Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced Friday a partnership between the commonwealth and The MITRE Corporation to utilize emerging technologies and encourage innovation throughout Massachusetts, according to a Friday press release.

The partnership, called the Massachusetts Innovation Bridge, will establish relationships with schools, scholars and companies working to “enhance federal agency missions,” the release stated.

Image: On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced the Massachusetts Innovation Bridge, a new government-funded program that will create research centers as part of a partnership between the commonwealth and The MITRE Corporation. PHOTO BY SOFIA FARENTINOS/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The last thing a new entrepreneur wants to think about for a new startup is how it will end. Yet one of the first things a potential equity investor asks about is your exit strategy. The answer you give can make or break your ability to get an investment, so you need to have the right answer ready before anyone asks. Here are three important reasons for the question:

Apple’s dismal earnings announcement shows why it badly needs to rethink its innovation model and leadership. Its last breakthrough innovation was the iPhone — which was released in 2007. Since then, Apple has simply been tweaking its componentry, adding faster processors and more advanced sensors, and playing with its size — making it bigger in the iPad and smaller in the Apple Watch. Chief executive Tim Cook is probably one of the most competent operations executives in the industry but is clearly not a technology visionary. Apple needs another Steve Jobs to reinvent itself otherwise it will join the ranks of HP and Compaq.

Image: https://www.washingtonpost.com

Startups fail all the time. For the founders of these businesses, it can be heart-breaking. But if the right lessons are learned, it can also be a profoundly insightful experience.

Of course, the best possible outcome is not to fail at all and build a successful, scalable business. And the best way to do that is to know what common pitfalls to avoid. Don’t get us wrong, there’s still room for failure in that model, but it’s at least the right kind of failure. Forewarned is, after all, forearmed.

All the latest trends in the professional arena of the nation seem to point to the popularity of one particular field, which is registering staggering numbers by the day.

Unfazed by the huge risks, potential pitfalls, unstable prospects and unsure future, many youngsters are taking to entrepreneurship in a big way. The success stories of ventures like Ola, Flipkart, Zomato, Makemytrip and many others have led many to believe that entrepreneurship holds many a career prospects.

“We should all jump off cliffs as often as possible,” advises Gordon Ritter, a founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Emergence Capital. Ritter gave the keynote speech at Princeton University’s Keller Center’s Innovation Forum in February and that was some of his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. The Forum is designed to showcase research that has the potential to be commercialized. Teams compete to present their research in three-minute pitches to an audience that includes angel investors, venture capitalists, staff, faculty, students and members of Princeton’s entrepreneurial community.

School was never fun for me, thanks to undiagnosed ADHD. But in eighth grade, I made an astonishing discovery: I could leave class! When I simply walked out one day and no one called me back, I suddenly realized I could do whatever I wanted. So I skipped 50 percent of my classes.

Yes – I definitely failed grade eight, but I still think skipping school was incredibly valuable to my development as an entrepreneur.

Pitching a startup to investors can be a harrowing experience — but things become even more complicated when presenting a hard-to-describe technology company. For startups pitching ideas that make a direct impact on consumers, value can be tangibly communicated. This whets potential investors' appetites because it's easy to picture the potential.

If academic discoveries turn out to be wrong, one drug company wants its money back.

That’s the tough-minded proposal floated today by the chief medical officer of Merck & Co., one of the world’s 10 largest drug companies, as a way to fix the “reproducibility crisis,” or how many, if not most, published scientific reports turn out to be incorrect.

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

Biopharmaceutical research has never been for the faint of heart. For small biotech companies working on the absolute edge of innovation, one clinical trial can literally mean the difference between closing up shop or commercializing a breakthrough, life-saving medicine. And even for big pharmaceutical companies, setbacks have always been inevitable – the nature of discovery means that success comes only after years of trial and error.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

A simple blood test to detect early signs of cancer. A noninvasive way to screen pregnancies for common genetic conditions. An app store for your genetic information. Illumina, a San Diego-based gene-sequencing hardware and software behemoth with a market capitalization of $22 billion, is working on all these initiatives—and more.

Over the past few centuries, the world has become increasingly globalized. Immigrants are pouring into developed countries like the US, where many jobs pay higher rates than in their home markets.

As migrants shuffle around the globe, they have family members and friends back home who they continue to support through cross-border money transfers, called remittances.

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Israel Aerospace Industries’ Harop drones are designed to home in on the radio emissions of enemy air-defense systems and destroy them by crashing into them. IAI says the weapon is an “autonomous platform” but offers a “man-in-loop attack” mode. Critics argue that systems like the Harop are precursors to fully autonomous weapons that will make targeting and attack decisions without human intervention.

Image: http://spectrum.ieee.org

PRESS RELEASE: Health Datapalooza VII Features Remarks by Vice President Joe Biden

A Hybrid Conference and Internet Event Hosted by AcademyHealth May 8 - 11, 2016 Onsite at the Grand Hyatt Washington DC in Washington, DC Online in Your Own Office or Home Live via the Internet with 24/7 Access for Six Months

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BISMARCK – Frustrations boiled over Tuesday as lawmakers scrutinizing North Dakota's angel fund tax incentive ran into information roadblocks and struggled to see how the state's economy is benefiting from the lucrative income tax credits enjoyed by angel fund investors.

"I'm extremely concerned about this. It does not smell right," said Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck.

Image: State Reps. Mike Nathe (left), R-Bismarck, and Craig Headland, R-Montpelier, listen as tax department auditor Joe Becker compares the angel fund tax credit programs in North Dakota and Minnesota on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, at the state Capitol in Bismarck, N.D. Photo by Mike Nowatzki / Forum News Service

For decades, Sales and Academia remained worlds apart and the business world did fine. But Sales is changing, Academia is out of touch, and this is bad for business and the academy.

Compared to professions like engineering or business disciplines like Finance or Operations, the concept of a dedicated salesperson is relatively recent. Sales was traditionally seen as a form of service work, with an emphasis primarily on developing moral character. The Order of United Commercial Travelers, for instance, was founded to “improve character and instill temperate habits,” and Gideon bibles were originally put in hotel rooms to help “eliminate gambling, drinking, dirty jokes, Sunday trading and other forms of temptation peculiar to traveling (sales) men.”

Executives and entrepreneurs from all over the world have traveled to Silicon Valley to learn the secrets of its success. But in our conversations with executives about what they’ve learned, we’ve seen a tendency to focus on superficial elements rather than on the root causes of companies’ success. Sure, speed and boldness are important, but what is it about the culture of these companies that cultivates them? We decided to do a little digging ourselves.

Excitement has been bubbling across Australian organisations of late, with the feeling Australia is on the verge of a bold new future driven by the promise of innovation. Innovation is being encouraged across the country, from the Turnbull Government’s Innovation Statement to the Victorian Government announcing its new Innovation Expert Panel soon after launching its $60 million innovation fund and LaunchVic, the independent body to look over the fund.

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy.

Image: https://bothsidesofthetable.com

BENGALURU: Latest government initiative of start-up hub, launched to support the Start-up India Scheme has got an overwhelming response from the help seekers with over 400 calls every day. This start-up hub program comes up with start-up portal and mobile app, which in return has been a blessing in disguise for the Government as there is an inundation of ambitious entrepreneurs who are needed to be managed.