“Clarity arises in the spaces in between.” Henning Mankell.

I’ve been working pretty hard. I’ve been caught up with various client needs, EOS installations and quarterly meetings, and getting up and running with a few new clients. For Wharton Global Consulting Practicum, I’ve been overseeing MBA teams working on international strategic marketing projects for corporate clients and NGOs. And, as you know, there is always lots of work-related travel. So I decided to recharge my mind and body with a few days of a Clarity Break in Bisbee Arizona.

Clarity Break: a time to put your work aside, pause a bit, and let your mind roam freely. A time to let your mind and body recharge and emerge reenergized and ready for anything.

The Airlander 10 is the largest aircraft in the world, extending 302 feet (92 meters), or 65 feet longer than the largest passenger airline, the Airbus A380 (also called the Superjumbo). It combines the best of fixed wing aircraft technology with lighter-than-air tech to create a brand new, hyper-efficient form of air travel, according to Hybrid Air Vehicles, the U.K.-based company that is building Airlander. On March 23, 2016, company officials announced the Airlander was ready for ground testing before its 200 hours of test flights.

Image: http://www.livescience.com

Biological ecosystems are similar to innovation ecosystems. They both are composed of elements that work in harmony to achieve a balance.

In the case of biologic systems, it includes all living organisms (biotic factors) in an area as well as its physical environments (abiotic factors) functioning together as a unit. It is characterized by one or more equilibrium states, where a relatively stable set of conditions exist to maintain a population or nutrient exchange at desirable levels. The ecosystem has certain functional characteristics that specifically regulate change or maintain the stability of a desired equilibrium state. 

Jennifer Purcell watches intently as the boom of the research ship Skookum slowly eases a 3-metre-long plankton net out of Puget Sound near Olympia, Washington. The marine biologist sports a rain suit, which seems odd for a sunny day in August until the bottom of the net is manoeuvred in her direction, its mesh straining from a load of moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). Slime drips from the bulging net, and long tentacles dangle like a scene from an alien horror film. But it does not bother Purcell, a researcher at Western Washington University's marine centre in Anacortes. Pushing up her sleeves, she plunges in her hands and begins to count and measure the messy haul with an assuredness borne from nearly 40 years studying these animals.

Musicians and actors will often talk about the great lengths to which they go to discover their unique voice. This is essential in entertainment. What is not commonly spoken about is that each of us has their own “voiceprint”. Each person’s voice is as distinct from another person’s as their fingerprints are. Technology has harnessed voiceprints as a means of combating fraud, and this is increasingly becoming the authentication method of choice.

An investment firm targeting seed stage investment in health IT and other software startups is raising a $50 million fund, according to a report by Fortune.

Two of the investors behind Refactor Capital’s fund have worked for Google:  David Lee, who also co-founded SV Angel and Zal Bilimoria, who has worked for Andreessen Horowitz. Rick Barber, the former chief of staff at healthcare analytics company Nuna Health is also listed as investor in the Form D filing on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website. It will focus on West Coast based companies, according to the article.

“Embracing a broader vision of economic development is an economic and fiscal imperative,” Amy Liu writes in her new report, “Remaking Economic Development: The markets and civics of continuous growth and prosperity.” Liu, vice president and director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, continues that “Our nation’s economic competitiveness and social cohesion remain threatened.”

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) was officially designated as the County’s Economic Development Organization by the County Council, marking a big and bold step toward achieving greater economic competitiveness and prosperity in Montgomery County. As the County’s new lead economic development organization, MCEDC is replacing both the County Department of Economic Development (DED) and the Montgomery Business Development Corporation (MBDC) effective July 1, 2016, as the primary point of contact for the local, regional, national and international business community.

At the moment, the Internet of Things has some communications issues.

Unless you shop carefully, you might end up with a smart garage door opener that can’t converse with your security camera, or a smart door lock that won’t talk to your alarm system. The set of connected light bulbs in your hallway might not be on speaking terms with the ones in the living room, and your basement flood detector probably couldn’t get a message through to your smart TV.

