WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwire - February 14, 2011) - Innovation leaders from twenty-two developed and emerging economies across six continents who are part of the non-governmental group the "i20" recently assembled at the US State Department with senior members of the US government for the i20 Annual Summit. Organized around the theme of "Marshalling Innovation to Address Global Grand Challenges," the meeting provided a unique platform for policymakers and thought leaders to exchange case studies, share best practices, and discuss how innovation capacities can be mobilized to address pressing global issues such as climate change, disease, poverty, and security.

"In an increasingly connected and economically interdependent world, the challenges we face transcend national borders and cannot be solved by any single government or organization," said Dr. John Kao, founder and chairman of Institute for Large-Scale Innovation (ILSI) that supports the i20. "This Summit marked a turning point in harnessing the collective intelligence and experience of so many innovation leaders, not for the benefit of any single enterprise or country, but to help address major problems facing global society."

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requested a $2.71 billion budget for 2012, a 16 percent increase from the previous year.

The patent office says the 2012 budget “will contribute to America’s innovation economy and promote economic growth and competitiveness by cutting the average overall processing time of a patent application from 35 months to 20 months by 2015.”

Let's be honest, work for the most part, sucks. Even if you are part of the 20% of Americans who actually truly enjoy what they are doing, chances are likely that you would rather be doing something else.

Job satisfaction rates are horrendous and one of the reasons is that people are slowly starting to realize that there is a better way to live. We are wising up to the fact that we don't NEED to work a crappy job and just grind out a living.

If you own a business, especially one that's entirely online, it is likely that you’ve got a distributed workforce. That means your employees (and contractors and partners) are located in different countries around the world.

Running an online business efficiently — and productively — requires the use of various tools and apps that can help you properly communicate with your employees, collaborate easily on multiple projects and hence compensate for the lack of everyday face-to-face interaction that happens in a real world office.

Meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and happiness are essential ingredients in our lives.

Sometimes getting more of them can seem impossible. We’re plagued by the uncertainty of the future, and we have no idea what our purpose is.

Those are big questions that cannot be answered in the blink of an eye, and today instead of focusing on them, we’ll look at seven simple ways that will improve your body, mind, and soul.

All good and bad things must come to an end. Sometimes, that means telling an employee he or she will not be working for you anymore.

This is no easy task for an employer, but sometimes firing an employee is a necessary evil—especially if the employee’s work has been compromising the success of the business.

We know many of you are successful entrepreneurs who may not necessarily have the time to find a date for Valentine’s Day.

Not to worry, Lalawag’s got your back.

We dug up a surprisingly still relevant post from Charlie O’Donnell, a prominent New York entrepreneur/investor, on the top ten reasons to date an entrepreneur. That’s right, we traveled back in time (to 2008) for you. Just send this on over to the object of your affections and reap the rewards.

I report in today from Shanghai where preparations are underway for a major global summit on entrepreneurship at the end of March. The recent events in Egypt have put a spotlight on the role of a younger, well-educated generation of entrepreneurs peacefully channeling expressions of economic freedom. China has been miles ahead in reconciling a strong government with messy entrepreneurialism and offers some useful lessons for Arab nations as they grapple with enabling, rather than blocking, their citizens under the age of 25.

It is well-known China has seen dramatic increases in growth over the past decade and has enormous potential, plus the human resources, to realize even more growth in the future. The motivation and freedom to start new companies is evident here with plenty of examples of founders who have taken the leap. Baidu’s Robin Li and many more following Li and other rockstar entrepreneurs offer excellent role models. Tomorrow I will join, among others, Niu Wenwen, founder & president of The Founder Magazine—which has become a leader in shining the light on startup entrepreneurs in China—in announcing that China will host the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Shanghai next month, gathering hundreds of such Chinese entrepreneurs in one room.

Founders of emerging companies, such as those in the medical device industry, are often required to “bootstrap” their young companies before institutional dollars become a realistic option. Venture capital, strategic, and other institutional funding sources typically require target companies to have advanced the development of their core product beyond theory and blue prints before they will consider the investment opportunity.

According to the National Venture Capital Association’s 2010 NVCA Yearbook, venture capital under management in the United States by the end of 2009 decreased 11.9% from the 2008 level, and more than 35% from its reported peak in 2006. With continued contraction in the venture capital markets, founders increasingly are required to find alternative sources of capital to fund their ventures.

SPOONS and forks, the metal flatware that everyone uses, are no longer made in the United States. The last factory in an industry stretching back to colonial times closed eight months ago in Sherrill, N.Y., a small community in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and 80 employees lost their jobs.

No one paid much attention beyond the people in the town itself, even though the closing represented the demise of an industry that had flourished in this country for generations. Paul Revere, in fact, was a flatware craftsman.

If Michigan is to grow its way toward a new economic future, it will have to depend less on the General Motorses of the world and more on firms like IC Datacom.

A tenant at the TechTown business accelerator at Wayne State University, IC Datacom offers IT services to small nonprofits and other entities. Founding partners Terence Willis and Dwayne Carson, both 40, started IC Datacom in 2005 and now employ about 27 workers.

Many universities need to change their attitudes and the way they operate if they are to play an effective part in helping their cities and regions promote human capital development and become more innovative and globally competitive. In particular they should widen their access to include sections of the population currently under-represented in higher education, and redefine their concept of 'innovation'.

