There is no “silver bullet” that will guarantee success in building a national eco-system for commercialised research, a study on the experience in four countries has found.

“There is no one model for all,” said Kirsten Freeman, deputy director, British Council Australia. “Each country has its own context, including political and economic, and cultural, and the entrepreneurial spirit of the country is critical.

H.R. 6, the 21st Century Cures Act, includes vital resources for the National Institutes of Health and important policy changes that will allow America’s most promising scientists and researchers to unleash the next generation of cures and therapies. As Greg Satell writes in Forbes, “science is what made America a technological superpower” and the 21st Century Cures Act would help to “renew our commitment to science and competitiveness.” The Alliance for Aging Research adds, “the pace of scientific discovery since the turn of the century has accelerated at a speed that was not possible a generation ago. (H.R. 6) was developed after the realization by leaders in Congress that the current health care innovation infrastructure needed improvement to accommodate those advances in science.”

 

The Minneapolis Planning Commission will consider designating "Innovation Districts" to boost development. Council Member Cam Gordon has proposed two resolutions tied to the idea, including designating a section of Southeast Minneapolis near the University of Minnesota (see a map of the boundaries to the right) as the first such district.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com

Entrepreneurs and startups often ask if they should select only social media for marketing, or stick with digital media, or just count on traditional media. The answer is yes to all, and the challenge is how to choose how much of each, and how to integrate them for maximum impact and the least cost. None should be considered competitive mutually exclusive to any other.

There are almost 1,000 coworking spaces located across the country, but only a handful offer on-site childcare for entrepreneurs with a second title — Mom or Dad.

Coworking has skyrocketed since the first such office appeared in the U.S. in 2005. Yet, affordable childcare still remains an issue for those seeking better work-life balance.

Good font design can't cure dyslexia. But it can raise awareness.

In his last year as a student at the London School of Communications, designer Daniel Britton was diagnosed with dyslexia. When Britton told his classmates and teachers about his diagnosis though, they just stared at him. They thought he was stupid. They thought he was lazy. They thought he was just slow.

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com

In brand design, the color blue is everywhere. Roughly 60% of Fortune 500 companies feature dominantly blue brand identities. Nearly half of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams sport a blue signature color. The "Big Three" US automobile manufacturers—General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler—are all blue. The same goes for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This makes little sense from the perspective of designers. Differentiation is supposed to be a good thing, but magenta T-Mobile and brown UPS and orange Home Depot look like crazy-uncle outliers against this blue backdrop.

You probably talk too much. And there is a good reason for that. Science says that humans, being social animals, are programmed to use communication as a vital tool to survive and thrive.

This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that science also tells us that our favorite subject to discuss is ourselves. People spend 60% of their conversations talking about themselves, 80% when chatting on social media. The reason, researchers found, was that it just feels good. So much so that Harvard psychologists discovered that individuals were willing to give up money for the opportunity to disclose information about themselves. 

A look at job growth  n America’s small and medium-size cities provides a very different, perhaps more intimate portrait of the ground-level economy across a wider swathe of the country than our survey last week of The Best Big Cities For Jobs. It takes us to many states that lack large cities, particularly in the Midwest and South. In contrast to our big city list, information technology is a driving factor in only a handful of smaller metro areas – grittier sectors like energy and manufacturing are the livelihood of a good many, as well as tourism for a surprisingly large number of thriving places that have become vacation meccas for the increasing number of affluent residents of major urban areas.

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Provo_Downtown_Historic_District.jpeg

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — The University of Northern Iowa has entered a formal agreement with another college to help oversee its patent and business plans.

Officials with both schools say the agreement will create new opportunities for commercializing inventions created on campus, the Iowa City Press-Citizen (http://dmreg.co/1FOwGih ) reported. The University of Northern Iowa earlier this month signed the agreement with Iowa State University.

Every investor in your startup, even friends and family, normally expects a share of your company (equity), which means your return for all your effort goes down quickly. Thus founders seeking funding for a good cause or a new technology often seize on grants from universities, government agencies and philanthropic organizations as free money to solve their problems.

In the U.S. they can visit the directory of government grant alternatives, which is searchable and features more than a thousand federal programs, or more locally the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), with opportunities for high technology startups.  hey can find additional grants from large philanthropic directories, and your favorite alma mater site.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Putting together a killer board is at the top of every founder’s to-do list. But how do you convince top executives to join? Which incentives work best to attract the leaders you need? To find out, we asked nine successful entrepreneurs the following: “What should I consider offering executives to join the board of advisors at my company?” Here’s what YEC community members had to say: 1. Knowledge About Your Business Strategies

Jurassic World, the fourth installment in the successful film series, in theaters June 12, will take viewers back to a world in which dinosaurs have been revived.

