Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Co.Exsist:
It’s the second largest economy in the world. Within the decade, it may sustain two-thirds of the planet’s workers, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and even rival the United States. But it’s not China: It’s the bazaars, vendors, and informal markets of the world.
Venture capital due diligence processes can be frustrating for both VCs and entrepreneurs alike, particularly with later-stage companies as there is more information to sift through.
IMAGE CREDIT: ANDY NEWSON / FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET I’ve found that — largely — this frustration results from poorly managed expectations. Investors often fail to manage entrepreneurs’ expectations with regard to timeline and scope of diligence. Investors find frustration in a management team’s failure to provide materials quickly, and a lack of preparedness for what we investors may think are obvious requests.
In an effort to provide greater clarity into an expansion stage venture capital investor’s due diligence, I’ve laid out a typical post-term sheet diligence process below.
There’s been a lot of talk lately: Racism in tech, lack of access to capital for minority and women startups, low numbers of black engineers in tech. Whew.
Drama, intrigue sexism… It’s a search engine optimization expert’s wet dream. However, to a guy like myself who has started a company — and to many black entrepreneurs — this is a reality here in Silicon Valley.
With all the hoopla going around, I think we are forgetting to ask ourselves the hardest question: Are the things we are creating truly fund-worthy? Innovation must be a focus.
Philadelphia, PA - It took over 25 years for the founders of The Gabriel Institute (TGI) to create a completely new technology that predicts how a person will ‘team’ with others to solve problems or achieve common goals, and now the business benefits are gaining recognition. Preferred Sands, a fast-growing mining company that began using TGI’s technology two years ago, has been announced as the winner of the Constellation ‘Supernova Award’ in the ‘emerging technology category.’ Almost immediately after implementing TGI’s Role Based Assessment (RBA) for hiring and team diagnostics, Preferred Sands saw its turnover rate fall from 30% to zero – where it has remained for over a year.
Improvements in ‘quality of hire’ and employee retention were not the only gains. “The time and costs associated with the hiring process are also reduced. Now, before we invest in face-to-face meetings, we screen for the kind of team-players who are the right fit for the job, for a specific team’s mission, and for our culture,” said Mike O’Neill, Preferred’s CEO. Asked what he would recommend to other firms seeking similar results, he added: “Whether you have hiring quality problems, or team performance problems, or any other people-related issues or challenges, stop paying so much attention to ‘talent,’ and focus on finding the right team-players.”
The full commentary on Preferred’s use of TGI Role-Based Assessment can be viewed at
http://www.constellationrg.com/protostar-profile-mike-o’neill-–-preferred-unlimited/
ELYRIA, Ohio — The leader of the nation's outreach to cities hurt by auto industry cutbacks said an Ohio Business incubator could be a model for helping economically hard-hit communities.
"The answer is going to come with a little bit of help from Washington, but largely from partnerships," like those in Lorain County, Jay Williams said Wednesday at Lorain County Community College.
The college and local officials and Business leaders hosted Williams, former mayor of Youngstown and now executive director of the federal Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers.
"American ingenuity and innovation, the twin engine of the country's economy since World War II, is in danger of losing steam and job growth potential if federal legislators allow 'automatic' spending cuts to kick in next year rather than earmarking federal funds to advance education, research and manufacturing, according Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Susan Hockfield."
Russia may be filled with talented IT people, but entrepreneurship is not their strongest side, a Microsoft Corp. executive said.
“There are often so many good ideas in Russia but many just don’t get implemented because of lack of entrepreneurship skills,” Nikolay Pryanishnikov, head of Microsoft Russia said Wednesday at an IT conference in Moscow.
Microsoft in Russia had launched technological entrepreneurship trainings for Russian students in hope that it will inspire them to aspire to create companies of their own.
Amid growing global competition, it is increasingly clear that innovation cannot happen in a vacuum. To maintain and increase their competitiveness, the most innovative companies are turning towards problem-solving methods involving open innovation. Is yours?
In light of the resounding success of the 2010 edition, Quebec International, in association with IDTEQ and ISPIM, invites to you come and experience open innovation in a brand new format for the second edition of Quebec Seeks Solutions!
The following is an overview of this one-of-a-kind open innovation event:
I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart. I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I'd inherited some gift.
Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people's stories. I was successful, but I rarely felt truly creative.
The first hint I might have sold myself short came in the mid-1990s. In the course of writing a book called What Really Matters, Searching for Wisdom in America, I took a five-day seminar on how to draw, led by Betty Edwards, author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Leonardo DiCaprio who has been nominated for three Oscars, had his poster on the walls of teenage girls’ rooms and headlined what was then the most lucrative movie of all time. He still has things to learn, though – and, fortunately, a world-class tutor.
