Forests become a veritable garden in the fall, presenting a riot of color in national forests as well as on the streets where we live. But what exactly is going on in those leaves? How – and why – do leaves change color, and why is there so much variety? It boils down to chemistry.

Get in the habit of producing good financial reports every single month. But you need more than just standard financial reports. You need a Management Dashboard that monitors critical metrics that may not pop out of your accounting reports. These monthly reports are a learning opportunity: What did we think would happen? What actually happened? Why was there a difference? Are we on track to hit our key milestones?

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Today is the day that Michael J. Fox's iconic character Marty McFly landed in a future that Hollywood imagined almost 30 years ago in Back to the Future II. It turns out that many of the amazing things McFly saw in the movie have indeed come to pass--from 3D video to wearable technology.

But in celebrating our technological advancements, it is important to remember that none of these innovations happened by chance. They are the product of an enormous amount of investment in research and development--much of it seeded by the federal government. Here are three prime examples:

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

If you tell an audience these days that the way to solve big national problems is to reorganize the federal government, you’re liable to get laughed offstage. And I can understand why. Not only is faith in the federal government at near-historic lows, but the record of some past efforts at federal reorganization does not necessarily inspire confidence. However, I’m going to argue here that one of the keys to making America a more educated and economically competitive nation is to take a number of different federal agencies and combine them into a new entity, which I will call the U.S. Department of Talent.

You may think your startup idea is crazy, but it could be keeping established business owners up all night. According to the 2015 EMEA Crisis Survey, companies expected “new and innovative business models entering their sector” to be a disruption they will face in the next six to twelve months.

On October 20, global public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller released its crisis survey, which was conducted with Enterprise and SME companies.

Over the past 12 months, the so-called innovation crisis with “disruptive innovators” placed second to “controversial company developments,” which showed startups were gaining momentum in their respective markets.

Image: http://ventureburn.com

Hardware startups in the next batch at Highway1 can have twice the money to work with than the most recent founders got. Brady Forrest, who runs the San Francisco accelerator for PCH International, said each company accepted in Batch 6 will be offered $100,000 for 8 percent of its equity.

CEO of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC), Valerie Veira is urging Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) to engage in cluster activity to generate higher income. She was speaking at a recently held international seminar “Technology transfer to countries in Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Business Support” in Brno, Czech Republic.

According to Ms. Veira, data from the field indicates that the lack of a business plan, access to finance and the ability to export are key obstacles to growth within the MSME sector and clustering is an effective means of solving these issues with the help of government and the private sector. “Clusters are a strategic networking of entities engaged in co-related business activities that are linked horizontally, vertically, diagonally (and sometimes virtually) along the value chain that serve towards enhancing the competitiveness of both the individual entity and the cluster of entities,’ she explained.

Cecilia Berlanga figures it’ll be eight to 12 months before her startup’s birth contraction monitoring device will be ready to hit the market.

That’s about the same amount of time it takes to bring an infant to full term – give or take a few months – but the co-founder of BirthAlert insists her estimate isn’t a cute marketing ploy.

It’s the amount of time Health Canada needs to review and, she hopes, approve the wearable electronic patch.

Image: Shield-X Technology founder Daniel Abram sold the first order of his startup’s shock-absorbent helmet decals in late September. Prior to the sale, the company had been assisted through Simon Fraser University’s VentureLabs accelerator | Tyler Orton

When you’re sitting at your open-plan desk, still at work at 8 p.m., staring at your computer and daydreaming of a better job, one where you can actually go home at the end of the day and turn off your work email, what do you picture? Is it a low-impact gig at a big, fancy tech start-up? Your own coffee shop in a cute little neighborhood in your favorite city?

Being a female tech entrepreneur isn't easy no matter where you are. But you've got to want it bad to build a software startup in Afghanistan.

Roya Mahboob, who launched Afghan Citadel Software in Herat five years ago, wanted it more than most. She built a technology-consulting company to 50 employees, most of them female programmers like herself, and launched a foundation to help girls to code in a war zone and a place where women have few rights.

