Barack Obama had once said, "if women were put in charge of every country for the next 2 years, the results would be gains". If the US ex-President has this conviction on a woman's abilities to lead a country, imagine the wonders he believes she can do for her own business! To inspire more women to take on the role of an entrepreneur, to get them accustomed to the on-ground and sometimes harsh realities of running your business,

Image: https://www.timesnownews.com

Every entrepreneur has a unique set of skills that are a great asset for their business. But expertise and knowledge can only get you so far. Sometimes, you need help from technology. We've rounded up 10 top-rated tools to help streamline your business operations.

Image: Image credit: Entrepreneur Store

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the risks inherent in the global supply chain, particularly the worldwide reliance on China for medical supplies. The supply chain turbulence experienced during the pandemic undoubtedly will impact future business decisions, extending beyond medicine to other industries, including electronics, aerospace, automobiles, defense, consumer products, and technology.

For roughly the past half century, the middle swath of America has been widely written off as reactionary, backward, and des tined for unceasing decline. CNBC recently ranked the “worst states” to live in, and almost all were in what is typically defined as the Heartland.1 Paul Krugman of the New York Times sees the region populated by “jobless men in their prime working years, with many suffering ‘deaths of despair’ by drugs, alcohol or suicide.”

If you talk to ten people about what it takes to be an effective leader, you will get ten different answers. Every person has a different point of view about leadership and what traits make for a good leader. People usually assign leadership to position, but as Donald H. McGannon, who ran Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation and served as president of the National Urban League, said: “Leadership is action, not position.”

Family offices have invested in venture capital funds and startups for many decades, and in the 10 years to 2019, the pace accelerated sixfold, according to a new report from SVP Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, in partnership with Campden Wealth Research.

Last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told employees that many of them would be able to work from home indefinitely…even after the risk of COVID-19 subsides. That prompted us to take a look at how the pandemic might make working remotely the rule rather than the exception for our health care and life sciences clients. Most of our Deloitte colleagues have been working remotely since the middle of March. Back then, many of us expected that we (and our clients) would be back in our offices after a brief stretch working out of our temporary home offices. Our home offices have since taken on a feeling of permanence.

As an angel investor and a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs, I’m always disappointed to see founders who seem stressed out most of the time, and more annoyed than energized by the abundance of challenges they see in building their startup. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is a tough one under the best of circumstances, and it’s one you have to love in order to succeed.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

From the sunny weather to the iconic Sydney Opera House and plenty of beaches to visit, Australia is the best place for Americans to move to next.

Business Insider recently ranked the best democratic countries to move to after the pandemic based on five metrics, including weather and how expensive it can be to live there. You can read more about our method and data sources here. Based on our metrics, we found Australia to be the best place for Americans to move to next.

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., announced a bill to increase Federal investment in research and development (R&D) by $80 billion over nine years, and make “American Innovation Centers” in metropolitan areas the recipients of the funding.

Image: Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks during May 14, 2019 hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. (Photo: Dwight Weingarten)

You might have a sniffle and be done. You might run a fever with a cough and unshakable fatigue for five days—or 10. Or you might end up in a hospital, gasping air into congested lungs, an immunological storm raging in your body. And you might not make it through COVID-19 alive.

This week, we returned to the overarching story of the pandemic: the twin imperatives of saving lives and livelihoods. Our latest research builds on reports we published in April and May 2020, and on recent academic findings that the stringency of national lockdowns is not well correlated with changes in GDP. In our new report, we find that successful control of the virus is the key to unlocking the economy, by restoring the confidence consumers need to reengage in economic activity. In countries that have successfully controlled the coronavirus (“near zero” countries), economic activity (in the form of discretionary mobility) has returned to normal; in those that have not (“balancing act”), it is still about 40 percent lower than before the pandemic (exhibit).

When it comes to venture capital, one could argue that wealthy families created the whole industry. Some of the oldest venture firms were developed as the investment arms of wealthy families – from the Phipps family (Bessemer Ventures) to the Rockefellers (Venrock). In Europe, prominent banking and investment families such as the Warburgs, Rothschilds, and Wallenbergs have had direct and indirect exposure to venture investments for centuries.

The law that governs the migration of skilled workers into the United States, the Immigration Act of 1990, has been mired in controversy for most of its 30 years and has seen little improvement since its passage. President Trump’s recent threats to limit temporary visas for skilled foreign workers predictably led to a rehearsal of familiar arguments: Leading tech firms claimed that limiting the temporary H-1B visa will severely hinder their ability to fill labor shortages for STEM talent. Others claimed that foreign workers, especially in entry-level IT positions, displace U.S. workers at lower pay. 

The pandemic has affected all our professional and personal lives, but Babson student and alumni entrepreneurs are undeterred. They have continued to build their businesses, take advantage of opportunities, and take their businesses in new directions when the times call for it. Read on for a few updates from our community:

As people have more time to reflect upon their careers while we go through a period of high unemployment numbers, there are growing opportunities in franchise and small business ownership, making it the ideal time to consider entrepreneurship.

Countries around the world are implementing measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, from national quarantines to school closures.

Several countries (like Spain, Iran, Italy, Denmark, Israel, and Germany) that previously imposed restrictions are beginning to lift lockdown measures. But results have been mixed. 

Tom Malone refused to believe that watercooler conversations were dead just because so many people were suddenly working from home during the pandemic. He knew that random workplace chatter can help people build trust and form bonds. And as a researcher who studies technology and organizational design, he says, “it seemed obvious to me that there should be ways to support informal interactions” at virtual conferences and in online workspaces.

OKLAHOMA CITY – Twenty-nine health research projects proposed by Oklahoma scientists received funding support totaling $1.248 million for FY 2020 from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology after they were approved Tuesday by the agency’s governing board.

The Oklahoma Science and Technology Research and Development (OSTRaD) Board approved Oklahoma Health Research Program proposals ranging from ways to prevent Type 2 diabetes, eye disease, reducing mortality in older trauma patients and exploring strategies to reduce the rate of suicide, and other significant health issues.