On the connection between time and happiness:

I research people’s happiness, and what I’ve found across the work is that time plays a critical role. For instance, I’ve looked at what is the effect of merely drawing people’s attention to time, as opposed to our other resource of money. How does that impact people’s levels of happiness? How do age and, more specifically, the amount of time people feel like they have left in life influence both how people experience happiness, as well as the types of experiences that elicit greater happiness?

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that their scientists have successfully transmitted 1.8 kilowatts of power wirelessly to a receiver 170 feet away.

The distance isn’t large but it is a small proof of concept that will be essential if the agency’s Space Solar Power Systems (SSPS) program is ever going to be a reality.

"This was the first time anyone has managed to send a high output of nearly two kilowatts of electric power via microwaves to a small target, using a delicate directivity control device," a spokesman for the agency told AFP.

Gaining new customers is always a priority. But that doesn't mean keeping your existing clients happy isn't also high on the to-do list. Keeping your startup's churn rate steady—and low—is critical.

So what's going wrong when those numbers take a turn for the worse? I polled 10 entrepreneurs from YEC about the surprising things that could negatively effect a company's churn rate, so you can learn how to up your game.

VIENNA, Austria — Electric cars? Driverless cars? Yawn.

At the Pioneers Festival in Vienna today, a Slovakian startup called AeroMobil unveiled the thing that we have all been dreaming about since we saw that first episode of the Jetsons while still wearing diapers:

The flying car.

It’s here. It’s real. And it’s spectacular.

Image: Chris O'Brien

Could Greater Washington be one of the big three in biotech beside other market leaders like, say, Boston? That was certainly the rallying cry Monday as CEOs and a few hundred entrepreneurs, academics and government types packed into MedImmune's auditorium in Gaithersburg. MedImmune, the research and development arm of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), was hosting the first Maryland Regional Biotech Forum to chart a course for elevating the region's reputation into the top three by 2023. The event was also hosted by the Tech Council of Maryland and BioHealth Innovation Inc.

Image: Martine Rothblatt is CEO of United Therapeutics Corp was one of several executives at the Maryland Regional Biotech Forum on Monday discussing how the Washington region could become a top U.S. biotech by 2023.

Technology has failed to make the world flat after all.

Every ounce of logic says technology should have whipped geography by now—flattening the world, in Thomas Friedman’s lexicon, by allowing people to live anywhere and still engage in the global economy. If technology was living up to its promise, more and more people should be moving out of cities to tele-work from charming small towns and lakeside cottages.

When TalentBin first started to take off, and we realized how fast we needed to build our sales team, we made a landmark choice: Instead of hiring seasoned sales execs out of the powers that be in the recruiting world (think CareerBuilder, Indeed, and so on), we focused all our energy on landing new, hungry grads out of high-caliber universities like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and more — with preference to athletes and others who had demonstrated grit and success on a team. We also looked for proactive junior staff out of companies like LinkedIn who were ready for the next step, but not afforded the opportunity.

Last week, the Close School’s Entrepreneurship Living-Learning Community traveled on an experiential field trip to Silicon Valley to meet with startups, network with founders and get the inside scoop on what it takes to make it in any valley.

Here’s some advice from the trenches.

Image: http://www.drexel.edu

Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk. Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked.

The Association of University Research Parks (AURP), the world’s leading network of university research, science and technology park professionals, invites you to share your knowledge, expertise and experience by presenting at the 2015 International Conference in Buffalo, New York. This year's theme is C3 – Connect, Collaborate, Create. 

Overview

Proven engines for economic growth and development, university research parks influence their communities in significant ways. AURP’s 2015 annual conference, hosted by the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, will feature experts who will examine university research park best practices and the strategies which will develop a knowledge-based economy by increasing ties between university research parks, government and industry partners. 

Biopharmaceutical venture capital investment climbed from $4.52 billion in 2013 to $5.29 billion in 2014, a 17% increase, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Joel Marcus, chief executive of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., has been in biotech since its early days. From 1984 to 1994, he had a law career with expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry that included time as general counsel and secretary of Kirin-Amgen Inc., a joint venture between Kirin Brewery Co. and Amgen Inc.

Image: Joel Marcus, CEO of Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc.

Legendary hedge fund manager Steven Cohen is starting a venture capital fund. 

According to a report from Bloomberg News, Cohen's Point72 Asset Management has started a unit called Honeycomb Ventures that will "mainly invest in growth equity opportunities."

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

In his new book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, Kevin Carey lays out a dystopian future for American higher education as we know it. Colleges and universities will cease to exist, with the exception of perhaps "15 to 50" of them, and will be replaced by the "University of Everywhere," which will provide "abundant and free" educational resources that for centuries have been locked up in the monopoly enjoyed by universities. The reasons for this revolution? Carey ascribes his predictions largely to the availability of massive open online courses and the coming revolution in badging, or microcredentials.

MassChallenge, a Boston-based startup accelerator program, has been ranked among the top 20 accelerator programs in the country, according to a study by MIT researchers. The accelerator program was ranked No. 12 in the the Seed Accelerator Ranking Project, compiled by three researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

This year was my second opportunity to serve as a judge for the Wharton Venture Awards.  In addition to working with a great team of fellow judges to select the award recipients, I also have the opportunity to continue to follow the progress of the students. After last year’s program, I was able to act as a mentor to one of the recipients, Katlyn Grasso, CEO and Founder of GenHERation. The progress she has made on GenHeration is amazing and I was thrilled to learn that Katlyn had recently been awarded the University’s “President’s Engagement Prize” which not only validates her business proposal but also provides funding to help her actually build her business. As an active angel investor, supporting young entrepreneurs and celebrating their successes is one of the most rewarding aspects of being involved in the early-stage ecosystem.

Image: http://beacon.wharton.upenn.edu

Crowdfunding is all the rage these days, and it makes sense. There are many potential benefits, such as the prospect of developing an enthusiastic base of early adopters before there's even a product for them to hold.

But it's not as straightforward as it seems, and your success will depend greatly on your execution and your industry. To help improve your chances of a successful campaign, I asked 10 founders from YEC what everyone should know before trying to crowdfund a new technology product.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (March 18, 2015) — Startup founders can learn the same skills that the creators of game-changing companies such as Chipotle, Dropbox and eBay have used to build their enterprises.

These skills are the focus of what Amy Wilkinson, author of The Creator's Code, shares in the latest installment of the Kauffman Sketchbook video series released today by the Kauffman Foundation.

Image: http://www.kauffman.org

Many pundits give President Obama’s budget proposal little chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Congress. In fact, the House and Senate budget blueprints have set the stage for a likely veto struggle. Dysfunctional, hyper-partisanship may continue to rule Washington, but at least one very important part of the budget is cause for hope: federal investments in science and technology innovation.

Image: President Obama shows off a wooden snowflake made using advanced manufacturing techniques. Reuters

When you’ve already built the must-have luxury emissions-free vehicle, are sending rockets into space, are building a gigafactory to re-charge the battery industry and have proposed something called a hyperloop to whoosh people back-and-forth at 800 MPH, what can you possibly do to generate any excitement about your next crazy idea?

Over the next five years, the number of Internet of Things devices will grow nearly tenfold — from 2.5 billion in 2014, to nearly 24 billion by 2019, according to BI Intelligence estimates.

However, one of the biggest barriers currently preventing widespread IoT adoption are security concerns. Business executives, government officials, and consumers are rightly worried that by installing IoT devices within their business, city, or home they are exposing themselves to a hacker who could either use their IoT device in a malicious way and/or steal the data associated with the device.