Dave Kahng is a mechanical engineer who noticed a problem with umbrellas: they are far too disposable. He felt that if a person didn’t lose their umbrella first then it would quickly break and become useless in just a few outings. So he set out to create a better umbrella. The result is Davek.

Davek is a company that is serious about umbrellas. These are no cheap temporary accessories. Davek umbrellas are designed to have a high aesthetic and last for years. They also have a price tag to match. Davek umbrellas are priced anywhere from $99 to $350.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

The value of an MBA is declining and for most schools, it is negative.

In the 1980s, the ROI of almost any MBA (even from the least selective schools) was very positive. MBAs were the fast-track to a management career and many amazing companies exclusively recruited its management-track employees out of MBA programs. Most people without an MBA were at a disadvantage.

Every entrepreneur will experience the real price of entrepreneurship at some point in his startup career. If you haven't yet, you will. It's hard. It's something I've had to deal with several times since quitting my job years back. The real psychological price of entrepreneurship can be too much for some to take.

Before you get married, everyone tells you that marriage takes work. I never really believed it until my husband and I landed in therapy after four years, two kids and one seismically stressful cross-country move. Turns out you really can't just flip the switch to autopilot and trust love to take care of itself; you have to devote actual time and effort to understanding and appreciating your spouse. Anyone who is married knows that's not always a simple feat. Here's what relationship research (and a touch of game theory) tells us about how to become a better spouse.

They say variety is “the spice of life” – but in our working lives, it’s the spice, ingredients and a good portion of the kitchen equipment too. In striving to build comprehensive and sustainable enterprise innovation programs however, too often I see companies then ignoring the need for diversity – both in the reach and composition of their programmes. We are long past the days where a company’s growth can be sustained with innovation from a few solitary individuals in a lab or conference room. Innovation nowadays needs to be a singular mindset across the entire company – with executives not just asking, but instead requiring collaborative input from across the organisation as they look to solve the strategic and tactical problems that stand in the way of progress.

Image: http://www.innovationmanagement.se

With so much focus on establishing corporate innovation incubators and accelerators, more attention needs to be paid to maintaining effective employee connections back into the business units that will support the newly formed ideas.

It seems that every time I chat with corporate innovation leaders these days their desire and / or plans to build a corporate incubator / accelerator pops up. And sure, I understand why they are going down this path. These efforts are fun! Who doesn’t love a beanbag?

Self-directed Individual Retirement Account custodians and investment crowdfunding platforms are both proliferating rapidly. There is good reason: these custodians and platforms empower investors with direct control over where their money is invested. Instead of investing IRA funds only in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, investors can now select alternative assets such as startups, peer-to-peer loans, real estate, mortgage notes, and numerous other opportunities.

KAUST has announced the launching of Hikma, a new Accelerator Program to help identify, develop and speed up the Intellectual Property-Based Startups. On March 21, 16 teams from KAUST and regional Universities took part in a three-day series of mentor-led workshops, which kicked off a 6-month process to accelerate their technology and startup development.

The new accelerator process is run by the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center with assistance from the KAUST Technology Transfer Office. Hikma is designed for students, postdocs and academics who wish to pursue a startup potential of their technology. Hikma, which is derived from the Arabic term for 'wisdom,' harkens to the original vision for KAUST as a modern day 'House of Wisdom.'

As a part of our monthly splurge ritual, my boyfriend and I had brunch at a fantastic South Indian restaurant.   Now, to give you a little backstory, I can (really, our parents can) come up with hundreds of differences between the two of us that would make us incompatible: my family is Pakistani, his is South Indian; mine is Muslim while his is Hindu; I’m Texan, he’s Californian, and on and on.  Despite all this, while sitting at that restaurant I couldn’t help but realize how obvious it was that we were of the same people.  The delicious dishes had unfamiliar names but incredibly familiar tastes and the aromas filling the room carried a type of comfort that is hard to explain but easy to understand.  Even the chatter, while not always in a language I explicitly recognized, had a tone that I had heard my entire life.

