Bacterial infection is a fairly common and potentially dangerous complication of wound healing, but a new “intelligent” dressing that turns fluorescent green to signal the onset of an infection could provide physicians a valuable early-detection system.

Researchers in the United Kingdom recently unveiled a prototype of the color-changing bandage, which contains a gel-like material infused with tiny capsules that release nontoxic fluorescent dye in response to contact with populations of bacteria that commonly cause wound infections.

Image: A new “smart bandage” could serve as an early detection system for wound infections. - http://www.technologyreview.com

When Ramy Adeeb sold his startup, a news article curation site Snip.It to Yahoo! at the start of 2013 he’d already had a career as a software developer, worked at a VC and raised two rounds for his own startup.

He’s currently working on a new startup, and for the moment he can only say it’s “in the SMS space”.

At a recent TechWadi event in Beirut Adeeb stated that there were three things essential to building a company: build something people want, hire people you would work for, and don’t run out of cash.

Physician entrepreneurs come in several basic flavors and medicine needs to change to make room for them.

The young and the restless  These are the millenials and others who are medical students, residents, fellows and those who have been in practice less than 5 years. While I think stereotyping generations is stupid , work-life balance, debt repayment and lack of loyalty to an employer or career seems to figure into the psychographic calculus

You only have to watch an episode of Shark Tank to realize that turning the glimmer of an idea into a viable business entity is no easy feat. Many researchers attribute a startup’s fortunes to its founder’s ability to attract funding, lure essential employees, and deploy initially limited resources to pursue a strong but sustainable rate of growth. Venture capitalists essentially use the same metrics when they peer through the fog of uncertainty and weigh whether a fledgling project deserves their investment — and if so, for how long.

Almost every company will face disruption in 2015: The dynamics of reaching customers are changing, technology shifts are speeding up demand for new products and innovation, and efforts to maintain margins have become a high-wire act. But when you look hard enough, these hurdles represent opportunities. Pulling from Strategy&’s recent analysis of industry trends, we’ve unearthed the hidden strategic gem for the most threatened sectors.

The pharmaceuticals industry — with its major investments in research, reliance on complex chemistry, and sophisticated understanding of human biology — is generally regarded as a technologically advanced sector. When it comes to manufacturing, however, pharma is stuck in the past. The current methods of making drugs, which are labor intensive and inefficient, are based on batch processes that have been in place in this sector since the mid-20th century. Worse still, the traditional manufacturing techniques make pharmaceuticals  prone to contamination.

If you’ve ever wanted to give your smartphone a good scrub with soap and water, then you’re in luck: A Japanese company has invented a smartphone that can be thoroughly washed.

Kyocera said it created the device, called Digno Rafre, by developing “better sealing” for the phone. It will go on sale in Japan next week for ¥57,000 ($460), but there are currently no plans to sell the phone elsewhere.

Founded several decades ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab has had far-reaching effects. The lab's work is featured in the smartphone likely sitting right next to you.

In the late '60s and early '70s, researchers at MIT began experimenting with the idea of touch computing.

"How does a piece of glass know it's being touched, where it's being touched and what happens when you hit it with multiple fingers?" said Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, of those early experiments.

Image: In this 2003 photo, Richard W. DeVaul, a MIT graduate student, wears a tiny computer display mounted on eyeglass frames at the MIT Media Lab. // Chitose Suzuki/AP 

On December 4, 2015, President Obama signed into law the SBIC Advisers Relief Act (the “Act” as part of H.R. 22, the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015—the FAST Act).  The Act amends three provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”) relating to an exemption from investment adviser registration for advisers to SBIC funds and state regulatory authority with respect to such SBIC fund advisers.  The long awaited Act grants important relief for many SBIC fund advisers that either remain registered with, or report to, the SEC despite the availability of the SBIC fund adviser exemption created by The Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (the “SBIC Fund Adviser Exemption”).1  The Advisers Act amendments, their impact and important next steps are discussed below.

Investors are growing more conservative as valuations are cooling down, and the balance of power between entrepreneurs and VCs may be shifting back toward the money men.

