The modern world is about how innovations and technologies can make our lives easier. As a society we keep finding ways to disrupt our current constructs and by redefining how we experience the world. These are the very ideals that Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair represents. It is about finding young would-be scientists, engineers and technologists who can disrupt our way of thinking, open our eyes to new things and create innovative solutions with multiple applications.

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A.T. Kearney's Global Cities Index (GCI) examines a comprehensive list of 84 cities on every continent, measuring how globally engaged they are across 26 metrics. The companion Emerging Cities Outlook (ECO) complements the GCI by analyzing the likelihood that 34 cities in low- and middle-income countries will improve their global positioning over the next 10 to 20 years. By focusing on the elements that contribute to the generation, attraction, and retention of global capital, people, and ideas, the GCI and ECO can be powerful tools in the hands of policy makers and business leaders.

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Contrary to popular belief, it’s much harder to build scale in a business than to start one.

Like most successful entrepreneurs, Parikshat Laxminarayan started off his entrepreneurial journey by noticing a gap that he knew could be filled by anyone determined enough to throw down some cash and chase the dream. During his MBA at INSEAD, he travelled to his native India with several classmates and while there, one of them observed that what he’d experienced in India was vastly different to what he’d expected. The classmate experienced a clean, green and vibrant country; which broke his stereotype of India as hot, poor and dry – which of course is true of many parts of the country. Laxminarayan spotted a business opportunity in that observation!

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VIVEK WADHWA: Not long ago, you could see your competition coming. What you had to worry about most was a new entrant within your industry that had a simpler, lower-priced product. To stay ahead, you could either improve your product’s functionality or build new products that extended the range and value of your offerings. Management guru Clayton Christensen coined the term “disruptive innovation” to describe how competition worked: a new entrant attacked a market leader by launching low-end, low-priced products and then relentlessly improved these. Christensen created several frameworks to help incumbents defeat emerging competitors as they saw them coming.

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Indians are fed up with government inaction and corruption.  They want accountability, better education for their children, improved health care, and economic prosperity.  And they want change now. Technology-led solutions may be the only way for India’s new government to rapidly uplift its population.  Large-scale government programs and social welfare will take too long. Here are seven ways technology can help:

Image: Technology will pave the way to happiness and prosperity. (Sanjeev Gupta/EPA) 

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate voted today to confirm Jay Williams as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development.

As head of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), Jay will be responsible for fulfilling the agency’s mission of leading the federal economic development agenda by promoting innovation and competitiveness, preparing American regions for growth and success in the worldwide economy.

Mindfulness. Zen. Acem. Meditation drumming. Chakra. Buddhist and transcendental meditation. There are countless ways of meditating, but the purpose behind them all remains basically the same: more peace, less stress, better concentration, greater self-awareness and better processing of thoughts and feelings.

But which of these techniques should a poor stressed-out wretch choose? What does the research say? Very little – at least until now.

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Do you know how to make good coffee?

In days gone by, after your internship you would not only how to make good coffee, you would be worthy of a top spot as a barista at any Starbucks.

But that’s the internship stereotype of the past, when an internship was often regarded as a peon position… a person on whom to dump your unwanted tedious projects and your errands. Now, I say “of the past” because in recent years interns have made strides into becoming recognized as valuable contributors and resources well above and beyond their coffee-making, photocopying, and filing skills.

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A 300-teraflop supercomputer named Deepthought2 will now power research at the University of Maryland. Housed in the institution's new 9,000-square-foot Cyberinfrastructure Center, Deepthought2 was developed with high-performance computing solutions from Dell and will support advanced research activities ranging from studying the formation of the first galaxies to simulating fire and combustion for fire protection advancements.

A program aimed at helping small and midsize companies grow is being expanded with the hope it will allow existing companies to extend their roots in the community.

The Economic Gardening program, which was launched as a pilot program last year to help 22 existing businesses reach the next level, is expanding to assist 25 more companies, and local officials hope the program can become a permanent fixture in the local economic development toolbox.

Image: Reid Dulberger, president of EDGE, was joined by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and County Mayor Mark Luttrell in announcing the expansion of Economic Gardening. (Daily News/Andrew J. Breig) 

Once upon a time, an automotive company was started with a bold dream: to usher in a new era of motorized transportation. This company would employ thousands of people, from a CEO down to the factory floor. This company would generate tremendous economic gains for the surrounding communities — and the nation as a whole. This company would come to symbolize American innovation and capitalism, creating radical new business models and products that would define an industry and a nation.

