While Einstein was not a neuroscientist, he sure knew what he was talking about in regards to the human capacity to achieve. He knew intuitively what we can now show with data—what it takes to function at your cognitive best. In essence: What doesn’t kill you makes you smarter.

Not so many years ago, I was told by a professor of mine that you didn't have much control over your intelligence. It was genetic—determined at birth. He explained that efforts made to raise the intelligence of children (through programs like Head Start, for example) had limited success while they were in practice, and furthermore, once the "training" stopped, they went right back to their previously low cognitive levels. Indeed, the data did show that (pdf), and he (along with many other intelligence researchers) concluded that intelligence could not be improved—at least not to create a lasting change.

Innovation is at the top of agendas for governments in the U.S. and U.K. Now the U.K. has sprung into action again with its $82 million Growth and Innovation Fund (GIF), launched today to help businesses drive economic growth in the U.K.

“This government understands that to rebalance and grow our economy, we need to tackle the skills shortages that hold companies back. Through this fund, we will support employers that take collective action to overcome these blockages to expansion, said Secretary of State Vince Cable. “By putting the employer voice at the heart of the process, we will reward inventive approaches to training that deliver real help to get business moving.”

The focus of the investment is on advancing the breadth of skills of the U.K. workforce--the thinking is that more competent and knowledgeable workers will lead to more experimentation and innovation.

Have you ever seen a friend or a loved one completely sabotage their success? Of course, we all have. As a friend, we're there on the sidelines trying to help them but they are so blind to their surroundings and so set in their ways that they are like a run away train that nothing can slow down.

That’s often a negative belief at work. If you don’t believe you deserve to earn over $50,000 a year, you probably won’t. You will turn down opportunities because they seem too good to be true, and you will miss lucky breaks because you aren’t expecting them. Heck, you aren't even looking for them.

NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw visited Silicon Valley last month to meet immigrant entrepreneurs. At Microsoft’s Mountain View campus, he met with a dozen of them. More than half said that they might be forced to return to their home countries. That’s because they have the same visa issues that Kunal Bahl had. Unable to get a visa that would allow him to start a company after he graduated from Wharton in 2007, Kunal returned home to India. In February 2010, he started SnapDeal—India’s Groupon. Instead of creating hundreds of jobs in the U.S., Kunal ended up creating them in New Delhi.

At a time when our economy is stagnating, some American political leaders are working to keep the world’s best and brightest out. They mistakenly believe that skilled immigrants take American jobs away. The opposite is true: skilled immigrants start the majority of Silicon Valley startups; they create jobs.

At Scuttlefish today, an item on the largest set of shark jaws (outside of a living shark, I suppose) going up for auction. All 182 teeth, 11 feet of width, and more than 8 feet in height. "The jaws, which once belonged to a megaladon, will be placed up for bid in Dallas, Texas in June at the Heritage Auction Galleries. The asking price is set at $625,000, but would anywhere shy of The Museum of Natural History have sufficient room to accommodate the jowls?"

When she was growing up, Ella Bitton had two heroes. One was her father, Paul, who set up his own bathroom and kitchen design company. The other was Richard Branson. "I do love Richard Branson," she says with a dreamy sigh. "But seeing my dad do it all from scratch – he was my real inspiration."

Ella is 20 years old, petite and professional in appearance: her hair is glossy and blow-dried, her outfit neatly accessorised. She is studying for a business management degree at King's College London and talks animatedly with one eye constantly on her iPhone, checking it for Twitter updates or text messages.

Entrepreneurs who have outgrown their garage and want to transform their passion into a product have several options for growing their business in the region. The area is home to a handful of nonprofit incubators that cater to a wide range of emerging businesses, from architects of sustainable products to inventors of medical devices.

Each of the incubators offers customized training programs and access to consultants as well as assistance with operating and marketing plans, grant applications, and legal issues. Companies that wish to set up shop in these incubators must go through an application process; not every candidate makes the cut.

The startup accelerator recipe for establishing Foundational Capability seems to have the following ingredients: someone with ‘founder potential’ (an ingredient even more mysterious than the foundational capability you are attempting to obtain) plus a new idea, plus a little startup success (maybe involving successfully securing some initial investment) plus applying to an accelerator, plus being accepted by an accelerator, plus completing an accelerator course.

Once fully baked, the recipe produces a massively raised likelihood (but no guarantee) of startup success, plus massively raised likelihood of credible foundational capability (ability to found or accelerate future successful startups at will): so what is wrong with this picture?

Startups vie for a chance to be part of the SXSW Accelerator competition for the opportunity it brings — 41% of the companies that have participated in the first two competitions received funding after the event. Only 40 companies are selected, but that doesn’t mean your startup can’t make a splash in Austin. Just being at SXSWi and exposing a solid product to the conference’s 14,000 attendees and a 1,500-person-strong media swarm can ignite a business.

But it can’t be engineered with snazzy swag and marketing dollars — you have to have great credibility and a great product.

A month ago, a public-private partnership — Startup America Partnership — was announced, reiterating the Obama Administration's keen focus on small business innovation, entrepreneurship and access to capital. With organizational funding from the Kauffman Foundation and the (AOL Steve) Case Foundation, the initiative seems designed to coordinate a variety of existing and emerging (not yet funded) public and private sector resources and efforts focused on advancing Obama’s agenda as it relates to supporting strategic sectors (including energy, advanced manufacturing and information technology) and small, high-growth ventures with capital and counsel. The capital portion of the plan included statements that partners such as IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. would commit specific dollar amounts to supporting or investing in emerging growth companies.