With 280 higher education institutional memberships, 80 corporate members, 42 regional and state networks, 70 affiliates and government agencies, and 65 international research and education networks that it connects to, Internet2's reach is expanding, and its work is as cutting-edge as ever.

This past week, Florence Hudson assumed her new role as Internet2's senior VP and chief innovation officer. Hudson will leverage her extensive experience fostering innovative work — she created IBM's Smarter Buildings strategy, developed that company's work with the Internet of Things, and through her work with organizations like NASA JPL, participated in many research collaborations with national laboratories. CT talked with Hudson about her new post at Internet2.

There’s no doubt your idea is great. But with the boom of startups and the aid that’s available in the country for entrepreneurs, what should be considered while making a decision with regard to actually getting your startup off the ground? What is needed with the quantum of work that has already been done? What bracket of mentorship do you require?

Jonathan Fleming, a medical researcher and investor, worries about how the Great Recession set back American health. He's concerned that five years from now, we will be no closer to treating and curing diseases like Alzheimer's.

"The thing that will bury us more than anything—more than climate change, more than Iran as a nuclear power—will be millions of demented baby boomers," said Fleming, president and treasurer of the Network for Excellence in Health Innovation in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter may be old hat for some early-stage startups in Florida if House Bill 275 is approved by state lawmakers. House Bill 275 would legalize equity crowdfunding — a financial process that allows companies to accept funds from investors in exchange for company stock. The kicker is that potential investors don't have to be overly wealthy, which opens the pool for more investment capital.

Austin, Texas-based angel investor Brett Hurt is one of ChargeItSpot’s newest investors, according to a Philadelphia Business Journal story. (The Center City cellphone charging station company closed a $3.2 million round last December and continues to fundraise. It also added a high profile advisor: Modell’s exec Deborah Fine. Fine, who was also on the board of suburban ecommerce company Pet360, declined to disclose if she was a ChargeItSpot investor.)

Image: Brett Hurt at Shop.org's Innovation and Strategy Forum, January 2008. (Photo by Flickr user @hyku, used under a Creative Commons license)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we examine what is currently driving growth in the Internet of Things and how various sectors of the economy will embrace IoT innovations. 

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Grassroots hardware innovators from around the world have been drawn to Shenzhen for one reason: its capacity to produce. Prototypes and products are easier and cheaper to develop and roll out here than anywhere else on the planet, and a vibrant international community of hardware innovators have formed around the city’s electronics markets, startup incubators, and factories.

“It's become [the go-to place] for people who make hardware projects that they want to make into products,” says Mitch Altman, the founder of NoiseBridge, one of the first makerspaces, or innovation houses, in the United States.

Image: http://www.scmp.com

Are you considered an expert at work because you are the one who always knows about the latest technologies, and are eager for your colleagues to try them out unsuccessfully? Or even worse, is your job to get people to adopt new technologies across corporations that have been repeating processes for a number of years, and are quite happy doing so?

Image: http://memeburn.com

NYC-based CB Insights, a venture capital and angel investment database backed by the National Science Foundation, has released their Q1 2015 U.S. Venture Capital Report. The report tracked a number of mega-deals this quarter whose investors included hedge funds and/or mutual funds. This report only includes U.S.-based rounds in which VCs directly participated. Among the report's major findings which are pertinent to the DMV area: total VC deals in California continue to decrease and healthcare sector related deals continue to move away from major tech hubs, towards other markets.

Image: http://dcinno.streetwise.co

New Enterprise Associates has closed more than $3.1 billion in new capital for its 15th fund and a joint "opportunity fund," the Chevy Chase venture capital giant said Wednesday. The raise marks the fourth consecutive $2.5 billion-plus fund and brings the total capital under the firm's umbrella since its 1977 inception to nearly $17 billion.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com/

The seventh fatal shark attack in four years struck this past weekend at a surfer's paradise in the Indian Ocean.

Yet teaching people when and where to swim to avoid sharks, and improving the emergency response to shark bites, can significantly reduce the number of deaths due to shark attacks, according to shark-attack statistics.

Image: IMAGE: REX FEATURES/ASSOCIATED PRESS