It's called "synaptic pruning." Here’s how it works.

I’ve never understood why so many business employees still think it’s fashionable to display a negative attitude about their work and never seem to find a job they enjoy. They don’t realize that they are their own worst career enemies, since promotions and new opportunities always are offered first to people who proclaim to be productive winners, rather than sound like losers.

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I’m standing on a dark platform at the edge of a maze of gray walls, where two guides are helping me into my gear. They place a bulky helmet crammed with a virtual-reality headset, headphones, and gesture-recognition hardware on my head, and help me strap a modified laptop to my back.

The guides step away. I stare through my headset at a blue-lined digital abyss. Suddenly, the endless space in front of me opens up with a virtual sizzle of electricity, revealing the entrance to an ancient temple, hidden deep in a lush jungle, where ancient carvings and forgotten treasures await my inspection.

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Open innovation is “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation and expand the markets for external use of innovation.” It’s a model for industrial innovation that I originated in my 2003 book, Open Innovation. Since that time, the concept has been adopted by most large companies in the U.S. and Europe and cited in thousands of academic articles.

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Every day, entrepreneurs make the commitment to stake huge amounts of time and money on building businesses in sectors that they believe would benefit from their viewpoint. But delve deeper into their plans and many struggle to articulate how their new venture will fundamentally challenge the way things are done.

That matters because if you are not entering a sector to turn it upside down, then chances are you are dooming yourself to being just another participant. Whether you like it or not, the world doesn’t need another coffee maker, another airline, another telco … in fact, another anything. What the world needs is a coffee maker that redefines how coffee is made or mark

The first time that a startup raises capital is normally called a ‘seed round’. Other names include angel round or HNI round.   Some even call it a pre-Series A round, but this term usually refers to a small interim fundraising exercise between the seed round and Series A. In the seed round, dilution of the founder’s equity (i.e. the amount of ownership that he or she will have to give up) is a function of (a) the quantum of funds that the startup is looking to raise, (b) where the startup is (in terms of traction), and (c) where the funding will take the business. 

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New crowdfunding rules taking effect Monday will allow anyone to invest in startups — not just wealthy people.

The change overrides a longstanding Securities and Exchange Commission requirement that investors backing private companies be "accredited," meaning they make at least $200,000 a year and have a net worth of $1 million or more (excluding their home).

Now startups raising money through online crowdfunding portals will be able to sell shares to people regardless of their wealth or income so long as the founders have submitted annual financial reports to the SEC. In exchange, companies can raise up to $1 million.

Currently there is an increasingly widespread tendency to value the more ‘technical’ aspect of learning with regard to the worlds of education and work. As a result subjects that will help in the world of work are studied with the aim of being useful for training without taking into consideration that many key discoveries that have changed the history of the world were made thanks to creativity and curiosity.

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One of the biggest myths I have found in the entrepreneur community is that every startup needs one or more outside investors for credibility and success, and perhaps is even entitled to at least one. They don’t realize that according to statistics from Startup.co, almost 60 percent are funded with personal savings and credit, and another 25 percent get their money from friends and family.

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In case you missed it, the press yesterday ran several stories questioning the viability of a wireless charging company I invested in called uBeam. Obviously my day turned out very differently than I had anticipated when I woke up, but it wasn’t half as bad as the entire team at uBeam must have felt yesterday.

At what stage should I pursue angel investors, and what level of preparedness do I need for initial conversations?

Happy to help, though this is a pretty involved topic. Here are some thoughts:

Everyone wants to see some form of customer traction/market validation. In order of preference (1-2 are GREAT, 3-6 are OK, 7 doesn’t move the needle much, #8 don’t bother):

Bought product and use it Paid pre-orders Got product for free and use it Got product for free Registered for product Requested information/Clicked through to learn more based on marketing activity Responded positively to survey (n > 50 in real target segment vs. my Wharton classmates like it) “Everyone I’ve talked to loves the idea” Angels these days are behaving more and more like VC’s (while some still just write checks, that is for VERY warm introductions and/or serial entrepreneurs).

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“Danger, Will Robinson” may be the most famous three words ever spoken by a robot on television. But the fake peril of 1960s science-fiction show Lost in Space pales in comparison to the sense of loss about to be felt across the global economy due to job displacement caused by software and automation.

That was the bottom-line conclusion shared by Martin Ford at the second session of the World Forum for FDI in San Diego on April 5.

In many ways, the city of Seoul is both a blueprint “how-to” guide for smart city development and a petri-dish for technological experiments. Almost every aspect of public life in Seoul is guided by technology, from its integrated public transport system to the government’s emergency warning system.

Companies like Microsoft, Cisco and LG are just a few of those making technology omnipresent in the South Korean capital. It’s a constantly evolving process and when you think of a new “smart city” technology, it’s most likely that Seoul did it first – and probably some time ago.

How’s the Philadelphia area doing in angel investment? Pretty good, but could be better.

This seemed to be the consensus during one of the sessions of the 2016 Angel Capital Association Summit, which brought together investors like Glenn Rieger of NewSpring Capital, Ira Lubert of Independence Capital Partners and Richard Vague of Gabriel Investments for a discussion on the state of the investment scene in Philadelphia.

Image: Panelists at the 2016 Angel Capital Association Summit. (Photo by Roberto Torres)

Everyone makes mistakes at work. But some people’s errors in judgment have huge implications, resulting in public firings or forced resignations. Even people who make serious mistakes have to earn a living. How do you recover professionally from a terrible error in judgment?

First of all, recognize that you’re not alone. In December 2015 the New York Times reported that many of Wall Street’s best and brightest attended a fundraising dinner at the Hilton’s New York Grand Ballroom. The keynote speaker was Michael Milken.

In an era when a professional baseball team team employs a director of decision science, when a football team hires a brainy baseball exec to run its shop, and when an annual gathering sponsored by MIT morphs into one of the most important confabs in all of sports, it was only a matter a time before a college kid could major in sports geekdom.

On Wednesday, Syracuse announced it would become the first U.S. university to offer a bachelor of science degree in sports analytics.

Image: John Korduner—Sportswire/AP The campus of Syracuse University before a game in Syracuse, New York, Sept. 26, 2016.

If a new employee is going to quit, chances are it will happen within the first six months. More than 40% of turnover happens within the first month, and another 10% or more leave before their first anniversary, according to a study by Equifax Workforce Solutions. That means it’s more important than ever to engage them from day one.

"There is a direct correlation between effective onboarding and employee retention and engagement," says Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer for iCIMS, manufacturer of talent acquisition software. "Ninety-one percent of (first-year) employees are retained in companies that have a formal onboarding program, but of those who don’t, just 50% are retained."

Want to know what disruption looks like? Take a look at this video of a few Australian guys beach-fishing for tuna with the help of a drone.

The squid bait was loosely dangled from the drone, which whizzed out to sea, its camera easily finding the fish in the seawater as its operators watched on an iPad. Before long, they guide the drone to plant its bait in front of the fish, and wham—a successful take. The drone then even filmed the entire catch.

Now, if I were a charter boat captain for sport fishing, I would be seriously worried. My method of doing business may have to change to incorporate a similar experience, or sooner or later I may be out of business.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com