There are an infinite number of ways one can start a business. There also seems to be an infinite number of things that can go wrong during the business startup phase. Fortunately, there are also many ways to fund a startup. One method you may not have considered is crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding has its roots in charity work, and indeed works similar to a public television pledge drive. You put out a certain amount you want to raise for your business and family, friends and acquaintances pledge as much or as little as they want until the goal is reached. This differs from using an angel investor or microloan because your funding comes from several different sources.

The ‘Third Way’ of university research commercialization focuses on systemic change, rather than on single stakeholder intervention. It reflects a third generation of innovation policies that focuses on training, awareness raising and the leverage of cluster effects, rather than the development of physical infrastructure (i.e. science parks).

This is a unique approach that outperforms existing best practice in many ways; i.e. it focuses on the leverage of network effects among the various academic institutions, rather than repeating the traditional ‘one university – one commercialization’ approach.

The ‘Third Way’ also outperforms existing best practices by adopting latest trends in IP management , such as online trading, perceiving IP as financial asset, leveraging open innovation for improving patent quality.

Hang on to your wallets and purses. In the constant search for the next thing to disrupt, Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs and venture capitalists believe that lugging around all that plastic and cash is a cumbersome system ripe for reinvention.

But listing the problems with the current system is one thing. Revolutionizing it is another.

I got a pretty good sense of those daunting challenges while moderating a panel last week at the Future of Money and Technology Summit in San Francisco. The panel included several venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who are taking aim at this tantalizing opportunity.

There seemed to be a general agreement that somehow, some way, everything about how we pay for stuff is going to change. You'd expect to hear that from the wide-eyed optimists from Silicon Valley.

I deal often with early-stage startups, and many of these don’t have any customers yet (but wish they did), so it’s not surprising they still don’t think of customers as their friends. More disturbingly, others do have customers, but the customer service program consists of an informal focus on “problems,” rather than a proactive effort to establish a positive relationship with friends.

The right time to put a formal customer service program in place, with measurements, is before the first sale of your product or service to a customer. You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and customer satisfaction these days is one the most critical success factors to every business.

BEIJING - Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday unfolded the road map for China's social and economic development during the next five years, setting targets for the quality and efficiency of economic growth and speaking about the transformation of the growth mode and economic restructuring.

While delivering his annual government work report, he also listed other priorities that include improving people's well-being, advancing education and healthcare, conserving natural resources and protecting the environment.

What happens when funding dries up, investors are uninterested and grant requests are denied?

It comes down to money: whether it's a creative project in search of funds, a start-up business hunting for investors, or a charity venture raising money for their cause, the bottom line is that each requires cold hard cash. Instead of relying solely on government grants and investors, though, entrepreneurs are turning to crowd-funding to see their project to fruition.

A new way to finance

Crowd-funding relies on the general public to make micropayments in order to fund a project. Many Canadian artists, entrepreneurs, charities and small businesses are getting in on the trend, posting their projects on websites like IndieGoGo.com. Once a project is posted, the public can donate in any amount to help achieve "success" (a predetermined goal amount).

The Office of Sponsored Programs announces the 2011 Grow Iowa Values Fund Technology Transfer Grant Competition. The purpose of the Technology Transfer Grants is to provide seed money for late-stage product or process development with the greatest potential for commercialization. Proof of concept projects will be considered but priority will be given to projects closer to commercial application. Priority will be given to projects in Iowa’s targeted clusters: Bioscience, Information Technology (including educational technologies), and Advanced Manufacturing. The request for proposals and application guidelines are available at: http://www.uni.edu/osp/2011-grow-iowa-values-fund

What kind of genius creates a product and brand that is so strong and so powerful that people will wait outside the handful of retail outlets that distribute the product, even though …

* The product has some technical features which are less desirable than the alternative?
* It has basic functions that actually cause developers and design firms to design around them?
* Hackers break into the device so that desperate customers from certain wireless providers can use it?
* It has an audience that’s so loyal they will beg and plead with their cell phone carriers for access to the exclusive device?

Washington -- Six states and a New England organization will receive $241 million in "early innovator" grants to develop the technology Americans will use to purchase insurance through exchanges operated by states.

"Beginning in 2014, states will provide private insurance exchanges to pool purchasing power," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Exchanges will make finding health insurance much easier by giving people a one-stop shop where they can compare and choose a health plan that's right for them."

Kansas, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin and a multistate consortium of individuals and businesses led by the University of Massachusetts Medical School will share the funds. The groups will build the consumer interfaces and other online technology that individuals will use to access the health insurance exchanges mandated by the national health system reform law.

PHILADELPHIA, Mar. 04 /CSRwire/ - GoodCompany Ventures (GCV) is pleased to announce that it is now accepting applications for the 2011 Social Impact Incubator.

GCV was the first to adapt the venture industry's incubator model to the needs of social entrepreneurs and its Social Impact Incubator has developed the most rigorous program and an unequalled record of success.

Applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis through our Early Decision Deadline of April 15th. For more information about the program and the application process, please visit http://www.goodcompanyventures.org.