The answer is, it depends.

There are some off the charts success stories like Facebook, Google, and some others where the entrepreneurs raised huge amounts of VC money and also ended up creating huge amounts of personal wealth.

In the cases where the exits are modest, it is generally the case that people who bootstrap end up creating a lot more personal wealth than those who raise a lot of VC money.

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Entrepreneurs need to be experienced and knowledgeable in a variety of skills and subjects to inspire innovation in their business. No one expects a one trick pony to propose intriguing marketing strategies or to be adaptable to changing market trends. So if business owners want to revolutionize how they operate and gain more customers, they need to be well-rounded in a few different skills and fields to bring their company to the next level.

Dear Mr. Trudeau, Congratulations on your victory last night after an impressive, principled and positive campaign. I’m confident that your induction as our new prime minister will lead to a more inclusive, empathetic country we’re proud to call home. But I’m most excited about your opportunity to create a more entrepreneurial Canada – an exciting country on the cusp of something big. Mr. Trudeau, I believe that deep down, you just may be an entrepreneur, even more than you are a politician.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Now is not the time for the United States to rest on its past successes as an international leader in advancements in science, technology, engineering, and innovation. That is the message that four industry leaders and key members of Congress delivered today at a public symposium on Capitol Hill.

Having watched all the debates and seen all these people running for president, I can’t suppress the thought: Why would anyone want this job now? Do you people realize what’s going on out there? Obama’s hair hasn’t gone early gray for nothing. I mean, Air Force One is great and all, but it now comes with Afghanistan, ISIS and the Republican Freedom Caucus — not to mention a lot of people, places and things all coming unstuck at once.

Colorado ranked fifth in the nation for overall economic performance, fourth for both high-tech performance, and innovation and entrepreneurship, and eighth in the talent pipeline category, according to a new survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

The four states to rate above Colorado were North Dakota at the top, followed by Texas, Utah and Washington.

IN its pursuit to nurture the spirit of innovation among Filipino children, Wyeth Nutrition recently launched a nationwide Search for Wyeth Nutrition Kid Innovators. It is a science-focused competition that aims to recognize outstanding kid innovators and their achievements, and celebrate their journey to innovation.

Image: Launching. Wyeth Nutrition president and general manager Joseph Eugene David (second from right) and Communications head Anne Michelle Pador (second from left),with National Academy of Science and Technology president Dr. William Padolina (left) and Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines President Br. NarcisoErguiza (right) activate the plasma orb to mark the launch of the Search for Wyeth Nutrition Kid Innovators. (contributed foto)

When the University City Science Center launched its Innovators Walk of Fame in 2013, all of the innovators were men. This year, it's adding 10 women.

"We wanted to ensure that the Innovators Walk of Fame reflects the diversity of the local, regional and global communities in which the Science Center operates," Stephen Tang, the center's president, said in a statement. 

The Walk of Fame, which will be located at Innovation Plaza along 37th Street between Market and Chestnut, honors revolutionary thinkers in fields ranging from medicine to technology to community engagement.

Image: CONTRIBUTED ART/UNIVERSITY CITY SCIENCE CENTER

In the last 40 years we have more than doubled the amount of energy we use. And in the last 95 years petrol consumption in the US has risen by more than 1200%.

We have long since lived in an age of energy dependency. We humans power very few things on our own. Almost everything we do: work, travel, build and entertain ourselves requires an outside power supply. Even the simple act of writing is now largely computer based and reliant on electricity.

A handful of multinationals control close to 70 per cent of global private sector research and development, while government R&D budgets have fallen to levels not seen since the turn of the century. The findings in the OECD’s latest science, technology and industry scoreboard will raise concerns over the concentration of research and the prospects for disruptive technologies. A growing body of evidence shows that government support for R&D has been central to the digital innovations now transforming the way people live, learn and work.