The $3.8 billion the US government invested in the Human Genome Project (HGP) from 1988 to 2003 helped drive $796 billion in economic impact and the generation of $244 billion in total personal income, according to a new study by Battelle, the independent research organisation.

In 2010 alone, human genome sequencing projects and associated genomics research and industry activity directly and indirectly generated $67 billion in US economic output and underpinned 310,000 jobs, paying salaries with a combined value of $20 billion. At the same time genomics-enabled industry paid $3.7 billion in federal taxes in 2010.

Along with this significant financial contribution, the report also outlines significant breakthroughs the Human Genome Project has made possible in the first ten years since the reference human genomes were published. These include new approaches to personalised medicine, greater productivity in agriculture and potential new sources of renewable energy.

Even though the world is getting smaller, due to easy global connectivity, people still feel alone if not well-connected locally. There is also more going on in every location, so this personal need and super sensitivity to the local community has spawned a new breed of Internet startups, called “hyperlocal.” The term first appeared five years ago, but the model is now very common.

At first this was limited to news sites that concentrated on a segment of a community, like West Seattle, but the concept is now being applied to advertising and promotion sites, blogging sites, and even legal services sites. These hyperlocal sites don’t have to compete with global sites, and always have unique content, community advertising, and local issues.

Foursquare is good example of a modern hyperlocal site, which describes itself as “50% friend-finder, 30% social city guide, 20% nightlife game.” It also shows how such a website can scale by adding new cities. When you enter one of these cities, you simply check-in to tell the service where you are, and you begin to earn points and unlock badges for discovering new things.

Twenty-nine companies, entrepreneurs and inventors will share in more than $13 million to commercialise their technologies as part of Commercialisation Australia.

Funded by the Federal Government, Commercialisation Australia is a merit-based, competitive assistance program aimed at taking products, processes and services to market.

Innovation Minister Kim Carr announced the new funding at the 2011 AusBiotech CEO Forum, using the opportunity to highlight the Government’s commitment to the program.

“The Gillard Labor Government... is allocating $278 million over five years to the program. Commercialisation Australia will receive $82 million annually thereafter,” Carr said.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 18, 2011) - In what could best be described as the ultimate science fair meets trade show, Discovery 11 hosted by Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) will highlight the truly remarkable innovation coming out of Ontario including universities and colleges. These discoveries will form the foundation of Ontario's future knowledge-based economy.

Named Canada's Best Trade Show in 2010, Discovery brings together industry, academia, investors and government all of whom play a crucial role in the province's innovation continuum. It will be held May 18 and 19 in the South building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

OCE President and CEO Dr. Tom Corr says there is a lot of buzz worldwide around the need to bring innovation forward and he suggests it's the right time for the spotlight to shine on Canada.

The state of small business financing has been a mixed bag lately, as Joel Libava previously wrote about on Small Business Trends. But slowly, things seem to be improving. Last month, The New York Times reported that more small businesses are seeking—and getting—bank loans. And in a new study by Capitol One, 85 percent of U.S. small businesses surveyed say they are able to access the financing they need—up from 70 percent at the same time last year.

But what kind of capital are these businesses getting, and is it helping—or hurting—them in the long run? A new survey by MultiFunding LLC, a firm that helps small companies find financing, sheds a slightly different perspective than most surveys on the issue.

“How should I finance my startup?” is a common refrain from first-time founders and serial entrepreneurs alike. There is no manual for how to best do this, and intuition can only get you so far in the absence of experience and mentoring. As with investors evaluating startups, it is and always has been people first.

Having a deep trust relationship with your investors and confidence in the value they bring is absolutely critical: more important than valuation; more important than pretty much anything. Making the wrong investor decisions might not only hurt a company’s chances to reach full potential, they might impact the company’s ability to survive the inevitable challenges and near-death experiences borne by early-stage companies. This is not an issue to be taken lightly.

KANSAS CITY, MO—May 18, 2011—Since its launch in Kansas City in late January of this year, Angel Capital Group, a network of investors and entrepreneurs, has been expanding its reach and has branched out to a number of investors within the Midwest. Because of its nationwide expansion, Angel Capital Group has partnered with Think Big Partners, a mentorship-based startup accelerator and business incubator and has added a new face to its team.