Short height and long life have a direct connection in Japanese men, according to new research based on the Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program (HHP) and the Kuakini Honolulu-Asia Aging Study (HAAS).

“We split people into two groups – those who were 5-foot-2 and shorter, and 5-4 and taller,” said Dr. Bradley Willcox, one of the investigators for the study and a UH Mānoa Professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine’s (JABSOM’s) Department of Geriatric Medicine. “The folks that were 5-2 and shorter lived the longest. The range was seen all the way across from being 5-foot tall to 6-foot tall. The taller you got, the shorter you lived.”

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Flextime programs have never been more popular than they are today. Google allows many employees to set their own hours. At Microsoft, many employees can choose when to start their day, as long as it’s between 9am and 11am. At the “Big Four” auditing firm KPMG, some 70 percent of employees work flexible hours.

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Who’s right — the “sustainable advantage” traditionalists or the “transient advantage” challengers?

They both have something useful to say. Let’s borrow some language from political philosophy and think in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Okay – what’s the thesis?     

Start with Michael Porter. His most brilliant insight was that companies compete on a bundle of connected, mutually reinforcing activities and resources. That bundle allows the company to create value in a way that can’t be imitated. (Ikea, for example, has figured out how to get customers to pay more than you might expect for furniture that they have to assemble themselves…thus keeping IKEA’s costs low.

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GE is an icon of management best practices. Under CEO Jack Welch in the 1980s and 1990s, they adopted operational efficiency approaches (“Workout,” “Six Sigma,” and “Lean”) that reinforced their success and that many companies emulated. But, as befits a company that has been around for 130 years, GE is moving on. While Lean and Six Sigma continue to be important, the company is constantly looking for new ways to get better and faster for their customers. That includes learning from the outside and striving to adopt certain start-up practices, with a focus on three key management processes: (1) resource allocation that nurtures future businesses, (2) faster-cycle product development, and (3) partnering with start-ups.

Private Equity (PE) has always been a fast-evolving industry, and 2014 is proving no exception. Early forecasts for U.S. growth in 2014 were quickly tamped down in the first couple of months of the year after fourth-quarter 2013 GDP numbers came in lower than expected (a 2.4% annualized rate versus the 3.2% forecast). With once-stalwart emerging market economies now sputtering, hopes have been dampened some for new PE investments, and emerging markets will not support many portfolio company sales.

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This year’s Wharton Business Plan Competition (BPC) featured a number of “better, faster, cheaper” ways to complete tasks by moving processes online, including hunting for an apartment, buying an annuity and figuring out which colleges to apply to. Of course, not every entry fit that exact model: There were also plans focused on the use of drones for surveying oil and gas pipelines, screening tests for serious eye disease and ways to perfect the fine art of sandwich-making.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net   

The number of startup accelerators setting up in the Arab world is growing apace, you might even say accelerating.

Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator that has invested in more than 300 companies globally, has tied up with Jordan-based telco Umniah to launch a chapter in Amman.

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While tech entrepreneurship continues to be dominated by men (see Cheryl Snapp Conner’s piece), women appear to be playing a larger role in the crowdfunding ecosystem.

Note that Sally Outlaw, included in this article, is one of my clients.

There is a growing list of influential women leading the crowdfunding industry. Sara Hanks, CEO of CrowdCheck, Jilliene Helman, CEO of Realty Mogul, Jenny Kassan, CEO of Cutting Edge Capital, Lesley Mansford, CEO of Razoo, Sally Outlaw, CEO of Peerbackers, Danae Ringelmann, Co-founder of Indiegogo, Joy Schoffler, CEO of Leverage PR, and Joanna Schwartz, CEO of EarlyShares will all join me for a live discussion about the crowdfunding industry.

Image: http://www.forbes.com 

In late April, business partners Tommy Up and Sarah Brown put out an offer: Pitch in to help them open a tiki bar called the Yachtsman in Fishtown, and reap rewards ranging from a private party to your name engraved on a bar stool (plus the right to evict other patrons from said stool).

Brown and Up - who is also the owner of PYT, a Northern Liberties eatery that is in the process of franchising its format of wacky burgers and boozy milkshakes - said construction overruns had cleaned them out. So, rather than seek a loan or bring in a partner, they decided to cash in their social capital via Kickstarter, an online crowdfunding platform through which anyone can donate, and funds are collected only if the target goal is reached.

Image: http://www.philly.com