As a result, some investors feel more empowered to add crazy terms to a deal before closing. We chose not to include strictly financial demands, such as liquidation preferences that let investors cash out before anyone else, because they’re really set on a case-by-case basis. But here’s a collection of other terrible demands that entrepreneurs should watch out for.

Seattle, Wash (PRWEB) December 07, 2015

Use of analytics has taken the business world by storm. A recent study(1) found that “more than 70 percent of firms indicated their company is actively using or has near-term plans to use analytics in everyday decision-making.” The adoption rate is high and continues to accelerate. Yet by some estimates, the rate at which analytics projects fail to meet expectations exceeds 70 percent.

The Government will today reveal a €5 billion spending programme which will see the numbers involved in scientific research and development (R&D) activities rise from 25,000 to 40,000 over the next five years. It will also see a rapid rise in the availability of highly qualified young researchers holding master’s degrees and PhDs from 1,750 to 2,250 by 2020.

Image: http://www.irishtimes.com 

The innovation statement didn’t do enough to address the later-stage funding gap in Australia or stem the ‘brain drain’ overseas, Starfish Ventures co-founder Michael Panaccio says.   The innovation statement, which focused on unlocking capital for early-stage companies, encouraging international talent to come to Australia and two large co-investment funds, was given positive reviews by most of the startup community; with some saying it marks a “new era” for the sector.

Entrepreneurship is not just for startups. It’s a lens through which all organisations should view strategy and leadership in the 21st century to address societal problems.

Management theories come about in response to particular problems. At the turn of the 20th century, the most notable organisations were large and industrialised and carried out routine tasks to manufacture a variety of products. This led Frederick Taylor to develop the scientific management theory, which advocated optimising tasks by breaking big complex jobs into small ones, measuring what workers did and linking pay to performance.

A fun aspect of entrepreneurship is the diversity of people that you meet and the variety of ways that people have gotten to where they are.  There isn’t one single formula on how it is done, which makes the journey that more exciting.  Some start as salespeople, some investors, some from other failed or successful ventures.  Since nearly everyone has become an entrepreneur, similar to how nearly everyone in Los Angeles is an actor, I’ve noticed, through the “coffee-having,” “brain-picking,” “introduce-me-to-investors-please,” meetings that as diverse as they are, entrepreneurs fall into the same few buckets.

Are older entrepreneurs, sometimes dubbed third age entrepreneurs, encore entrepreneurs or seniorpreneurs more likely to start businesses than recent college graduates?

The answer seems to be yes, at least for financially stable and healthy seniors.

They have an own source of early stage capital (their pensions and savings), greater schedule flexibility, a wider professional network and a wealth of industry experience that grants them vital knowledge of areas ripe for innovation.

Image: http://www.kauffman.org 

Rob Fowler, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, is one of the country’s keenest analysts of the status of entrepreneurship and innovation. He recently spoke to the Lansing Rotary about lessons learned from nearly a decade of the Entrepreneurship Score Card study, and what those lessons portend for the future of small business success in our state.

Image: http://www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com 

Just because you're no longer in school doesn't mean you've got it all figured out.

You've still got plenty of important skills left to learn — but now you're on your own.

To help you navigate this confusing time, we reviewed several Quora threads on helpful skills and ways to spend time in your 20s and highlighted the most useful insights.

Image: University of Exeter/Flickr

BOSTON: US companies make up more than half (29) of the world's top 50 most innovative firms, according to a new report that identifies four key factors underpinning success.

Now in its 10th year, the latest Most Innovative Companies report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), shows Apple and Google retain the top two places, followed by Tesla Motors, the luxury electric automaker, Microsoft and Samsung.

Rounding out the top 10 are Toyota, BMW, Gilead Sciences, Amazon and Daimler, showing that auto brands account for four of the top 10 most innovative companies in the world.

I came off of a few tough weeks at work. In part that’s why you’ve heard less from me recently. I had some good days and bad days like most of you. I had a very big negative surprise which I’ve mostly worked through but will take time. And I’ve had some good moments, too, for sure. But through all of this I’m always reminded that in tough times some people pull up their socks and help get the job done while others turn to being critics: Even some who don’t actually take risks or accomplish things but love to opine. And at just the right moment when my head was about to explode Twitter came to the rescue