OMAHA, Ne. (Oct. 4, 2011)—A group of Nebraska entrepreneurs, angel investors, technology leaders – along with the University of Nebraska - announced today a commitment to help fund the regional expansion of the PIPELINE Entrepreneurial Fellowship program, which will now include Nebraska. This investment will be matched dollar for dollar by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as part of an $800,000 challenge grant that was awarded to PIPELINE earlier this year. As part of the partnership, Nebraska entrepreneurs may now apply for the Regional Class that will be selected for 2012.

PIPELINE is nationally recognized for its work in accelerating high growth entrepreneurs while building out a national network for their sustained growth. Now in its fifth year of operations, PIPELINE is expanding to serve a broader region with the help of the Kauffman Foundation. As part of the challenge grant, PIPELINE has been in discussions with various leaders in the Midwest to determine the right boundaries of the expansion. Nebraska became a front-runner very early in the process and will now be a key partner for the 3-year pilot expansion project.

From California’ Silicon Valley to Austin’s “Technology Cluster,” there are numerous examples of successful collaborations between universities and industry. Chief executive officers and others involved in site selection should consider whether collaboration with one or more universities would enhance their next facility location decision. In the right circumstances, working with a research university in the area in which your company is locating may prove to add tremendous value. Three key areas need to be considered:

1. R&D of new and innovative technologies, processes, and products;

2. Best practices for business leadership and management principles; and

3. Work force development and recruitment of engineering and management talent, as well as talent for other positions.

(Scottsdale, Ariz.) –Arizona State University’s Venture Catalyst in collaboration with ASU’s technology transfer arm, Arizona Technology Enterprises (AzTE), is launching a new program aimed at creating startup activity in postdoctoral researchers and graduate students.

As opposed to standard academic modules and programs, this part-time program applies a very ‘pracademic’ approach to developing an entrepreneurial mindset and real new venture creation. The program modules are taught by pracademic adjunct faculty from leading external organizations, supplemented by online modules from the ASU Venture Catalyst.

“It is a matter of evangelizing entrepreneurship to those ‘latent’ entrepreneurs that exist within Arizona State University. In a sense this is a ‘school’ that isn’t a school in the traditional sense. We want to cover the main aspects of creating a new venture, taught by people who do this as a day job, but with an emphasis on the participants thinking about their own venture or idea,” said Gordon McConnell, Executive Director of the Venture Catalyst. “An MBA student or a young researcher may have an idea from one of the university’s research labs, but doesn’t know where to start in terms of developing the idea or a team to execute the idea.”

Daniel Pink quoted in one of his presentations, “Left brain thinking gets you the job, right brain thinking gets you the promotion“. Since we are living in a ‘conceptual world’ through the impact of the digital economy we need to use both our analytical left brain but also our creative right brain. However, many of us struggle to develop our creative right brains because our educational system focuses on analysis, critical thinking, and facts and figures.

A key driver of business growth and development is the ability to nurture the intellectual capital in organizations (that is, the employees, their tacit knowledge, skills and experience). One critical success factor is to enhance creativity in people and subsequently in the organization by creating a “Hothouse Effect”. Dr Barton Kunstler author of the “The Hothouse Effect“ describes a number of ways to intensify creativity in your organization using secrets from history’s most creative communities. The book describes common characteristics of history’s “Creative Hothouses”, including ancient Athens, Renaissance Florence, the creative communities of the Parisian salons (early 1900′s) and the German Bauhaus (1919-1933).

The Internet was supposed to level the playing field, but according to a recent Demandbase survey, 80 percent of B2B marketers and IT professionals feel like their website is not living up to its lead generation potential. In the report, a number of different reasons for this were discussed, including an inability to act on analytics data, problems tracking and reporting on unregistered/anonymous users, and marketers not fully understanding the people they’re trying to target.

If your own website isn’t living up to its potential, below are some areas I’d first focus on when attempting to boost your marketing power. Think of this as your customers’ wish list for your website.

Did the recession ever really end? Technically, we are in a recovery, but there is little growth in the economy, employment and wages are stagnant, home prices and consumer confidence both continue to drop, and retail sales are down. The immediate future doesn’t look bright. However, the bright side is that now may the best time for people with the entrepreneurial itch to scratch it and go into business for themselves.

When you’re on the road, whether locally or internationally, sometimes you just need that little device, gadget or thingamajig to make your work life easier.  These tools are not just for road warriors, but for anyone who appreciates elegant lifehacks.

Here are eight of my favorites:

Breffo spiders are absolutely amazing. Simple, but super cool. You can mold one into a stand for your iPad, iPod, Droid, mobile phone or whatever else it can wrap itself around. My only advice: Do not play around and set one up to look like a giant spider to scare your friend on a dark night. It will scare them, and you won’t like the outcome (nor will your friend).

CHARLESTON -- TechConnect West Virginia and the Bioscience Association of West Virginia have received grant funding from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to assist the organizations in their missions to grow the bioscience sector in West Virginia.

The grant will be used to implement key goals and action items outlined in TechConnect West Virginia's Blueprint for Technology-Based Economic Development Biotechnology Report. TechConnectWV commissioned the study, which was conducted by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice and issued in January 2011.

A TechStars-based model is to launch in Australia next year, with the celebrated US start-up incubator handing a licence to an Adelaide-based firm via its TechStars Network program, StartupSmart can reveal.

SME Growth Capital was chosen to operate as part of the TechStars Network, a global group of independently-run start-up accelerator programs that operate in a similar way to TechStars in the US.

It’s anticipated that the Australian program will roll out in March next year, with applications tentatively anticipated to open in late November.

The initiative, which has been given a four-year licence to operate in Australia, will be known as Innovyz Start, to tie in with SME Growth Capital’s own rebranding to Innovyz.