It’s not just be a movie, says Andrew Torrance, professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. We are close to “de-extinction” — reviving extinct creatures, he suggests.

While dinosaur fossils are too old and contain too little usable DNA, extinct creatures such as woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, passenger pigeons and even the iconic dodo could be revived in the near term.

Image: Teaser poster of Jurassic World (2015) (credit: Universal Pictures)

A funny thing has happened as the NBA finals reach fever-pitch. Steph Curry helped seal game 1 for the Warriors by scoring eight points in 83 seconds. Meanwhile, LeBron James is doing things in the finals that no one has ever seen.

And yet, everybody seems to be talking about an undrafted backup point guard from Australia named Matthew Dellavedova. This guy has become an unlikely finals hero, and the whole country is enamored with his gritty, gutsy play.

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Entrepreneurs beat long odds when they launch a company, scale it up and sell it to investors. Smith School alumnus Jason Cohen has done it five times in 15 years with brands such as Sensible Portions low-calorie snacks, Rickland Orchards yogurt, SkinnyPop popcorn and Mrs. Thinsters cookies. Now Cohen and his partners are focusing on identifying high-potential startups that need capital and expertise to grow. Their latest project is a jerky company called Chef’s Cut. “If we invest in your business, then we believe it can be a $50 million to $100 million business,” says Cohen, who lives in New Jersey. “And you’ll get a roadmap from an entrepreneur who has been in your shoes.” Part of that roadmap includes the following seven secrets of Cohen’s success.

The last couple of blogs in this series (see Boomers Versus Gallup and Boomer Myths and Misperceptions) may have been perceived as "downers," as we talked about some of the ways pollsters, economists, politicians, and our too-concentrated "mainstream media" have been getting the Baby Boomer generation absolutely wrong - sometimes on purpose.

They've tried to advance political or cultural agendas that seek to push the "Gray Population" off center stage - in the U.S., Europe, Japan, the rest of the Developed World, and China - at the exact moment in history when people over age 50 constitute fully 2 in 5 citizens - and consumers - and voters - in these countries, a statistic that may rise to close to 1 in 2 of their citizens within the next few years.

The idea of a startup studio, a hybrid between a VC fund and a coworking space and an accelerator, is becoming more and more popular. Today, yet another ‘startup studio’ is being announced by founders Nitin Pachisia and Manan Mehta, and they’re calling it the Unshackled Fund.

The duo has put together $3.5 million in funding, as well as 50 of some of the most influential angel investors, VCs and entrepreneurs to provide the most resourceful environment possible to create a company.

Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare unveiled a policy vision for the healthcare industry, which outlines the basic plan for each health sub-sector.

Presented during the ‘2015 Bio & Medical Korea’ held at the COEX Convention Center in Seoul last month, the ‘Healthcare Industry Promotion Plan’ is expected to boost Korea’s competitiveness in the healthcare industry.

WASHINGTON--The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today expressed continuing opposition to The Innovation Act (H.R. 9) as amended and reported by the House Judiciary Committee today, and believes that, without substantial changes, the bill will jeopardize America’s leadership in medical, agricultural and environmental innovation.

BIO consistently has urged Congress to proceed cautiously when addressing any changes to the patent system that could unduly shift the legal balance against legitimate patent owners. Despite some improvements to the bill, the latest version of the Innovation Act remains unacceptable in certain respects, and includes new provisions that require additional careful vetting for potentially negative unintended consequences for patent owners. BIO remains concerned that the bill would impose unreasonable challenges for innovative start-up and other small companies seeking to protect their intellectual property in a timely and efficient manner, and could chill the investment and collaboration that is so critical to the biotech innovation ecosystem.

The value of Africa’s pharmaceutical industry jumped to $20.8 billion in 2013 from just $4.7 billion a decade earlier. That growth is continuing at a rapid pace: we predict the market will be worth $40 billion to $65 billion by 2020 (exhibit). That’s good news for multinationals and pharmaceutical companies seeking new sources of growth as developed markets stagnate. It’s also good news for patients, who have gained access to medicines previously unavailable on the continent. Yet it isn’t enough to know where the industry’s next growth engine can be found. Leaders must also understand what is driving growth, what challenges they are likely to face, and how to collaboratively work with health systems to win in this complex environment.

Image: http://www.mckinsey.com