Image: The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563) (Artwork: Wikimedia Commons)

The term “Confederation” has entered into Canadian vernacular both as a metaphor for the coutry and for the historical events that created it. This is similar to the American or British practices of naming things "Union" and as the Australians with “Federation.” Confederation represents the joining of different groups of people and their territories, and the birth of a sovereign entity. For almost 150 years, Canadians have been a rough and tumble bunch, whose values include freedom, respect for cultural differences and a commitment to social justice. The “True North strong & free.”

Image: https://www.equities.com

United States equity crowdfunding could double the capital raised this year to generate up to $4billion and 2016 will be the Year of Equity Crowdfunding, industry experts predict.

The growth and potential of the sector has been discussed at the 4th Annual Silicon Valley Crowdfunding event, particularly in light of the latest revision of the JOBS Act. The whole debate can be seen on the CrowdFundBeat website.

Image: http://crowdfundbeat.com

At the office, it's sometimes easier to talk about getting things done than actually doing them. But if you operate that way as a startup, your company could be dead before you ever make a product. 

At GV — the venture capital division of Alphabet (formerly known as Google) — they're perfecting away to get ideas off the ground quickly and help out the companies in their portfolio: companies like Nest, Slack and Uber.

DigitalHealth.London has launched an accelerator programme to help small and medium-sized enterprices (SMEs) develop digital healthcare systems.

Over the next three years, the accelerator programme aims to help 30 companies develop and innovate in the digital health sector.

The programme will help companies get in front of clinicians to tailor the products to what the healthcare sector needs and navigate the complicated healthcare system. This includes opportunities to showcase their technology to NHS trusts and learning how to deal with sensitive patient data.

The OHEA smart bed automatically makes itself just three seconds after you get up. In 50 seconds, it straightens your pillow and duvet, making itself automatically. The company sells its own bedding to work with the bed, so you won't be able to use your own. It's just a prototype though, so it's not currently for sale. 

Investors packed Y Combinator's prestigious Demo Day on Tuesday to listen to startups pitch their business. But those pitches had a different tone than they did six months ago.

Suddenly startups are talking about profitability and highlighting the gross margins on their business from the beginning. There's no more talk of "still being in growth mode" or jokes about burning through cash.

On his historic visit to Cuba, President Obama has focused on entrepreneurship and how to promote small business growth there. Here & Now’s Robin Young talks with Patrick Hidalgo, a principal of the strategy firm Future Partners. His parents fled Cuba for Miami in 1961, and he’s now in Cuba focusing on bringing entrepreneurship to the country.

Image: (Alexander Schimmeck/Flickr)

In the early 1930s, cars in Europe were still a luxury for the rich. But in 1933 Dr. Ferdinand Porsche launched the People’s Car: Volkswagen. Its purpose was to enhance people’s lives through great engineering that offered everyone an accessible, high-quality car. The purpose behind the People’s Car resonated throughout the 20th century, and Volkswagen grew and prospered.

Do you know what people worry about most at work? We asked them, and across 27 countries, the resounding answer was the fear of becoming obsolete.

An Oxford study has shown that 47% of jobs are highly vulnerable to automation in the next decade, so that fear may be justified. (It doesn’t help that the first hotel staffed by robots opened this year in Japan, eliminating scores of jobs.) Add to that regular news reports of dismal quarterly earnings, layoffs, downsizing, and outsourcing and it’s easy to see why almost half of the people in our survey are actively concerned about job security. 

A brood of sidewalk drones could be rolling around the nation’s capital within a year, if a D.C. Council member has her way.

Executives from Starship Technologies, with roots in Estonia and London, say their goal is to unleash a platoon of “smart, friendly robots” that will ply sidewalks along with pedestrians to make local deliveries of groceries or small packages “almost free.” The company is led by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, and launched the effort in November.

Image: Company photo of Starship Technologies driverless delivery robot

Dear SBIR Insider,

Long time readers know I usually try and shoot the news to you straight and unvarnished. Late last summer I suffered a stroke and it tuned my world upside down. Trying to recover from this "well deserved" malady took 100% of me for many months, and now I'm at a point to be active again. During all this fun, I still had a company to run and now I'm able to get back to a "new normal" that will allow me to restart/update the SBIR Insider and the SBIR Gateway.

There are a lot of important issues to report on and it is too much for one Insider edition, so expect a few SBIR Insiders to follow in the coming weeks.