Nevada once again leads the nation with the highest unemployment rate, but its 9.3 percent rate in October is the lowest in five years.

Nationwide, nine states and the District of Columbia had measurably higher unemployment rates than the national rate of 7.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said in the first state-by-state unemployment report since the federal government shutdown ended.  

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The British crowdfunding platform Seedrs, which offers investors equity rather than “perks”, has become the first of its kind to open shop across Europe.

Seedrs officially began its UK operations in July last year. The firm is unusual in that it holds the shares in the startups crowdfunded through its platform, on the investors’ behalf as a nominee. According to CEO Jeff Lynn (pictured), this makes life much easier for the startups when they want to raise venture funding in the future, as VCs aren’t crazy keen on companies that have hundreds of early-stage investors – try getting all those people to sign the necessary paperwork, for a start.

As you may expect from a prestigious-yet-rebellious company like Google--where where recruits from top 10 colleges provide tech support --the question of management is tough for people on either side of the hierarchy.

Back in 2002 they wiped away their management layer in an attempt at becoming a totally flat organization. The idea was to strip away barriers to idea development and allow for a more grad-school type collegiality. But the experiment soon ended: folks were coming to Larry Page with questions about expense reports and interpersonal conflicts. And so they were left with a conundrum of just how to manage with management--one which HBS professor David A. Garvin helps us see the resolution of.

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You can use your phone to figure out your heart rate, track how much you walk, and even measure your sex life. But the powerful sensors inside smartphones can do more than keep you updated on your health: They can also turn your body into a password.

EyeVerify is a small Kansas City–based security company. Its core product is biometric eyescan software for smartphones. Every person has a unique pattern of blood vessels in their eyes. These blood vessels contrast with the whites of the eyes so clearly that they can always be read, even when there's a lack of light. The best part? Those blood-vessel patterns can be photographed by phones and turned into unique data signatures which can be used to replace or supplement traditional passwords. “We turn a picture of your eye into a key that protects your digital identity,” says EyeVerify CEO Toby Rush.

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Google is making one of its biggest moves yet into the business of providing Internet infrastructure, installing a fiber-optic backbone to dramatically improve connectivity in Kampala, Uganda.

The calculus is simple for Google: the more that people do online, the better its core business of selling Internet ads can be. That’s why the company has been stringing fiber-optic connections to homes in Kansas City and other U.S. cities and has toyed with the idea of launching fleets of balloons or blimps that could beam wireless Internet access down to rural areas throughout the world.

Image: http://www.google.com 

Today, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) publish its FY 2014 Economic Development Assistance Programs Federal Funding Opportunity on grants.gov.
 
Under this FFO, EDA solicits applications from applicants in rural and urban areas to provide investments that support construction, non-construction, technical assistance, and revolving loan fund projects under EDA’s Public Works and Economic Adjustment Assistance programs. Grants and cooperative agreements made under these programs are designed to leverage existing regional assets and support the implementation of economic development strategies that advance new ideas and creative approaches to advance economic prosperity in distressed communities.
 
The first funding cycle of FY 2014 is covered under EDA’s FY 2013 Economic Development Assistance programs (EDAP) FFO.
 
The next four funding cycle deadlines are:

·         December 13, 2013 for funding cycle 2 of FY 2014;
·         March 14, 2014 for funding cycle 3 of FY 2014;
·         June 13, 2014 for funding cycle 4 of FY 2014; and
·         October 17, 2014 for funding cycle 1 of FY 2015.

Please see the Federal Funding Opportunity for more information.
  

The 2013 World Series of Innovation generated submissions from students in nine countries leading up to Global Entrepreneurship Week! Enter your email above to get updates for the 2014 World Series!

As another November fades into our rearview mirror, we are again reminded that the phenomenon of entrepreneurship is not something that belongs to any one particular community or country. Economies that have been historically less supportive of capitalism—like Venezuela or Iran—are seeing the rise of strong entrepreneur-led startup communities. And equally as important, those communities are bolstered by increasing support from policymakers, academics, investors, media and other startup champions.

