Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Get ready to have your mind blown.
I was seriously shocked at some of these mistakes in thinking that I subconsciously make all the time. Obviously, none of them are huge, life-threatening mistakes, but they are really surprising and avoiding them could help us make more rational, sensible decisions.
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In the new EU program to support science and research – Horizon 2020 – there are over € 70 bln of funding in the coming sever years for the EU states in their efforts to assist both researchers and entrepreneurs in creating innovative products and services.
Today ARPA-E announced $27 million in funding for 14 new projects aimed at finding innovative ways to lower the cost and improve the efficiency of power electronics. These projects are part of a new ARPA-E program called SWITCHES, which is short for “Strategies for Wide-Bandgap, Inexpensive Transistors for Controlling High-Efficiency Systems.”
Cisco Chief Technology and Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior explains how the process of innovation has changed over the past few centuries, from the era of the sole inventor, through the rise of corporate labs, to the modern period of open innovation. Warrior also notes the important challenge of working across domains to maximize innovation potential.
Entrepreneur Matthew Rabinowitz says the key to retaining early customers is bringing them into the product design and iteration process to deepen emotional connections. Rabinowitz also touches on why great marketers and sales people are truly worth their weight in gold in the early days of a venture.
If you are leading a class and imagine that students seem more distracted than ever by their digital devices, it's not your imagination. And they aren't just checking their e-mail a single time. A new study has found that more than 90 percent of students admit to using their devices for non-class activities during class times. Less than 8 percent said that they never do so.
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Coffee is a much-beloved morning staple, but it's nice to cozy up to something different every now and then.
If you're looking to try something new, consider swapping your espresso for Moroccan mint tea or your mocha for white hot chocolate.
Image: mashable.com
Being on the TV show “Shark Tank” was a lot like pitching venture capital investors in Silicon Valley, said Charles Yim, founder and chief executive of iPhone breathalyzer maker Breathometer Inc.
“The only difference is all the lights and cameras, and you get your own trailer,” Mr. Yim said.
The Burlingame, Calif.-based company became the first startup ever to receive accolades and financial backing from all five “sharks” on the investing-themed ABC Television show when Mr. Yim pitched it in front of millions of TV viewers last month, he said.
Image: Breathometer, Inc.
The world’s richest countries are increasingly offering tax benefits to encourage multinational companies to invest in research and development, at the expense of innovative SMEs, according to a new report.
"Supporting Investment in Knowledge Capital, Investment and Innovation," a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), found that 27 of the organisation’s 34 members provided tax incentives to support business R&D during 2011, more than twice the number offering such incentives in 1995.
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The day before 60 Minutes aired Dick Cheney’s segment with Dr. Sanjay Gupta with a clip showing his -like concern over assassination by wireless medical device, Medtronic (MDT) released a statement reiterating its dedication to maintaining the security of its devices. The timing of such a statement–right after a promotion of a former vice president saying one ofHomeland‘s most shocking plot lines could pose a real threat–seems worth noting.”The security risk specifically for implantable cardiac devices is low, because of the communications used with these devices,” the release states.
Maybe we’re tired of the crusty baby-boomers’ business model, or maybe we just have more resources and technology available to us. Whatever the deciding factor, it’s a fact that an unprecedented amount of recent college grads and undergrad students are forming their own startup companies.
But between classes, current jobs, student loans and that ever- important social life, staying focused on your startup can be challenging. The best way to keep your entrepreneurial dreams in sight is to develop habits. Developing the right productivity habits and, more importantly, making sure those habits stick will help you stay focused on your startup even during finals week.
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The idea of getting in a workout before a big presentation at work might seem counter intuitive. Surely you should be spending that time prepping for the meeting…right? This approach worked for all of your finals in school!
The evidence, though, shows that exercising is beneficial for presentation or big meeting prep. Why?
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Smartphones are set to take center-stage in mHealth, complimenting traditional stand-alone mHealth monitoring. A new report from UK-based Juniper Research predicts the next five years will see a major advance in smartphone-based mHealth, where hardware attachments link to a companion app on a smartphone.
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Canterbury in particular offers an ideal example to corroborate the claim that healthcare IT integration works best if accompanied by an integrated overall approach to medical care, as reported in HIMSS Insights.
Plans were already in place to install a centralized shared medical record that could be accessed from information systems of care providers, hospitals, and the community nursing agency but progress was slow. Then came February 2011 and New Zealand experienced one of the worst earthquakes in generations – many general practitioner (GP) paper-based archives were either lost or temporarily unavailable but Canterbury hospital’s electronic documentation remained accessible all the way through.
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A system used to track shipping vessels worldwide has been shown to be easily hijacked. Researchers found that it is possible to cause fake vessels to appear, real ones to disappear, and to issue false emergency alerts using cheap radio equipment.
There is one certainty about the current regulatory process for drug approval in the United States and Europe: No one likes it.
Manufacturers are frustrated by the need for large, complex, and lengthy clinical-development programs that often hinge on meeting a single endpoint in one pivotal clinical trial. As a result, the cost to bring a drug to market has been estimated to be well over $1 billion — and it may be much higher. Patients and providers are disturbed by lack of timely access to medicines that show early promise in addressing significant unmet needs. Even regulators, who are responsible for enforcing the current structure, chafe at what manufacturers typically present to them: successful trial results in patients who are carefully selected to show the drug offers benefits but who are not very representative of the broader population likely to receive it. Payers then have a mess on their hands: pressure to pay for premium-priced medications that, when broadly employed, don’t offer much therapeutic benefit over existing alternatives.
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While crowdfunding has received considerable positive fanfare since the JOBS Act was passed in April 2012, there has also been considerable criticism leveled against the industry covering both the companies trying to crowdfund and the investors funding them. Below are the three concerns that I hear most often as CEO of CircleUp, and what we do as a platform to mitigate these concerns.
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Cleveland Clinic is in the midst of its annual Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit today at the new Global Center for Health Innovation. More than 1,100 entrepreneurs, investors, executives and clinicians have gathered for a show and tell of new ideas in the medical world. Cleveland Clinic Chief Information Officer C. Martin Harris talks about how the health system stays nimble on the innovation front.
Technical glitches have plagued the new health insurance exchanges since their launch on Oct. 1. But in a blog post Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it’s called in the “best and the brightest” inside and outside government to fix the issues. In addition to what it called a “tech surge,” HHS said it’s adding new tools to monitor and identify problem areas so it can better prioritize and address them. Since the launch of HealthCare.gov, the agency said nearly half a million applications for coverage have been submitted.
Dartmouth’s first condensed accelerator program, “3 Day Startup,” took place this weekend, with student teams brainstorming, planning and pitching technology startups. Students collaborated across academic backgrounds to go through the initial process of starting a technology company.
