Obama wants to end the rural-urban Internet divide and sees better quality Wi-Fi and access as a key ingredient to moving forward and making America more competitive with other nations.

satellite dishPresident Barack Obama wants to inject $5 billion into a national fund enabling high-speed Internet access for 98% of Americans. Even those in the sticks.

The early sketchings of the plan were laid out last year, but it's shifted into high gear following news that $27.8 billion will be raised over the next decade by gradually auctioning off private airwaves to companies that will serve customers in rural areas.

Startup America, an initiative of the Obama administration, was launched two weeks ago. As the public response to this call to action, top entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, foundation leaders, and others have joined together to increase the prevalence and success of high growth U.S. startups via the Startup America Partnership. JumpStart America is one of its first implementation partners.

In May 2007 at GetJar’s former headquarters in Lithuania, I received the most important call of my life. It was from Rich Wong, a partner from Accel Partners, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture firm that has backed the likes of Facebook, Groupon, BitTorrent and Etsy.Photo credit of Refracted Moments

Wong was calling to discuss potentially backing GetJar. There was only one problem. I had no idea what “venture capital” meant. I have a master’s degree in economics from Vilnius University and have started several successful tech companies. But my oblivion to the VC world proves in itself that VC operations have a shaky foothold in Europe.

Six months ago 500 Startups, the angel fund headed by Dave McClure, started investing in dozens of startups — they’re now up to around 90 investments. And today the fund is announcing an incubator program similar in many ways to Y Combinator, TechStars, and the numerous other programs that have popped up to support fledgling tech startups.

As with these other programs, 500 Startups is giving each company some seed funding and access to a roster of mentors, in exchange for a chunk of equity. McClure says that in general these startups are receiving between $25k-100k for 5% of equity, with the median around $50k (this is more than Y Combinator, though 500 Startups doesn’t have the sweet $150k Start Fund deal). The program lasts for 3-6 months depending on how long each company wants to stay, and McClure says they’ll probably run three batches this year, each with its own Demo Day to showcase the startups to investors, the first of which will be in early April.

GUELPH — The agriculture and agri food sector in Ontario and across Canada has significant problems when it comes to turning innovative science into successful products.

That was one of the concerns local agricultural experts shared with the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri Food when it stopped in Guelph Wednesday — one stop on its cross-country study of the condition of the sector in Canada.

If you’re an entrepreneur looking to raise money from the venture community, what’s the best sector to be in?

That was the question posed Thursday by Lori Hoberman, who heads up Chadbourne & Parke LLP’s emerging-companies/venture-capital practice in New York, at her annual “State of the Union” Venture Capital Lunch Club.

As part of its Innovation Union strategy, the European Commission has set a target of there being at least €10 billion allocated around the EU for government agencies to buy innovative products and services. The idea: To harness the purchasing power of the public sector towards stimulating more innovation – the way the US government has done with its DARPA and SBIR programmes.

The external environment is changing; we are living in the “New Normal”. The business is falling behind and weakening. Yet, nothing happens. No change takes place. Critical issues are not addressed. The leadership continues to do what it has always done.

But, why? Why aren’t the business leaders taking action to change their business model and get their company back on track? Undoubtedly, the leaders are working hard and want to succeed. So, what is stopping them from facing the problems head on?

After two rough years, health-care venture capitalists are adapting to deal with what could be more tough times ahead.

While medical companies have produced some of the best exits recently-–most notably, Ardian Inc.’s $800 million sale to Medtronic Inc.–-the downturn has left many companies gasping.

“The biggest issue in health-care venture capital is that most of the funds are out of money,” said David Collier, managing director of venture firm CMEA Capital. As a result, “We’ll continue to see bankruptcies in both devices and drug-development companies.”

This is part of my ongoing Series on University Entrepreneurship.

This past Sunday I attended the closing demos of a week-long(!) development extravaganza put on entirely by a new student group on Columbia's campus. The format was a seven day hackathon interspersed with various instructive workshops and capped by the aforementioned final demofest. The event attracted some terrific sponsors as well as a veritable murderer's row of panelists/judges who provided some amazing feedback to the various student hackers that presented their work. Among the panelists were the likes of Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, David Jagoda of Andreessen Horowitz, Thatcher Bell of Draper Gotham, Prof. Chris Wiggins, Justin Singer from IA Ventures and Steve Jacobs, CIO of Gilte Groupe. Of course the faculty advisor of this group was none other than one of the great evangelists for student entrepreneurship in the country- my colleague Chris Wiggins, co-founder of HackNY.

The Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF) in Seattle, Washington awarded some $600,000 in grants for the commercial development of technologies to improve the diagnosis and management of health conditions. LSDF is a Washington state agency that makes grant investments in life sciences research to benefit Washington state citizens.

Christopher Bernards at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason in Seattle received a $150,000 LSDF award to conduct first-in-human testing of a device that can deliver drugs directly to the central nervous system through an intranasal route. The new methods, if successful would be less risky, painful, and expensive than current techniques involving direct injections into the cerebrospinal fluid.

For days, Tahrir — or Liberation — Square has dominated headlines as the center stage for a budding Egyptian revolution, with scenes of chaos and courage beamed from there across the world. But in the late 19th century the area was dubbed "Paris Along the Nile" for its European architecture; the square itself is surrounded by some of the most important buildings in Cairo, including the national museum, the headquarters of the ruling party and the state-TV building. In 1952, it saw the stirrings of a military-led revolt that ousted the ruling monarchy and paved the way for the charismatic, autocratic Gamal Abdel Nasser to take power a few years later. In March 2003, an estimated 30,000 Egyptians protested the Iraq war there. But nothing compares to the hundreds of thousands that have recently flooded Tahrir Square calling for democratic reform and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

Steve Duncan is an urban historian and photographer whose mission is to “peel back the layers of a city to see what’s underneath” – to piece together the complex cities we inhabit. In this fascinating video, we follow Duncan as he explores the underbelly of New York City. Andrew Wonder, using a Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 24mm f/1.4L lens, documents the adventure. The sensory experiences must be extraordinary, as Alan Feuer (who accompanied Steve and Andrew on one of their trips) writes in the New York Times:

The sounds down here are even more impressive than the sights and smells: the Niagara-like crash of water spilling in from side drains; the rumble of the subway; the guh-DUNK! of cars hitting manhole covers overhead, like two jabs on a heavy bag.

Have you ever thought about starting your own company? Do you have a great idea that you think could be the next Twitter? Perhaps it’s time you turned your dreams into reality. More and more, young women are not only starting their own businesses, but they are also achieving enormous success doing so. Take recent start-ups like Her Campus, Rent the Runway, and LearnVest: all three lucrative businesses were founded by women in their early twenties.

Once known for massive steel mills belching smoke into the sky, Cleveland could one day be known as the center of innovation for clean, alternative energy with wind turbines lining the edge of Lake Erie and spreading west across the northern portion of the state.

Don’t hold your breath, you say? Consider this: LEEDCo, a nonprofit group heading Northeast Ohio’s efforts to initiate an offshore wind project, and Fresh Water Wind, a private developer working with LEEDCo to finance, construct and operate the wind turbines, recently signed an option with the state of Ohio for offshore land on which to build a 20-megawatt wind farm.

Overview | What is the “Sputnik moment” to which President Obama referred in his State of the Union address, and how do educators place this comment in the context of science education? What questions and ideas do students have that can generate innovative science projects? In this lesson, students consider the current state of science fairs, explore the role of creativity and ingenuity in science, and develop science fair project proposals.

Be nice to your classmates, because - with the help of K-State's Center for the Advancement of Entrepreneurship - the next Mark Zuckerberg could be sitting in the next desk over.

This year, the center will hold its third annual entrepreneurial competition, an all-university event titled "The Next Big Thing."

Jeffrey Hornsby, professor of management and director of the Center for the Advancement of Entrepreneurship, said the competition is meant to generate fresh business ideas.

After my quarterly Return Path exec team offsite last week, my team and I were rehashing the day’s conversation over dinner. Was it a good day or a bad day? An upper or a downer? We concluded that the day was as it should have been – a good mix of what I will now articulate as the three main functions of a management team. Here they are with some color:

1. Create an environment for success: Do people like to come to work every day? When they get there, do they know what they’re supposed to do, and how it connects to the company’s mission? Are people learning and growing? Are you building an enduring organization beyond you as a leader?

The European Commission on Wednesday (9 February) requested public recommendations on how to cut the duplication and bureaucracy that hobble innovation in Europe.

The goal is to streamline four programmes totalling more than €143 billion in funding for innovation and research.

These include the Seventh Framework Programme for research (FP7), the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme, the Cohesion Policy aimed at regions, and funds made available by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

Globalization is both the biggest opportunity and the greatest challenge for business schools worldwide as they struggle to keep up with the demand for graduates who can work across countries and cultures, says a report released today.

The 346-page report is the result of a three-year study by a task force of deans and scholars from top business schools worldwide. It offers a critique of the flurry of global activities that business schools have initiated in recent years.