The Angel Capital Group offers a variety of services both to the angel investor and the entrepreneur. Most importantly, Angel Capital Group has established a network where entrepreneurs can reach out to angel investors to find the seed capital they need in order to grow their businesses. Simultaneously, Angel Capital Group helps investors build diverse portfolios of meaningful private investments. The biggest benefit of utilizing the Angel Capital Group is its initiative to allow accredited investors to join its network for free for one year or until that investor makes his or her first investment.

As First Round Capital managing partner Rob Hayes met with the founders of another potentially promising startup earlier this week, he couldn’t help but fixate on the team’s crowded roster. The fledgling company had barely been in existence long enough to print a batch of business cards, yet it had already collected a CEO, COO, CFO, vice president of marketing, vice president of sales and two engineers.

For Hayes, whose company saw 700 investment opportunities last quarter and funded 12, this glut of executives did not bode well. “You know, who is going to do the work?” he asked himself. The startup ended up on Hayes’ “No” pile.

One expects there to be a conceptual analogy between an innovation ecosystem and the biological ecosystems observed in nature. The biological ecosystem is a system that includes all living organisms (biotic factors) in an area as well as its physical environments (abiotic factors) functioning together as a unit.    It is characterized by one or more equilibrium states, where a relatively stable set of conditions exist to maintain a population or nutrient exchange at desirable levels. The ecosystem has certain functional characteristics that specifically regulate change or maintain the stability of a desired equilibrium state.

This week’s Economist cover story, “A New Tech Bubble,” has people abuzz once again about how Silicon Valley is ripe for another fall. According to the article, irrational exuberance has gripped tech industry investors, and it’s only a matter of time before the general public is left holding the check, just like they did in 2001.

But the latest bubble warnings seem to be missing the mark. Are some Internet companies over-hyped and over-funded? Absolutely. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater by making generalizations about the entire industry based on a few flashy examples. I’d argue that the silent majority of businesses and investors in Silicon Valley are much more responsible than they get credit for. For every headline-grabbing Webvan 2.0, there is at least one current startup running a real business by providing a real service. Overall, a healthy amount of the companies that make up the web scene today are built to last.

LinkedIn, the professional social network, began trading its shares publicly today and immediately soared to a market value of more than $8 billion — almost double the value of the company’s pricing yesterday.

What’s more, it comes on a day when the overall stock market is down.

Silicon Valley has been waiting for years for the new crop of technology companies to go public, and LinkedIn has been years in the making (check out the infographic below). The minting of millionaires at post-IPO companies like LinkedIn inspire other entrepreneurs to want to do great things. And the employees at these companies take their millions and buy new homes, so LinkedIn’s IPO will probably lead to a little blip in prices on the high-end of the Silicon Valley housing market in a few months, after the lock-up is over. The Valley, like other places in the country, has been in a housing trough. LinkedIn, with more than 1,000 employees, is based in Mountain View, Calif. With Facebook (more than 2,000 employees) expected to go public next year, more wealth is expected to be transfered from main street investors to the techies in the valley (Zuck’s recent home purchase, of course, is just an early indicator). Zynga may follow.

The Slovenian parliament recently approved the Resolution on the Research and Innovation Strategy of Slovenia 2011-2020, a comprehensive strategy to establish "a contemporary research and innovation system that will ensure a higher quality of life within the country." According to the UNESCO Science Report, Slovenia is drastically ahead of their counterparts in Southeastern Europe. However, Slovenia still intends to double the government's science budget from 0.52 percent of GDP to almost 1.0 percent of GDP (approximately $554.9 million) in 2012 with an expected increase to 1.2 percent in 2020. By 2012, the government expects to exceed the European Union (EU) required gross domestic expenditure on research and development (R&D) established by the Barcelona Objective (3 percent of GDP). Tax breaks and other government incentives will be utilized to spur domestic private sector investments and foreign direct investment into Slovenia's science and technology (S&T) sectors. This strong commitment to S&T is intended to attract successful researchers and companies from the Western Balkans and to increase the number of foreign researchers working in the country. To strengthen entrepreneurship, the plan includes aid to young Ph.D.s to establish startups, tax breaks to companies that invest in R&D, public-private research collaboration and reductions in red tape. The plan also gives public research organizations more autonomy but requires them to produce results that clearly "make a positive impact on science or the economy."

