Cedar Rapids, Iowa, April 21, 2014 – As part of the Obama Administration's new "Made in Rural America" export and investment initiative, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the creation of a new investment fund that will help propel the growth of small businesses across rural America. The new Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC) will now allow USDA to facilitate private equity investments in agriculture-related businesses. Currently, USDA programs exist to help provide loans or loan guarantees to help rural businesses grow, but many small cutting-edge businesses also need equity support in addition to or instead of borrowed funds.

It's time for the country to redefine how it thinks of success, Arianna Huffington told a packed room at Zillow headquarters Wednesday. The founder of the Huffington Post news website was the latest speaker in the online real estate company's Speaker Series. She shared her thoughts on disconnecting from technology, de-stressing and enjoying life — all topics of her new book "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder."

Image: Karen Ducey Ariana Huffington spoke to Zillow employees Wednesday about her new book "Thrive." She favors getting enough sleep, "digital detox" and walking without texting. 

State agencies in New York spent more on research and development than agencies in any other state in FY11, according to data released by the National Science Foundation. The NSF data provides an overview of state agency investments in R&D, broken down by the source of those funds and the types of organizations that eventually performed the research. Ohio, Florida and California also ranked among the top states for total agency investment. West Virginia and Ohio led in R&D investments as a share of state GDP in FY11.

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WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Thursday formally unveiled a new program its officials hope will spur innovation, improve college access and completion, and cut student costs. Yes, that's all it aims to do.

The First in the World competition, as the administration calls the $75 million effort to which it invited applications in today's Federal Register, will award grants of up to several million dollars to institutions (or consortiums of them) to implement or scale up ideas that might advance President Obama's goal of increasing the proportion of Americans with postsecondary credentials. Up to $20 million of the total will be set aside for colleges that meet the federal definition of "minority-serving institution."

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FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored. Surrounded by tempting foods, we overeat, consuming more calories than we can burn off, and the excess is deposited as fat. The simple solution is to exert willpower and eat less.

There are many characteristics of an entrepreneur, and since every person is different, we don’t all have the same ones. The reason I like this chart is because these are the kind of characteristics that can make you feel like you wouldn’t be a successful entrepreneur, but the opposite is more likely to be true. For me, I’ve found that I don’t fit into a traditional corporate structure very well. I’ve done it before, and I’ve been successful at it, but it never felt right.

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Anyone can do some things well, but to become a master at a skill is quite different.

There have been entire books and coaching courses devoted to mastery. Think of Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Outliers, where among other factors, he essentially credits mastery to the 10,000 hour rule (essentially that after that many hours of practice, mastery is achieved and success is the result).

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As most professionals and job seekers know, networking plays a huge role in helping you achieve your career goals. But strong industry connections can be beneficial to entrepreneurs, too: According to a recent survey by Dell and small business community Manta, one in five small business owners made networking their top priority when they first launched their startups.

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My first rule of entrepreneurship is: Know Thyself.

After founding and leading Advanced Diamond Technologies as CEO for seven years, I realized a few years ago that it was time for me to go. My commitment to my cofounders was to put the company first, and I told them that if the day ever came when it made sense for someone else to run the company, they could count on me to do what was right.

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The majority of people today think crowdfunding is a new way to raise capital. What many of them do not realize is that crowdfunding has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years. For example, the Catholic Church has been collecting donations from members in order to fund its operations. The original method of crowdfunding is based on the principal of simple donations.

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Sir Ray Avery says New Zealand's innovators are being held back from global recognition because they are isolated and quiet about their success.

Sir Ray, an award-winning scientist, inventor and philanthropist, told TV ONE's Q+A that New Zealand's half-a-million small businesses could flourish globally if they were more visible.

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Every culture and community puts pressure on its members to follow the norms. Even young people who start out wanting to be different are called “freaks,” and most are slowly bent back into the norm by the time they “grow up.” Maybe that’s why so many entrepreneurs struggle with building a disruptive new business, where breaks from the norm are the key to success.

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A Saudi retail magnate takes a bold, controversial risk by hiring female salespeople. A pair of engineers develop drones that might soon deliver packages to your door. A 21-year old makes virtual reality a reality (and earns $2 billion in the process). A nail artist sparks a global trend.

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For a second there, it looked as if Congress was about to fix the country’s dysfunctional patent system. The House passed a bipartisan bill in December, supported by the White House and a coalition of retail and tech giants, that would have stopped the legal and economic mayhem wrought by so-called patent trolls. The Senate was racing to do the same — and then pfffftttt. Progress ground to a halt in committee last month.

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What’s even harder to endure than the collapse of an economic or technology bubble? The long lull that follows.

The current bubble hasn’t popped quite yet—and it might not, at least not in the sudden and messy way that the dot-com bubble did, in March 2000. What’s just as possible is that that we’ll see a slow leak: a gradual downgrading of expectations about the technology economy—reflected in concrete measures like falling company valuations, lower rates of venture investment and new company formation, and a slowdown in IPO and M&A activity—but without a dramatic crash on the NASDAQ or the NYSE.

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NEW YORK — While AT&T is far from the heady, innovative days of Bell Labs in its prime, the telecom giant is still trying to keep that spirit alive.

Today, at a small press gathering hosted at AT&T’s massive and windowless skyscraper in the Tribeca neighborhood (the company’s former Long Lines Building), AT&T executives and researchers showed off several of the projects under development at its five Foundry innovation centers.

Image: AT&T's Jim Rowland showing off his voice call analytics project Image Credit: Devindra Hardawr/VentureBeat 

If you just launched a company from your apartment last week and are looking for some cash, don't go to knocking on a venture capitalist's door. Venture capital is giving less money to startup companies and putting whopping sums into businesses with a solid customer base and steady revenue, according to venture capital data from the first quarter this year.

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Shark Tank wrapped up its fifth season Friday. The ABC reality series is a made-for-television glimpse into the high stakes world of venture capitalism. On the show, small business entrepreneurs can get an investment into their companies, often at a hefty price.

That hefty price might be a significant stake in the company, a royalty on sales, a loan, or another creative scheme negotiated under the heat of set lights and the prying eyes of television cameras. The deal becomes final after a due diligence process that happens off-camera, according to Success magazine — and some deals never actually close.

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With celebrities like Spike Lee and cutting-edge companies such as virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR turning to crowdfunding sites to raise cash, it may look like an easy route to start-up success. Oculus VR was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in March after raising $2.4 million on Kickstarter.

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I’ve always said that startups are all about execution. Sometimes I encounter self-proclaimed entrepreneurs who have been “thinking” about a concept for many years, and haven’t started yet. Some of these may be visionaries, but none are real entrepreneurs - yet. Elon Musk has built several innovative companies, including SpaceX and Tesla Motors, and is worth about $12 billion. I’m told he spent more time executing than thinking about any one of them.