These are among findings identified by Jaana Puukka, analyst and project leader of the OECD's work on higher education in regional and city development, in the light of research by the organisation's Programme on Institutional Management of Higher Education (IMHE).

Innovation and trade are keys to growth and competitiveness for small and medium enterprises around the world. Yet many entrepreneurs are unfamiliar with the opportunities for innovation across borders and the good practices that mitigate the challenges of successful international business development.

Note: Bendis to Speak at Event - Ed.

A straightforward guide to leveraging your company's intellectual capital by creating a knowledge management culture
The Complete Guide to Knowledge Management offers managers the tools they need to create an organizational culture that improves knowledge sharing, reuse, learning, collaboration, and innovation to ensure mesurable growth. Written by internationally recognized knowledge management pioneers, it addresses all those topics in knowledge management that a manager needs to ensure organizational success.

• Provides plenty of real-life examples and case studies
• Includes interviews with prominent managers who have successfully implemented knowledge management structures within their organizations
• Offers chapters composed of short theoretical explanations and practical methods that you can utilize, based primarily on hands-on author experience

Taking an intellectual journey into knowledge management, beginning with an understanding of the concept of intellectual capital and how to establish an appropriate culture, this book looks at the human aspects of managing knowledge workers, promoting interactions for knowledge creation and sharing.

Large and small corporations, both in high-tech and traditional industries, now owe most of their value to investments in knowledge. These investments, creating value from the intangible assets of intellectual capital, have a better return on investment (ROI) than physical assets. The Complete Guide to Knowledge Management reveals how your company can achieve a measurable growth in its value by using knowledge management (KM) to create an organizational culture that cultivates knowledge sharing, reuse, learning, collaboration, and innovation.

Many foreign-born techies in the U.S. and abroad are pinning their entrepreneurial hopes on the passage of a bill, sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), to create a startup visa. Tech-industry notables such as Paul Graham, Eric Ries, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, and David McClure have lobbied for this. I, too, lent this my support. In fact, I have been advocating such a visa since 2007—when my team’s research revealed that 52% of Silicon Valley’s startups from 1995 to 2005 were founded by immigrants. We also learned that a million skilled workers and their families were stuck in “immigration limbo” and that many were beginning to return home—causing America’s first brain drain.

Most VCs consider it a very bad idea to invest in companies doing contract research and development for the government. Government R&D is a specialized business model that’s made even more complicated by the nuances of government accounting and contracting practices. Companies that start out with government contracts have a tough time generating new business and winning proposals. And even if they do win new business, they may find that the government claims the rights to all of the intellectual property they developed while under contract.

Fair or unfair, German Web entrepreneurs get a bad rap for being copy cats. If Stefan Gulas is any representation, the same can’t be said for German entrepreneurs making…what I guess you would call futuristic motorized bicycles?

Gulas has spent the last six years building something called the eROCKIT that defies a vehicle category. Unlike a motorcycle, it’s active– you have to pedal to make it go. But unlike a motorized bicycle it goes incredibly fast. So fast it can out accelerate a car. And it’s completely electric, borrowing some technology and looks from your home exercise bike.

The good news is that venture investing grew in 2010 for the first time since 2007, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Assn. (NVCA). Venture capitalists invested nearly $21.8 billion in 3,277 deals last year, up from $18.3 billion in 2009.

The bad news: although more venture money is going out, less investor money is coming in, points out Michael Greeley, founder and general partner of Flybridge Capital Partners, a Boston-based venture-capital firm. Venture-capital funds raised only $12.3 billion in 2010, down from $16.3 billion in 2009, according to the NVCA and Thomson Reuters. That was the fourth consecutive annual decline and a far cry from 2006, when VC funds raised about $31.9 billion. All told, there were 157 VC funds in 2010, says the NVCA and Thomson Reuters, compared with 237 funds in 2007.

As if we needed another sign that Valentine’s Day is getting awfully expensive, the coupon Web sites have now gotten into the game.

LivingSocial offered deeply discounted candy to New York City residents on Tuesday. Two days later, Groupon offered $40 worth of flowers from FTD for $20.

These group buying sites may be trying to strike decent bargains for users. But now that so many people subscribe to their e-mails, gift givers have to be playing a weird psychic game with themselves. Will he know I used a Groupon? Will she think less of me for doing so? Cut-rate romance feels somehow wrong, so plenty of people simply pay up. It’s a special day, after all.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL IN THE BENDIS EXTENDED FAMILY.......RICH BENDIS

(ThyBlackMan.com) We are all quite aware of President Obama’s call for greater U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship as demonstrated in his recent State Of The Union Address. And it was certainly not lost on the hip hop generation that President Obama’s “we do big things”, when referring to American ingenuity, was a direct sample from the everyday language used by urban millennials.

But while the President’s use of that term may be familiar, the steps to actually becoming one of these business innovators that Obama would so much like to see, may not be quite so accessible. In fact, I get the feeling that much of Black GenY demographic is still shaking their heads in terms of figuring out just how the President expects today’s young people of color to take the entrepreneurial bull by the horns, particularly when it comes to an area where there is so much potential opportunity: the digital industry.