Download the Report (PDF)

Mornings are a mad-cap time in many households. Everyone’s so focused on getting out the door that you can easily lose track of just how much time is passing. I’ve had hundreds of people keep time logs for me over the past few years (you can see some of mine here and here), and I’m always amazed to see gaps of 90 minutes or more between when people wake up and when they start the commute or school car pool.

That would be fine if the time was used intentionally, but often it isn’t.

The most productive people, however, realize that 90 minutes, 120 minutes or more is a long time to lose track of on a busy weekday. If you feel like you don’t have time for personal priorities later in the day, why not try using your mornings? Streamline breakfast, personal care and kid routines. Then you can use 30-60 minutes to try one of four things:

1. Play, read, or talk with your kids. Mornings can be great quality time, especially if you have little kids who go to bed soon after you get home at night, but wake up at the crack of dawn. Set an alarm on your watch, put away the iPhone, and spend a relaxed half an hour reading stories or doing art projects. If you have older children, aim for a leisurely family breakfast. Everyone talks through their plans for the day and what’s going on in their lives. If family dinners aren’t a regular thing in your house, this is a great substitute.

Working virtually and flexibly are facts of life for many of us. For some it’s a blessing, for some a curse and for many it just is what it is–the way the world is going. For those of us who manage people virtually there are two questions: a) can working remotely make us happier, and 2) do the bean counters and policy makers care about our happiness so long as the work gets done?

Recent research shows it might not be an either/or question. Working virtually can increase employee happiness and satisfaction (if it’s done right) AND there’s a way to quantify that satisfaction to satisfy the money folk. The key is to do it right.

LINCOLN -- State lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to a trio of economic development proposals aimed at helping entrepreneurs, inventors and small businesses.

• One, the Angel Investment Tax-Credit Act, introduced on behalf of Gov. Dave Heineman, would provide a 40-percent, refundable state income tax credit for high-risk investments of at least $25,000 in start-up businesses.

“Angel” investors are wealthy individuals, or groups of investors, who provide start-up funding for endeavors when banks and venture capital groups will not.

Several states offer similar tax breaks for angle investors, though Nebraska’s would be among the most generous because it is “refundable” -- meaning a taxpayer could get their credit regardless of whether they owed state income tax.

Could you use a beer? Life coach? Free tuition? Some companies seem to think so.

It's proven that corporate benefits can increase productivity and overall morale -- just look at Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Without mentioning those companies' well-documented perks, here's our list -- combined with some from Fortune -- of the coolest company perks. Get ready to be jealous.

Funding will help early stage companies commercialize new technologies.

The Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) has announced investments in six Kansas City-area companies. The investments totaling more than $2 million will help those companies to commercialize innovative bioscience technologies that will improve human and animal health, the KBA said.

“These companies are on the cutting edge of their fields, and their technological advances are very exciting,” said David Vranicar, KBA president. “We are pleased not only to invest in their success, but also to roll up our sleeves and help them get products to market and create jobs in Kansas.”

It’s the ultimate Kickstarter success story. Unable to secure a manufacturer, the Chicago-based designer Scott Wilson placed his TikTok and LunaTik wristbands -- which convert the Nano into a watch -- on the funding site. Within a month, he raised nearly $1 million from 13,500 backers -- a Kickstarter record. All of a sudden, retailers came calling, including the most prestigious of all: Apple, which is rolling out the wristbands in North American stores this week.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), financial partner to innovative technology and life science companies and the venture capital firms that support them, appointed technology and life science banker Mercy Forde and hired VC fund CFO Nina Labatt for its Venture Capital and Private Equity Services team, which is dedicated to providing the financial services required by venture capital and private equity firms. Having worked closely with venture capitalists for nearly 30 years, SVB has become the preferred banker to more than half of the venture capital firms in the U.S.

"We have an outstanding team that understands the unique financing needs of our venture capital and private equity partners," said Greg Becker, President and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. "Mercy and Nina bring years of highly relevant experience to an outstanding team of professionals that deliver non-traditional financial products with world class client service. Our VC and private equity clients trust us to help finance their firm, so we continue to invest in the practice and aim to impress them with a globally-connected, tech-savvy team."