“Wharton Entrepreneurship is important both across Penn and Wharton. I think it’s important to the world. We are in the business of helping students launch businesses. And the potential there for taking very smart, talented Wharton and Penn students and having them found companies is that they end up creating employment and economic development and growth across the country, perhaps across the world.”

The recent 12th Annual State of the Research Triangle Region event highlighted the innovation economy in North Carolina and particularly the Research Triangle area as a “smart region.” Particular illustrations included:

Nearly half of the region’s adults are college-educated, well above the national average of 38%. Scores of smart people already call the region home, but it is continuing to attract smart people, with 34,000 people a year moving in.

During its meeting on June 18, 2015, held in Washington D.C., the Board of Governors of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation approved $8 million in funding for ten new projects between U.S. and Israeli companies. In addition to the grants from BIRD, the projects will access private sector funding, boosting the total value of all projects to approximately $19 million.

The BIRD Foundation promotes collaboration between U.S. and Israeli companies in various technological fields for the purpose of joint product development. In addition to providing conditional grants of up to $1 million for approved projects, the Foundation assists by working with companies to identify potential strategic partners and facilitate introductions.

Uber passengers in Istanbul have a whole new way to travel between continents: Speed boats.

The ride-hailing company just announced a new boat service in Istanbul. The service, called UberBOAT, will ferry passengers across the Bosphorus river, which divides the Asian and European sides of the city.

There’s a longstanding debate about whether private equity investors create value for the firms they buy. The evidence shows that PE-backed firms generate strong returns for investors, but they’re often accused of 1) focusing too sharply on short-term results (hurting firms in the long run), 2) loading target companies with too much debt (increasing their risk of going bust), and 3) caring more about cost-cutting (eliminating jobs) than revenue growth. Maybe you remember how savagely the industry was portrayed during the 2012 U.S. election? Suffice it to say that a 2016 Mitt Romney campaign isn’t being championed on Wall Street.

How many of you feeling tired through all the way of traditional startup with venture capital (VC) model? In order to reach a successful business, normally you have to follow this path: one you have the skills, you start pitching your ideas, and you spend a lot of time fundraising. Pitching here and there, going to another VC to another VC, and end up with no or low probability of handshaking. If you really fed up of those cycles, why not consider the venture builder (VB) model?

A small study from Stanford University and the University of California Hastings College of the Law has found patent licensing has little impact on innovation.

The study, based on 188 responses, by co-authors Robin Feldman from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and Mark Lemley from Stanford Law School surveyed 11 industries for whether patent licensing leads to what they called "markers of innovation". These markers are formation of joint ventures, new products or new product features added with the technology they licensed, or whether the patent holder transferred any knowhow or anything else related to the patent license as a result of asserting that patent.

TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/29/15 -- The National Angel Capital Organization released its annual Angel activity report. The report, which is based on a survey of 30 Angel groups across Canada, reveals that these groups made 237 investments in 181 companies, amounting to $90.5 million, with an additional $110.4 million of funding leveraged into the investments.

"We're deeply encouraged by the results of this year's report, which shows that the increasing connectivity of our member Angels is helping to provide Canadian companies with the capital they need to continue growing locally." Yuri Navarro, NACO Executive Director.

Image: http://news.sys-con.com

Acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt announced the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will be opening access to its voluminous federal healthcare data stores to entrepreneurs and other private-sector innovators – a move designed to spur innovation and effect transformation of healthcare. The new policy comes as part of the Administration’s “commitment to use of data and information to drive transformation of the healthcare delivery system.”

Image: http://www.healthitoutcomes.com

The fastest accelerating car in the world is the Porsche 918 Spyder, which can go 0-60 mph in 2.2 seconds. An extremely bold San Francisco startup thinks it can beat that ... with 3D printing.

Divergent Microfactories' 3D-printed supercar, the Blade, uses 3D-printed aluminum joints connected to carbon-fiber tubes to create the frame for the chassis. The company claims a 0-60 mph time of "around" 2 seconds and a weight of 1,400 pounds.

Image: DIVERGENT MICROFACTORIES

On Monday, First Round Capital published a letter it sent to its limited partners about the state of startup investing. It was uncovered by Fortune's Dan Primack.

According to New York's top startup investing firm, things are looking a bit unstable in the private markets. Specifically, First Round Capital notes that every nine days last year, a new startup received a $1 billion+ valuation, and that some of these so-called "unicorn" companies will be exposed as frauds.

Image: Flickr via Loiclemeur

Are you thinking of starting a nonprofit? Need to secure tax-exempt status for your program, club or other activity? Are you reorganizing an existing organization? Did you say yes to any of these questions? Then this information packed session is for you!

The best startup teams don’t shy away from some healthy friction and heated debates between team members or founders. That’s the way smart people with innovative insights make real change happen. Yet we all know that there is a fine line here, beyond which heated debates generate so much emotion and drama that the entire team becomes dysfunctional.

 Millennials now make up a larger part of the population than boomers, according to the latest Census Bureau data.

People who were born between 1982 and 2000, classified as millennials, now make up more than one quarter of the population, at 83.1 million. This is compared with the 75.4 million baby boomers, generally defined as being born between 1946 and 1964.

According to one survey, the average amount of time that some employees spend on personal activities at work is somewhere between 1.5 and three hours a day. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that employers are more concerned than ever about productivity statistics. Nowadays, with technology that allow employers quantify output more closely, it’s no longer the status quo just to show up to work. Managers want employees who are engaged.

Shortly after Lars Rasmussen joined Facebook from Google in December 2010, coworkers, former coworkers, and acquaintances all bombarded him with the same question: What was the difference between working at the two companies?

This was two years after the mass migration of Google employees to Facebook, but engineers still probed him for advice about where they should ultimately decide to work.

Image: Lars Rasmussen

I’ve been reflecting on what it was like each time I started a new venture. We were brimming with excitement, passion and energy. We knew what we were creating was going to disrupt the media industry and make it better, faster, smarter. But maintaining that high has been difficult.

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

When Apple, the Silicon Valley veteran that revolutionised the music industry by unbundling the physical album and allowing individual digital song downloads, announced the launch of Apple Music earlier this month, the implications were immense. The world’s most valuable business was admitting that a six-and-a-half-year-old company started by a 23-year-old from Stockholm had it right all along.

We read a lot about the seemingly 50-plus eight-figure venture rounds happening every day. All those great stories; this Razor-a-Day company raising at $600 million, that Valets-for-Pets company raising at $400 million. And we see a lot of advice on how to put together a good deck, do a good pitch, etc.

Erick Aponte was planning a career in business when his high school math teacher suggested a mentoring program that steers students toward science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Aponte agreed to the change and soon, he was hooked.

He joined the robotics team at his high school in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Started doing homework with his new mentor, an engineer. Began researching top college engineering programs. And four years after entering college, with a degree in electrical engineering under his belt from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Aponte accepted – you guessed it – an engineering job at Raytheon, where he is now a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Image: http://www.usnews.com/