What does it take to not only get the attention of VCs, but actually get them to invest in your business? This, of course, is a question that vexes many an entrepreneur. Sure, you can read books and articles and watch videos, but let me suggest a different path:

Watch TV.

Specifically, turn on the show “Shark Tank” on Friday nights. If you have never seen it, here’s a quick recap: Entrepreneurs and inventors come before a panel of multi-millionaires and billionaires (like Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran) and pitch their businesses. If the sharks (the investors) like the idea and think it is a market-worthy product, they will offer the entrepreneur some or all of the money the person is seeking in exchange for an equity stake in the business. If they strike a deal, the shark and the entrepreneur are in business together.

Looking for advice to help you raise a young entrepreneur? USA Today has pulled together advice from kids who have already experienced that success.

When you hear about kids like Abbey Fleck, who helped her parents achieve their dream home, adopt a few more kids and put all five through college on her Makin’ Bacon money, it makes you wonder, how did she do it?

The good news is you don’t have to give up your TV.

Women in Canada looking for a consultant to help them succeed in business need to look no further than Desiree Bombenon and her initiative called Mentor in a Miniskirt.

The consulting initiative has moved Bombenon into a leadership role where she is looking at starting a series of books and self-help sessions for young females to assist them in the corporate world. It provides assistance, guidance and mentorship to women entrepreneurs and leaders.

She started working on the idea about two years ago.

Earlier in the convertible debt series we talked about the “discounted price to the next round” approach to providing a discount on convertible debt. The other approach to a discount is to “issue warrants”. This approach is more complex and usually only applies to situations where the company has already raised a round of equity, but it still pops up in early stage deals. If you are doing a seed round, we encourage you not to use this approach and save some legal fees. However, if you are doing a later stage convertible debt round, or your investors insist on you issuing warrants, here’s how it works.

Assume that once again the investor is investing $100,000 and receives warrant coverage in the amount of 20% of the amount of the convertible note. In this case the investor will get a warrant for $20,000.

The 2011 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards honor innovators whose work will transform the world in years to come. They are reinventing the wheel—or, rather, the cell tower and the internal combustion engine; reaching new heights in wind power and space exploration; and figuring out clever new ways to clean up and observe the environment. They’re even helping the paralyzed to regain use of their legs. They’re determined and brilliant—and we can’t wait to see what they’ll do next.

A recent study by the Martin Prosperity Institute (Creativity and Prosperity: The Global Creativity Index) makes it clear why a solid, intimate and fruitful transatlantic relationship is needed. While many frantically point to China’s stellar economic growth and hunger for innovation, according to the institute it is actually “Old Europe” which continues to lead the way in economic and creative innovation.

The study takes a look at 82 key nations and their data on technology, innovation, human capital and other measures of economic competitiveness.

Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and professor of business and creativity at the Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto) takes the works of Joseph Schumpeter and his focus on technology to help set up the study. The study measures innovation according to “three main metrics – research and development effort, scientific and research talent, and the level of innovation.”

In 1980, when I came to the United States to study, this was the only land of opportunity for skilled immigrants like me. It took less than 18 months for me to get a permanent resident visa, and I became a citizen as soon as I became eligible five years later. I came here to study, but ended up founding two technology companies, which employed hundreds of Americans. Later in life, I decided to give back to America by becoming an academic.

If I was arriving today, I would not have taken the same path.

Brazil's most popular automaker, Fiat, sought a design for its 2009 concept vehicle, the Fiat Mio. Rather than turning inward to its core team of designers and engineers to come up with the new look, the company turned outward­—and let the world decide how the car would look, feel, and drive. By crowdsourcing the design of the car through its website, fueled by a viral marketing campaign, the Fiat Mio became the world's first fully-crowdsourced vehicle, debuting at the Sao Paulo International Automobile Show to rave reviews. All in all, the car's design took into account some 10,000 suggestions from people in more than 160 countries.

"A good designer tries to realize the wishes of everyone, and with this concept car we were truly working on everybody's behalf," said Peter Fassbender, manager of Fiat's design center, Centro Estilo, in a release. "The group of designers working in the Fiat Mio house were totally open. There was transparency about every decision, which were all communicated online and commented on. This is completely different to the usual design process, which is entirely hidden and secretive."

Alexandra Levit thinks we need a reality check. Too many of us, she says, believe that we can quit our jobs, be controversial, and find overnight success pursuing our passions after fleeing our day jobs. Despite the slew of popular bloggers urging us to do just that, Levit, an author and speaker on career issues, insists it’s not the right path for most people. Instead, in her new book, Blind Spots, she urges us to work hard, fit in, and keep those day jobs.

“Today, it’s fashionable to say that you’re going to become an entrepreneur, that you’ll shun the corporate world to go out and start a business according to your own values and your own rules. But here’s the thing. Running a business is harder than it looks, and the idea that entrepreneurship is the best solution for everyone is a myth,” she writes.

According to a recent article in Slate, “Why Small Businesses Aren’t Innovative,” as world governments have reacted to the recession, significant focus has been placed on job creation and how to best support the so-called small business owner. Indeed, the small business owner has long been considered a central force behind the world’s free economies. At Endeavor, we too have long championed SMEs, but with a caveat. Our focus has been on scalable or “high impact” SMEs — businesses that have significant growth potential and can therefore play a disproportionate role in emerging market development.

In a rare move for a university, U-M will for the first time directly invest in its own startup businesses, President Mary Sue Coleman announced today.

Through the Michigan Investment in New Technology Startups (MINTS) initiative, the university could inject up to $25 million during the next decade into select venture-funded U-M startups — new companies built around inventions born in faculty members' labs.

"We believe in the work of our researchers," Coleman said, "and we believe in delivering strong returns on our endowment."