We all know what to do when life gives us lemons, but how about a windfall in the form of a potential $11 billion from the nationwide tobacco litigation settlement?

Well, one thing that Pennsylvania did in 2001 with its share was take $100 million and create three "life-sciences greenhouses" to help commercialize the medical technology germinating in labs around the state. In the Philadelphia area, that meant the launch of BioAdvance with $33.8 million in tobacco money.

Organized as an independent nonprofit organization in 2002, BioAdvance started the $20.3 million Greenhouse Fund to invest in start-up firms tackling cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and other serious conditions. The goal was to provide amounts from a few thousand dollars to $1 million to firms at an earlier stage of development than venture capital firms were willing to stomach.

After 22 years in retailing, the last six spent with Kohl’s, Jeff Rusinow was ready for something a bit more exciting.

He found it in angel investing and went on to start Milwaukee-based Silicon Pastures, modeled after a similar and highly successful angel group in Northern California.

Angel capital typically fills the gap in start-up financing between "friends and family" who provideinitial seed funding, and venture capital.

Rusinow will share his insights into early stage investing at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs Conference, which will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee and is expected to draw 400 participants.

Google Directors Alan Moss and Aliza Knox will present a one hour free webinar on the web tools that are available to help American small businesses expand internationally.

During this webinar, you will hear just how big the global online opportunity is and discover how Google clients have significantly expanded their businesses by selling to the world. Learn how to use innovative tools such as:

1) Google Global Market Finder: utilize data from Internet searches conducted around the world to show the number of times people search for your keywords in Arabic, Chinese, English, or one of 56 languages;

2) Google Translate Web Element: translate webpages(or parts thereof) to help foreign customers navigate your site;

Today’s entrepreneurial companies face greater pressure to do more with less in terms of stretching every dollar of equity financing further. Venture-backed companies are looking at debt financing with increased interest, not just as a short-term capitalization tool, but as part of their long-term growth and exit strategies. Watch our video for an explanation of venture debt and how it can help your growing company.

If you're having my kind of luck this week, maybe your home air conditioning isn't working either.

So as I sit here (outside of my house) I thought I'd offer some tips for staying cool, should you end up in a similar sweaty predicament. Or if you are one of the millions of Americans who don't have air conditioning, or are trying to conserve energy in these financially conservative times.

Though a few of these suggestions border on unusual, I urge you to consider giving them a go:

1. I know it sounds insane, but if you put your bed sheets in a large freezer storage bag and toss them in the ice chest for a few hours before bed, you'll thank me. By the time you settle in for the night, they'll be nice and cool against your skin.

Recently the International Herald Tribune highlighted Slovenia as the highest ranking country in the European Innovation Union Scoreboard under the headline “Ranking E.U. members on innovation” in their Special Report on Business in Central Europe.

The paper said: “Slovenia was ranked highest in the European Union on support for innovation, thanks to efforts like public-private partnerships and higher government spending on research projects”.

In the Innovation Union Scoreboard, published by the European Commission in February 2011, Slovenia was ranked highest among countries in the region and second highest among all new EU member states, directly after Cyprus. While it could not compete with the innovation leaders Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Germany, Slovenia was placed in the next best category of so called innovation followers.

Russia's innovation economy is on a bumpy ride due to corruption, bureaucracy and a lingering Soviet mindset, a new study has found. Current innovation policy places too much emphasis on high technology to the neglect of large parts of the Russian economy, according to a study prepared by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at the behest of Russia's Ministry of Education and Science.

Since assuming office in 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev has spearheaded efforts to end Russia’s natural resource dependence and transform the country into a knowledge-based economy. At the top of the president's modernization agenda is the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation hub – Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley – which is currently under construction near Moscow. But Russia is having a hard time getting innovation fired up in Skolkovo, the OECD report said. The Kremlin’s efforts are being undermined by such factors as high levels of corruption, a lack of competition, low levels of research and development (R&D) and innovation activities in firms. Russia’s perennial problems – weak infrastructures and horse-and-buggy regulations are not helping matters either.

