Last week, the Financial Post sat down with Jérôme Nycz, executive vice-president of BDC Capital, to talk about the state of venture capital in Canada. BDC Capital is a subsidiary of the Business Development Bank of Canada, and offers venture capital, equity as well as growth and business transition capital for businesses and entrepreneurs. This interview has been edited for length.

As the first quarter of 2015 draws to a close, it’s clear that the venture capital industry is evolving.

Since 2005, thousands of new millionaires have been minted by the IPOs of Alibaba Group, Lending Club, Go Pro, Box, Zendesk, Facebook, Pandora, Zynga, Linkedin, Homeaway, Zipcar and countless others.

Big challenges require big solutions and few institutions are better suited to create them than global research universities. Unfortunately, there are few truly entrepreneurial universities. Yes, most have technology transfer offices. Yes, most have a mission of research, service, education, and patient care. Yes, most see themselves as innovative. But, when it comes to reaching beyond and creating impact in society, few hit the mark.

It pays to be first. Being the launch city for Google Fiber, has moved Kansas City to the front of the line in the innovation economy. Thanks to super-fast consumer Internet service (and now commercial service too), the Midwestern city has seen a wealth of good tech news.

Most young tech companies can feel lucky if they get accepted into one business accelerator. Madison health IT start-up Redox, founded in July 2014, has been chosen for two.

Co-founders Luke Bonney and James Lloyd are at DreamIt Health Baltimore, an entrepreneurial boot camp co-sponsored by The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Redox is one of six start-ups chosen from more than 100 applicants in a booster program that started in January and wraps up in May.

Image: http://host.madison.com

Some startups seeking angel investments have an extra advantage – they’ve already received money from the federal government and started developing their products before angel money is needed. Funds from Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants are especially interesting because they do not dilute ownership by founders or investors,  and they work in concert with angel funds to build startups’ success.  Additional funds for product development combined with zero dilution is an angel investor’s dream for better and faster returns.

Bertolt Brecht

If you’re looking for an innovation revolution in your organization, don’t look for more money or more places to spend money.  Don’t look for activities or tactical interventions or things to do.

Look for heroes.

Between the ravages of ObamaCare, excessive government regulation and myriad other instances of executive overreach by the Obama Administration, it’s easy to see why so many consider the United States Constitution to be under assault from many different directions. One threat to the integrity of this foundational document does not come from government, but nonetheless has the potential to weaken a crucial Constitutional goal and stifle American innovation. “Patent trolls” and unscrupulous trial lawyers are taking advantage of a convoluted litigation system to threaten and extort from businesses both large and small, to the detriment of the Founders’ vision. Stopping them must be the next battle in the quest for substantive tort reform.

Imagine being able to download a full-length 8GB HD movie to your phone in six seconds (versus seven minutes over 4G or more than an hour on 3G) and video chats so immersive that it will feel like you can reach out and touch the other person right through the screen.

That’s the vision for the 5G concept — the next generation of wireless networks — presented at the Mobile World Congress show last week, according to re/code. Here’s what it will offer:

Image: http://www.kurzweilai.net

Researchers at University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) have created a material made from nanofibers that can stretch to up to seven times its length while remaining tougher than Kevlar.

These structures absorb up to 98 joules per gram. Kevlar, often used to make bulletproof vests, can absorb up to 80 joules per gram. The researchers hope the structures will one day form material that can reinforce itself at points of high stress and could potentially be used in military airplanes or other defense applications.

Image: SEM micrographs of a coil fabricated from aligned nanofibers (credit: (credit: Mahmoud Baniasadi et al./ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces)

It’s a common occurrence in the startup world: A critical decision has to be made, one that will affect everything that comes after it, and may determine the fate of the company. It could be a decision whether to let a partner go or invest in a new technology. But the founder won’t consider all the options, even refusing to make what to virtually everyone else seems like the right decision.The startup flounders for a while longer. Then it fails.

Entrepreneurship, at least as a cultural phenomenon, is booming: Witness the flood of television shows, movies and even Barbie's latest career move. Meanwhile, entrepreneurship education programs have exploded, and support organizations such as incubators are springing up like wildflowers. Even so, real rates of entrepreneurship in the United States remain in long-term decline, and we have seen only a tepid recovery since the Great Recession.

The importance of having a mentor is often stressed to entrepreneurs who are just starting out, but what do mentors really teach you? Entrepreneur Nick Smoot shares what he's learnt from the people who shaped his life...

A common challenge faced by every entrepreneur is that they don’t have the bandwidth, interest or skills to do everything that is required to build their startup. Of course, they can outsource part of the work or hire employees, but that approach means more time and money to manage the work, which they don’t have. The right answer is to find a co-founder with complementary skills.

What is any major American city if not an industrial gallery bustling with people and machines? Sometimes the images are bleak, as with the photo essays that often circulate of Detroit’s beautiful ruin; sometimes they are defiantly hopeful, as with those of the rising of New Orleans; and sometimes they are almost unfathomably monumental, as with the images here of New York City, circa the 20th century—or a great good bit of it, anyway.

Image: http://www.openculture.com

Could you draw the ubiquitous Apple computer logo from memory? Probably not, as it turns out.

In a new study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, UCLA psychologists found that almost none of their subjects could draw the logo correctly from memory. Out of 85 UCLA undergraduate students, only one correctly reproduced the Apple logo when asked to draw it on a blank sheet of paper. Fewer than half the students correctly identified the actual logo when they were shown it among a number of similar logos with slightly altered features.

Image: http://scienceblog.com

Many physicians are exploring new, different business opportunities by stepping into the entrepreneurial arena. While they offer a very specific and dynamic perspective clinically, the transition might not be as easy as one might think.

Arlen Meyers, Co-Founder, President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, shared his point of view on the subject recently in a blog post titled “Don’t Throw Away Your White Coat.” While he clearly has a strong association with the transition, he does find that there are some distinctions concerning why this isn’t always a good idea.

Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a new set of rules implementing Title IV of the JOBS Act.

These changes affect Regulation A small public offerings, and are colloquially referred to as “Reg A+”.

The release of these final rules further advances one of the core principles and goals of the 2012 law: to create an environment where emerging enterprises can raise public capital efficiently.

If you've been relying on password meters to determine how strong your passwords are, we've got some bad news. Their strength measurements are highly inconsistent and may even be leading you astray, according to a new study from researchers at Concordia University:

In our large-scale empirical analysis, it is evident that the commonly-used meters are highly inconsistent, fail to provide coherent feedback, and sometimes provide strength measurements that are blatantly misleading.

I am here today to talk to you about the importance that patents and academic technology transfer play in company formation, job growth, economic development, and ultimately the new products and services that make our world better.

It seems quite appropriate first to quote from Abraham Lincoln, speaking in 1860:

“Next came the patent laws. These began in England in 1624, and in this country with the adoption of our Constitution. Before then any man [might] instantly use what another man had invented, so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this, secured to the inventor for a limited time exclusive use of his inventions, and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery and production of new and useful things.”