“Between 1996 and 2012, the share of new U.S. entrepreneurs in the 55-64 age group grew from 14.3 percent to 23.4 percent.” This statistic hit me right between the eyes as I started reading “Late-Blooming Entrepreneurs: Eight Principles For Starting A Business After Age 40″ by Lynne Beverly Strang. The first question that came to me was, “What triggered that kind of entrepreneurial surge?” and the possible answer jumped out just as quickly:

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a Montgomery County innovation intermediary is seeking an energetic and motivated life science professional for the role of an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) focused in the Medical Device space. The EIR program was setup at BioHealth Innovation to:

Retain and bring entrepreneurial talent to the Maryland Ecosystem Build sustainable life science startups that will add value within the healthcare system and also build upon the existing infrastructure Connect resources including Institutions, technology assets, people and money within Maryland as well as attract it to Maryland

Inaugural Program Designed to Help Eight Early-Stage Companies Bring Health-Tech Products to Market

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, April 7, 2015 – To capitalize on the region’s significant human capital and resources driving health innovation, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) and ProductSavvy, in partnership with Montgomery County Department of Economic Development (DED), are launching a health technology accelerator program named, “Relevant Health.” The accelerator will consist of a five-month intensive program focused on preparing eight early-stage health-related businesses for pilot product testing and financing. The program is scheduled to launch in September 2015 and will be located in the Rockville Innovation Center, part of the Montgomery County incubator network.

BHI is a public-private partnership that’s been building programs to foster commercialization of health and life sciences assets in the Central Maryland region over the last three years.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the first 26 recipients of the 2014 Regional Innovation Strategies program grants. The Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program, which is being run by the Department’s Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE), is a new initiative designed to advance innovation and capacity-building activities in regions across the country through three different types of grants: i6 Challenge grants, Cluster Grants for Seed Capital Funds, and Science and Research Park Development Grants. Secretary Pritzker announced the recipients of the first two funding opportunities. Recipients of the third grant will be announced in the coming weeks. Read More

When the Japanese computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto decided to create Ruby, a programming language that has helped build Twitter, Hulu, and much of the modern Web, he was chasing an idea from a 1966 science fiction novel called Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. At the book’s heart is an invented language of the same name that upgrades the minds of all those who speak it. “Babel-17 is such an exact analytical language, it almost assures you technical mastery of any situation you look at,” the protagonist says at one point. With Ruby, Matsumoto wanted the same thing: to reprogram and improve the way programmers think.

The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

That’s how former Zappos recruiting strategist Stacy Zapar summarized the online shoe retailer's decision last year to eliminate all of its job postings.

The U.S.-based company has chosen to rely instead on a "Zappos Insider" program that exists on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. It’s intended to draw people to the company and "get to know the people who might like to work for (Zappos) someday."

We have all heard the saying, “Innovation drives success.” As employers, we strive to recruit team members who think creatively, and we strive to develop workplace cultures that encourage unique approaches to industry issues. As staff members, we try to see beyond the confines of the status quo and help our company continue to evolve.

When the first German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the late 17th century, they brought with them all types of traditions, including the Easter Bunny (which they called the Easter Hare) and along with that, a holiday ritual of building birds' nests of grass. The Easter Hare would surreptitiously drop eggs in the nests for children.

Image: This apparatus can be used to lay Easter bunny tracks. It dispenses flour in a pattern that resembles paw prints. The same device can be repurposed for Christmas, when it lays Santa's tracks or reindeer hoof prints. (USPTO) 

Companies today more than ever are feeling the need for internal innovation. Even as demand and business uncertainty increases, the average lifespan among Fortune 500 companies has fallen, from around 75 years to a mere 18 years.

Image: Image credit: Nir | Flickr 

The Wharton Social Venture Fund is showing off Wharton’s social impact side — by becoming the largest student-run platform in the world for investing in socially minded companies.

A few weeks ago, the WSVF, which operates under the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, announced collaborations with Jerusalem-based crowd-funding platform OurCrowdand investment firm Locust Walk Impact Partners.

Image: http://www.thedp.com

Most young entrepreneurs today want to bypass the whole employment thing and go straight to being the boss. Like their heroes — Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, et al — they imagine they can change the world without any on-the-job training.

The reality, of course, is that 99.99 percent of young entrepreneurs aren’t in the same league as those guys. And for people like that, there are a number of very good reasons for pressing pause on the entrepreneurial dream, at least for a few years, to gain the invaluable experience of actually working at a Silicon Valley company.

I’m a big fan of slow, steady progress. I don’t like to make changes in my life that I won’t be able to sustain. When I needed to lose weight, I paid a bit more attention to my food choices, snacked less, and lost about half a pound a week. That’s not much, but keep going and it’s 10 pounds over 5 months.

Since 1986, every innovation workshop I've facilitated has included a poster of Albert Einstein.

Somehow, Einstein's smiling countenance inspires everyone in the room -- no matter what their social style, gender, or title.

The only thing I find more fascinating than this is the incredible amount of powerful quotes he left behind.

Silicon Valley may soon be giving up its throne as the world’s hottest startup scene. And the latest up-and-coming startup hub might surprise you. Though still relatively small in number compared to other parts of the world, African startups are growing in number. Particularly in Nigeria and Kenya, entrepreneurs are starting to gain investors and build viable startups.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

A new report from the Ann Arbor-based Michigan Venture Capital Association shows the sector continues to  ain steam in Michigan as lawmakers in Lansing debate how and if they should continue to provide economic support.

By all metrics, the report shows a much healthier venture capital climate locally, compared to five years ago.

Social media is so pervasive in today’s world that every entrepreneur believes instinctively that they know how to use it for their startup. Many soon find that what you do in a personal context doesn’t necessarily translate to your business, and measuring business value is quite different from measuring personal satisfaction. When it comes to social media for your business, expect a high learning curve, but rest assured it’s not rocket science.

Seventy years ago, Detroit was the technology capital of the United States. Seventy years earlier, at the height of steel's golden age, it was Pittsburgh. During both periods, Steve Case points out, the stretch of California running from San Jose to San Francisco — what we now know as Silicon Valley — was mostly farmland. Its signature export wasn't computer chips or mobile apps. It was prunes.

In other words, the country's innovation landscape shifts over time. Question is, which unlikely city will emerge as the next technology hub?

Image: Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and CEO of Revolution, hopes to spread tech communities across Middle America with grants to startups. (Photo for The Washington Post by Jeffrey MacMillan)

By most definitions of the term, an entrepreneur is someone who starts a new business, incorporating innovative changes to existing products, services, business models, and creating new markets. Yet very few achieve that great aspiration of really driving economic, social, and environmental changes on a global scale.

In mid-march, I had the chance to visit my country, Israel, this time with a delegation of the Inter-American Development Bank, in order to learn about the innovation “ecosystem” that has drawn the attention of so many in recent years. I know Israel very well. Yet, before this trip, I never had the chance to look in detail at the policies that stand behind the Israeli innovation engine.