I’ll confess up front: I have terrible posture. It’s been bad since I was in high school at least, and probably for even longer than that. It’s one of those things I keep in the back of my mind as something I know I should do, but never get around to, like eating more vegetables and sending more postcards.

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Ever wonder what makes the Google the holy grail of productivity and creativity? There's no magic in the drinking water at the Mountain View, CA company. The tech giant draws from what Google's chief social evangelist, Gopi Kallayil, calls the nine core principles of innovation.

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When it comes to being productive, we are a nation obsessed.

Look no further than the launch last February of email-management app Mailbox, which allows users to put off dealing with certain emails until a later date while prioritizing others. Email--that great productivity destroyer--was transformed into a productivity enhancer. Almost immediately, nearly 1 million people joined a waiting list to receive the app, and on March 15, before it was even available to the public, Dropbox acquired Mailbox for a reported $100 million.

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Last week, The New York Post ran the kind of heart-rending article tabloids excel at. A young woman, new to New York, found herself pushed beyond what she could bear, forced to work by a big bad corporation for a compensation of exactly zero.

“I cried myself to sleep at least three nights a week,” Lisa Denmark told The Post.

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It began with the anchovies, miles and miles of them, their silvery blue bodies thick in the waters of Monterey Bay.

Then the sea lions came, by the thousands, from up and down the California coast, and the pelicans, arriving in one long V-formation after another. Fleets of bottlenose dolphins joined them.

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According to a report by English-language news agency for Israel and Middle East Haaretz.com, the venture capital sector of Israel has been seen falling behind in a race to capitalize on the surge of the high-tech industry in Israel.

Founder and chairman of research firm IVC Online and of Giza Venture Capital Zeev Holtzman said, "Israeli VC funds are in a slump in terms of the amount of capital managed. Only a handful will manage to raise new funds in the next year or two. Foreign funds will fill the resulting vacuum."

Innovation is messy. It lurches forward in a heartbeat, then retreats and often flames out, hardly lending itself to endless corporate measurement protocols.

So how can big companies protect their intrapreneurs and create the wide-open spaces that will foster the Next Big Thing?

As Hillshire Brands Co. moves into new product categories, it’s giving cover to innovators, even when they fail.

When researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute began surveying alumni to assess how their project-based curriculum impacted their students in the long term, they simply hoped to see that students did well after graduating. That appeared to be true. But what also emerged was evidence that WPI's approach to engineering education appeared to be substantially more effective for women, suggesting that a project-based curriculum may boost female success in the science, technology, mathematics and engineering fields.

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Some people follow a straight, smooth career path from graduation to retirement. Most of us, however, don’t take this route. We follow a path where it’s not always clear which way to go.

I’ve been there. At first glance, my resume may seem odd. I’m a former running coach who has helped create postage stamps, DVDs, books and corporate training programs. Today, I’m a growth developer for a tech startup. The common thread: I love building things, whether it’s a high-functioning team or a killer website.

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You already may be familiar with the concept of return on investment (ROI) in a business context. When evaluating a project, initiative or expense, leaders want to know what costs to expect compared to the benefits anticipated over time. This is the ROI.

But have you heard this same concept applied to your career… your “career ROI”?

I recently attended training where all of us (as participants) were asked to actually, literally write down and figure out what personal return on investment we receive (or don’t) from our individual careers. If the ROI is low, then we need to re-evaluate and make some changes.

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Even though the unemployment rate for college graduates is now lower than the overall unemployment rate, you may be finding yourself in a job search long after you retired the cap and gown.

How do you increase your chances of finding a job after being unemployed for an extended period of time?

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Security is an ever-present constant for any business, and in spite of the fact that it is often underrated, it has the capacity to present a relentless danger to an organisation whether the threats are from within, or external to the business. So how should startups go about managing this vital component of their business?

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