Distance is measured in meters, time counted in seconds, and intelligence assessed by IQ, yet innovation lacks a standard unit of measurement. Stand-in metrics for innovation, seven of which are listed below, help to fill this gap in measuring how new products and new processes have led to longer and better lives.

Those seven metrics are: (1) patents, (2) GDP, (3) energy captured, (4) R&D spending, (5) inventions, (6) urbanization, and (7) a social development index. Let's go through them one by one.

Gary Herbert became governor of Utah on Aug. 11, 2009, following the appointment of his predecessor, Jon Huntsman, as ambassador to China. Herbert, who had served as lieutenant governor under Huntsman for five years, previously had a career in the real estate industry. He has made economic development and energy development among his top priorities as governor. Utah has recently attracted a diverse array of investments, including major IT and software development projects as well as major manufacturing projects such as the new Procter & Gamble facility in Box Elder County. Following are highlights from a recent interview with Gov. Herbert.

Site Selection: Economic development incentives are getting closer scrutiny around the country as states deal with budget deficits. Where does Utah stand on this issue?

The university technology commercialisation company IP Group plc is raising £55 million from new and existing investors, allowing it to maintain its holdings in the companies it forms through subsequent funding rounds and increase the level of seed funding available for new start-ups.

The new money also provides scope for IP Group to establish new partnerships or collaborations with universities. At present the London-based company has commercialisation deals with Bath, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Oxford, Southampton, Surrey, and York universities, King’s College London and Queen Mary, University of London, under which it forms and invests in spin-outs. Companies it has formed under the partnership with Oxford, for example, are Crysalin Ltd, Inhibox Ltd, Oxford Advanced Surfaces Group plc; Oxford Catalysts Group plc; Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd; Oxford RF Sensors Ltd; Oxtox Ltd and Pharminox Ltd.

Mike Townend, Director of Capital Markets at IP Group told Science|Business the timing of the share placing is a sign that investors’ appetite for risk is reviving as the financial crisis recedes. Existing shareholders expressed an interest in putting more money in and there is “incoming demand” from would-be investors.

The recently announced Pure Michigan Business Connect initiative promises to leverage about $3 billion in seed capital and new revenue streams for Michigan-based start-ups, thanks to some local heavy hitters stepping up to the plate.

"What we're really saying to the Michigan business community is we understand Michigan business and we know where the opportunities are to help grow your business," says Mike Shore, director of corporate communications for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

HILDEN, Germany, June 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- QIAGEN proclaimed the overall winner of the 7th "Best Innovator" Award sponsored by A.T. Kearney and business magazine WirtschaftsWoche

- Innovative personnel processes, clear anchoring of innovation within the corporate culture and a global innovation management strategy decisive to QIAGEN's success

- Over 100 companies in Germany from different industries participated

QIAGEN is the company with the best innovation management in Germany, concluded the jury at this year's "Best Innovator" award sponsored by the strategy consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. The judges were impressed with QIAGEN's approach towards a global and cross-functional innovation strategy anchored within the general corporate culture and aimed at stimulating "out of the box" thinking by all employees irrespective of their position in the company. This strategy set QIAGEN apart from the competition, which was made up of renowned companies active in a wide variety of different fields. The award for the overall winner is to be officially presented to QIAGEN this evening in Berlin by Ernst Burgbacher, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

In this excerpt from the new book Great Again, author Henry R. Nothhaft illustrates how the dysfunction at the United States Patent and Trademark Office is imperiling not only entrepreneurial inventors, but the economic recovery as a whole and even America's global innovation leadership.

Great AgainSince 1992, Congress has diverted nearly $1 billion in applicant-paid fees already earned by the USPTO to other uses (such as to help pay for the 2010 census), leaving the patent office understaffed, under-resourced, and wholly unable to deal with the threefold increase in patent applications over the last twenty years.

