I know some entrepreneurs with successful businesses, and others who seem to have a great relationship with their family, but I can’tthink of many who have both. Some people would argue that these two successes are mutually exclusive, but I’m not convinced.

Is equity crowdfunding the right financing option for your business? Accessing capital is vital for almost all early-stage businesses and SMEs. Whether funding comes from a bank, venture capital firm, angel investor, or an obnoxiously wealthy uncle, most businesses will have to access capital at a number of stages in their development in order to keep growing and scale to new markets. The issue in the region is that banks aren’t lending to SMEs, angel investing and venture capital are still maturing, and most of us don’t have an obnoxiously wealthy uncle.

Global venture capitalists invested $56.31 billion in 4,894 deals during the first half of 2015–the lowest number of deals recorded by the Pitchbook blog over a six month period in the last 25 years. The major reason for a smaller number of companies being funded is that venture capitalists are throwing huge amounts of money at a small number of “unicorns.”

Meet the geeks of Teheran-ro - South Korea's own Silicon Valley.

Mr Kim Kang Hak, 33, used to analyse big data for a living, while Mr Regan Hwang's job was to "evangelise" technology.

Both were working for top players in the IT industry - the former at South Korean Web portal Daum and the latter at US tech giant Microsoft. But they have chosen to join the rising ranks of young, tech-savvy talents who ditch safe jobs in big companies to strike out on their own.

When Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis pounced on Australian biotech Spinifex Pharma for $US700 million ($915.69 million) this week, one fact stood out: without federal government funding, this Australian pain therapy innovator may never have made it out of the lab.

Cash is still being thrown at research and development, but after the Abbott government axed the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) scheme in 2014's budget there are no programs to support early-stage funding for Australian start-ups.

The Fourth of July. The day we celebrate American independence. It’s more about our celebrating what we love about our country than it is about winning a war.

Like many who live here I’m proudly American. It is the country that welcomed my forebears when others wouldn’t. My story is different from yours, but the same. We all came from different economic means by relatives willing to risk their lives and their livelihoods to stake out a new beginning in a foreign land that was often not immediately welcoming to people who were “different.”

How should society think about technological innovation? Enthusiastically embrace it? Vigorously reject it, Neo-Luddite style? Worry, but remain tentatively optimistic?

There is an increasingly vocal debate on these questions in the public and political spheres. Technology is being singled out for killing more jobs than it creates, depressing wages, exacerbating inequality, destroying personal privacy—and even for posing a potentially mortal threat to mankind. But is the pace of technological change really accelerating? And if it is, should we be worried, or should we rejoice?

Kids have constructed the world's largest American flag made entirely from LEGO.  It happened at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., and it was built by LEGO master builders and American Innovation, just in time for the 4th of July. 

There were many hands of kids and their families involved (15,000 museum visitors total) in the making of this flag, as instructions provided ways for red, white, and blue sections to be made.  These hollowed-out sections were then all connected together by Dan and Chris Steininger, LEGO "master builders" to form an American flag that has a waving effect and made up of over 100,000 LEGO bricks. 

Image: http://www.gospelherald.com

WITH innovative digital companies bringing new business models and fierce competition to nearly every industry from telecoms to transport, traditional companies are under pressure to step up innovation if they are to grow and remain relevant.

Economist and author Will Hutton has been critically analysing the direction of the British economy for more than 30 years. Speaking at a social sciences research conference at the Millennium Stadium this week, he presented some challenging ideas on how we can reform our economy to better take advantage of the fast changing technologies all around us.

Image: http://www.walesonline.co.uk

The concept of “entrepreneurship education” still has its skeptics, perhaps because what immediately comes to mind are iconic entrepreneurs like Elon Musk or Oprah Winfrey. How could anyone possibly teach an individual to be remotely as influential or visionary as either of those two?

Despite the city’s high rents, professionals in creative fields have migrated to New York in droves in the past 10 years.

Film, TV and advertising gained the most jobs among New York’s creative industries from 2003 to 2013. Publishing has been downsizing.

Image: http://www.crainsnewyork.com

Recent revelations about the firing of American tech workers and their replacement by temporary visa holders reveal, in the starkest way, why many Americans are wary of the impact of untrammeled immigration. Workers in American companies have been removed from their jobs not because they could not perform them, but because their replacements, largely from India, are simply cheaper and, likely, more malleable.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55968903@N00/116510264

The 1930s and 1940s were tough decades for the United States. The Great Depression crippled the economy, and World War II tested the nation's resolve. It was also a golden age for documentary photography. Under the direction of Roy Stryker, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and Office of War Information (OWI) created a remarkable pictorial record of American life with the help of top-notch photographers like Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Berenice Abbott. While shots such as Lange's Migrant Mother and Evans's portraits from impoverished Alabama relay the generation's haunting desperation, images from Fourth of July celebrations show how even the harshest times did not obliterate the country's spirit.

San Franciso: In a nod to its humble beginning in the garage of a Silicon Valley house, Google is building "campuses" around the world intended as fertile ground where entrepreneurs can flourish. A campus that opened last month in Madrid was the fourth such start-up nurturing facility opened by a Google for Entrepreneurs team at the California-based Internet titan.

If you’re not reaching, engaging, and monetizing customers on mobile, you’re likely losing them to someone else. Register now for the 8th annual MobileBeat, July 13-14, where the best and brightest will be exploring the latest strategies and tactics in the mobile space.

Now wrapped up with its second startup class, the Sprint Mobile Health Accelerator has begun prepping for its new mission in 2016.

Instead of focusing specifically on mobile health technologies, the Techstars-led accelerator will broadly welcome startups in all mobile technology. The Kansas City-based accelerator welcomes about 10 startups each year from around the world for a three-month program designed to boost their businesses.

The visibility of Google, Facebook and a few others continues to propagate the myth that the ultimate objective of every entrepreneur should be to take their startups public via an initial public offering at the earliest opportunity. Everyone thinks this is the route to become the next billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Carli Lloyd came up big again. Three times.  And with it came the Americans' elusive third Women's World Cup title.  

BOX SCORE: UNITED STATES 5, JAPAN 2

Lloyd scored a hat trick as the U.S. burst to a four-goal lead in the first 16 minutes, and the Americans overwhelmed defending champion Japan 5-2 Sunday for their record third championship and first since 1999.

Image: http://www.msn.com