The chance to pick up a few tips arose during the filming of his latest movie, J. Edgar, in which DiCaprio plays J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary founding director of the FBI. He and actor Armie Hammer were called upon to stage a no-holds-barred fist fight, ending up rolling along a carpet and pummelling each other, and director Clint Eastwood wasn’t getting what he wanted. It was, apparently, too gentle by half.
During the last few weeks there has been a lot of commentary about what’s going on in the seed funding markets. Some say that web startups face a cash crunch. Some disagree. Some think there is a “Series A Crunch”. Others disagree.
During this same time period I saw the movie Moneyball (liked it, thought the book was better) and my fund held our Annual LP meeting. So I’m full of fresh stats about our portfolio of over 125 seed-stage companies. I thought it might be interesting to take some of the data we’ve collected, and share it to help try to shed some light on what we’re seeing in the market. So here is the first installment of a multi-part series: Fun Fact of The Week
A national economic development nonprofit has selected Kentucky’s Bucks for Brains endowment match program as one of six national models for states and regions to grow their economies and create high-paying jobs through investments in science, technology and innovation.
Bucks for Brains won the “expanding research capacity” category of the 2011 State Science and Technology Institute’s (SSTI) Excellence in Technology Based Economic Development (TBED) national award program.
University of Kentucky Provost Kumble Subbaswamy accepted the award on behalf of Kentucky at an awards ceremony held earlier today in Columbus, Ohio.
ACTiVATE®, the flagship program of the Path Forward Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, garnered national recognition from the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI) as the 2011 winner of the Excellence in Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) for commercializing research and increasing the number of technology-based startups founded by women.
“ACTiVATE® is a compelling program achieving impressive results from a modest investment,” said Dan Berglund, SSTI president and CEO. “ACTiVATE® provides a replicable model for commercializing research by enabling underrepresented but motivated groups to become engaged in the creation of tech-based startups.”
We have entered what might be called the era of "frontier economics." As older, easier sources of economic growth are drying up, the prospects for continued dynamism and prosperity hinge more than ever before on pioneering entrepreneurial start-ups to explore and extend the technological barrier.
This puts national economies under a constant pressure to knock down artificial barriers to competition. In other words, in their search for economic growth, countries need to make their economies more entrepreneurial.
NPR ran a story today about how drug companies are not the only ones making money inventing new medicines for the market. A man in Massachusetts has brought three drugs to market almost on his own.
His process is the same as the big drug makers, but he farms out each aspect of the process to independent labs and specialists. When the drug starts to succeed in trials, he sells it to one of the big companies.
When I was in Berlin recently, I spotted a T-shirt in a shop window. The slogan on it read: “I don’t do Facebook or Twitter I have a life”. Please, that’s so 2009.
The truth is that we live online and in so-called real life, at the same time, and this is the way it is going to be from now on. We have a digital self that we project out into the world via social media, and that self is rooted in another that goes to school, plays sport, watches TV — that person who does the things that people have done for generations.
Willing to risk your knowledge, skills and monetary reward in competition? If you are under age 50, you’ve probably not reached your competitive peak. If you are older, that peak is behind you. That people are willing to engage in risk at 50 surprised University of Oregon economists and psychologists who explored such behavior in their research.
Ever since former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers lit up the news in 2005 with his comment that innate differences between men and women may explain the lower numbers of women in the upper echelons of science, researchers have been exploring the impact of gender differences and risk-taking across the lifespan, said Ulrich Mayr, professor of psychology.
By definition, most entrepreneurs are thought leaders. They have the ability to recognize a market need, the skills to design and implement a solution, and the drive to start a business from that solution. It all comes from within themselves. A business leader does the same thing and more through the people around them. Most entrepreneurs are not both.
In reality, a successful startup can be built by a thought leader, but growing a successful business requires a business leader. That’s why venture capital investors often replace startup CEOs as a condition of their scale-up investment. That’s why so many startups plateau after gaining some initial traction, and are run over or acquired by their competition.
Everyone has a different set of fears. Little kids may be afraid of the dark, some people may fear the unknown, and entrepreneurs have their own list of fears, too. Forbes considers a few fears that some entrepreneurs may face.
Losing my drive: Leila Janah founded Samasource, a non-profit that gets women, youth and refugees in the developing world technology-based jobs such as data-entry and call centers. It provides a livelihood to thousands, both in a paycheck and, more importantly, skills. She does it through “jugaad.” Jugaad, Leila tells me is a Hindi word that roughly means “doing more with less.” “As more people join Samasource and we secure new funding and better office space, I fear that we’ll lose our jugaad spirit and get complacent,” she says.
Most people now have computers and phones that can talk to them. From straightforward, voice-activated commands to the strangely poetic responses of the iPhone 4S's Siri, computers and humans are getting closer. But what if your computer had a face? What would she–he–it look like?
Researchers at Munich Technical University in Germany might have an answer. They've developed Mask-bot—a robot with a three-dimensional human face. The face is projected onto the mask from behind, and the researchers have developed a computer program that can replicate facial expressions based on what's going on around it.