U.S tech companies have been the driving forces behind innovation in America for over two hundred years.

Together IBM and General Electric have filed over 1.5 million patents, 60 times the number filed by the U.S. government.

Abroad there's a similar story. While IBM and GE rank first and third for patents filed, Japanese corporations like Canon, Hitachi and Mitsubishi make up the rest of the top ten.

Coca-Cola is everywhere.

The iconic American brand is recognized instantly around the globe and sold in more than 200 countries. Additionally there are thousands of subsidiary beverages that you might have no idea are owned by Coke.

Despite three CEO changes since 2000, Coke has kept a firm lead in the U.S. carbonated drinks market, with 42.8% market share to Pepsi's 31.1%.

Source: Data from the US Patent and Trademark Office

Download the Excel version of this table here.

Change in Patents by State, 2005-2010

The concept behind CemenTech’s machinery is simple -- rather than mixing a batch of concrete with a short shelf life at a remote location and trucking it into the job site, why not mix the ingredients right on the truck?

That novel concept has led to the Indianola, Iowa, company’s machinery being sold in over 50 countries around the globe.

“We’ve been the innovators, if you will, in our little niche market,” said Gary Ruble, Chairman and CEO of Multi-Tech, Inc., CemenTech’s parent company.

From construction sites in industrialized countries, such as the Autobahn in Germany, to projects in developing nations, such as the Caribbean Islands, CemenTech’s machinery can be found throughout the world.

The company’s idea has produced a long list of advantages compared to a standard cement drum truck, which transports concrete that is pre-mixed to a construction site.

One benefit of using a CemenTech concrete mixer is that the concrete is always fresh and of the best possible quality.

Most ready-mix concrete that is transported via a drum truck begins to rapidly degrade in quality within 45 minutes of it being mixed. Because CemenTech’s mobile cement mixer mixes the concrete components -- sand, stone, Portland cement, and water -- at the point where it will be poured, the concern that a load may break down en route to the construction site is eliminated.

The European Commission has just published its 2011 Innovation Union Competitiveness Report (see IP/11/692). The Report builds on the Innovation Union Scoreboard and includes a factsheet detailing each country’s research and innovation performance. This MEMO explains the context of the Report and gives details of its findings.

Why is this report important? This is the first report providing a comprehensive analysis of recent trends and long-term evolution in research and innovation performance in all 27 EU Member States and six Associated Countries.

The report provides solid facts on which to base European and national policy choices to build efficient research and innovation systems and turn the EU into a true “Innovation Union” (see IP/10/1288)

Public and private stakeholders will also get, in single compendium, valuable insights to design winning innovation strategies within Europe and for the global market.

Pfizer's quest to find a more productive way to discover and advance important new treatments is taking the pharma giant on a journey back to college in Boston. With some of Pfizer's R&D luminaries joining hands with top politicians, the company announced a $100 million, five-year plan to establish a new Center for Therapeutic Innovation in the heart of the thriving biotech hub. Some 50 investigators will be brought in to work in teams with researchers at local universities and hospitals.

Pfizer--which spent $9.4 billion last year on R&D--is one of a group of Big Pharma companies which have far too little to show for their massive budgets. As a result Pfizer has joined Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline and others which have pronounced themselves fed up with the old way of developing a pipeline, declaring a shift toward a new "open ecosystem" in which corporate researchers link up with outside groups--particularly at top research colleges--in search of inspiration and success.

The New York City startup scene is bustling.

Every other day a tired banker leaves Wall Street to start a company. Incubators like DogPatch Labs and General Assembly are housing dozens of entrepreneurs and helping them get off the ground. TechStars NYC applicants jumped from 600 to 1,000 and TechCrunch's Mike Arrington said he's most proud of the NYC 2011 Disrupt startups.

After hitting the incubators, speaking with VCs and entrepreneurs, we selected 25 startups that are hidden gems; they're on track to blow up and become the next big tech titans.