The heroes. Kitchens may be replacing the proverbial startup garage.

In 2005 Johanna and Solomon Moriti of South Africa started Jo’M Cosmetics in their small kitchen with a small pocketbook. Only five years later Jo’M is taking South Africa’s retail market for black hair products by storm, replacing scalp-damaging hair softeners with butter from the indigenous shea nut. The prize-winning entrepreneur is getting ready to go global, starting in Europe.

In 2008, in the throes of Iceland’s epic economic meltdown, Lukka Palsdottir started the HaPP health caterer in Reykjavik from scratch—literally, scratching vegetables and grains in her kitchen to serve their first corporate customers. Today a lot is HaPPening as the company is an entrepreneurial hot spot in Iceland’s economic meltdown, with two dozen employees serving health up to Iceland’s corporations, schools, and households, and global ambitions are just around the corner.

It was quieter this past fall in Corey Angst’s project-management course at the University of Notre Dame, but it wasn’t because he and his students were talking less.

Every student was given an iPad to use during the seven-week course, which meant fewer of them brought laptops to class to take notes.

“There was no clicking,” said Mr. Angst, who is an assistant professor of management at the university. Even external keyboards that some students used for their iPads were silent.

Mr. Angst’s class was the first of several at the university to replace traditional textbooks with iPads as part of a yearlong study by the university’s e-publishing working group into the use of e-readers. Many colleges and universities are in the midst of similar experiments, but Notre Dame is one of the first to report results from its effort.

By all appearances, Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington last week changed little in the lopsided American-Chinese relationship. What we have is a system that methodically transfers American jobs, technology and financial power to China in return for only modest Chinese support for important U.S. geopolitical goals: the suppression of Iran's and North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. American officials act as though there's not much they can do to change this.

It's true that the United States and China have huge common interests in peace and prosperity. Two-way trade (now about $500 billion annually) can provide low-cost consumer goods to Americans and foodstuffs and advanced manufactured products to the Chinese. But China's and America's goals differ radically. The United States wants to broaden the post-World War II international order based on mutually advantageous trade. By contrast, China pursues a new global order in which its needs come first - one in which it subsidizes exports, controls essential imports (oil, food, minerals) and compels the transfer of advanced technology.

Kauffman Labs for Enterprise Creation today announced the selection of its inaugural class of the Education Ventures Program, which will immerse 25 aspiring entrepreneurs in an intensive, hands-on program designed to catalyze the creation of high-growth companies in the education sector.
After receiving nearly 800 applicants from around the world, 45 aspiring founders were chosen to travel to Kauffman Labs in Kansas City to take part in a three-day boot camp, putting the finalists through a number of creative exercises that tested their ability to problem solve, work in teams, think on their feet and adapt to challenges that they are likely to face in the market. From this highly competitive pool, 17 teams representing 25 individuals were chosen for the complete program.

Read more about the program and the entrepreneurs who were selected

Environmental campaigners are urging developing countries to include the rapidly advancing science of synthetic biology — the building of new organisms using genes as biological 'bricks' — in their biosafety legislation for genetically modified (GM) crops.

They are concerned that synthetic biology products based on novel organisms could be developed, and commercialised, before there is regulation and understanding of their environmental and societal impacts.

With many countries in the midst of legislating for the arrival of GM crops, now is the time to include frameworks for dealing with synthetic organisms as well, according to Eric Hoffman, a biotechnology expert at Friends of the Earth (FoE), the environmental campaigning organisation.

The tech world's getting used to the idea Steve Jobs is absent from Apple again, for medical reasons. We think he'll be back soon. But one day he won't come back, and who might fill the big chair then?

For the time being Tim Cook is in control at Apple, as he has been every time Steve Jobs has had to take time to tackle his health issues. Cook's time in the role has, self-evidently, been highly successful, and many commenters are tipping him to be Steve's eventual successor--with these stand-in periods acting as a carefully managed succession plan. But is Tim really the guy for the job, given that Steve is still active as CEO in the background, and all big decisions are still cycling through him? Could someone else from inside Apple be a better fit, or is there someone working elsewhere we can imagine as the next Apple CEO?

MUNICH , Germany, January 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- New figures highlight potential of German Venture Capital market

- Investors gather at annual VC Investors Day in Munich

German Venture Capital Funds have generated comparable or better returns than their US counterparts, as new data presented by three of Germany's largest venture capital firms Earlybird, Target Partners and Wellington Partners shows.

The three VC firms analysed today's most recent data provided by the "Private Equity Analyzer online database" that is hosted by the Munich based independent benchmarking specialist CEPRES. As part of a recently completed survey, the Database now gives an unprecedented overview of the international VC industry. The analysis shows that venture capital investments in German portfolio companies with investments dated between 1998 and 2010 generated an average gross return of 11.4 percent. In the same time period, US companies achieved an average gross return of 7.7 percent. The analysis was based on data from 496 VC investments in Germany as well as profiles of 6940 venture investments in the US.

Last year, the Kauffman Foundation noted that virtually all U.S. net job creation since 1980 has come from companies less than five years old. From 1977 to 2005, existing companies were actually job destroyers, losing 1 million net jobs per year; in contrast, new businesses added an average of 3 million jobs annually. The message seems simple: if we are serious about addressing the unemployment crisis, we need to fund and nurture new company formation.

Where does the responsibility lie in finding, financing and growing these new startups? Historically, that role was the domain of venture capital firms scouring the countryside, analyzing business plans, and committing the seed-level investment capital needed to launch a new venture. Despite the savvy of the best and brightest, the track record of VC-backed startups is humbling at best; only about 1 in 100 ever gain traction and scale to the point of sustainability. A new bond is being fostered today in which both the private and public sector, working together, can change this dynamic by promoting and supporting innovative early stage companies. Real world examples of this public/private initiative are beginning to emerge, with the city of Boston’s Innovation District being one of the most ambitious.

The first decade of the new millennium was particularly hard on the US economy. First, there was the recession that followed the attacks of 9/11. That was followed by the housing bust and the resulting Great Financial Crisis, which was the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression.

Per capita personal incomes in America's major metropolitan areas vary widely. Moreover, the changes in per capita incomes from 2000 to 2009 have also varied. The differences are particularly obvious when average incomes are adjusted for metropolitan area Consumer Price Indexes. The US Bureau of Labor statistics produces a Consumer Price Index for nearly 30 metropolitan areas. Among these, 28 metropolitan areas are covered by these local Consumer Price Indexes.

OUTSOURCING DEVELOPMENT: A number of governors are toying with the notion of restructuring or privatizing economic development in their states, as Stateline has previously reported. State senators in Iowa were cautiously optimistic about Governor Terry Branstad's idea, while Governor Scott Walker’s proposal was met with more opposition in Wisconsin. Ohio Governor John Kasich, who made privatizing economic development a centerpiece of his campaign, has released additional details on his proposed agency’s structure. A recently released report from the nonprofit research organization Good Jobs First casts a critical eye on the proposals, assessing the experiences of states that have experimented with similar approaches.

TURNPIKE TWIST: Ohio politicians have long debated whether the state should follow in the steps of its neighbor, Indiana, and enter into a long-term agreement to lease its turnpike to a private company in return for a large from a large upfront cash payment. The issue didn’t play a major role in this year’s gubernatorial race because the two candidates appeared to agree that leasing the Ohio Turnpike would be a bad idea — at least in the current market. But Governor John Kasich recently reopened the controversial topic, indicating that he and his advisors are studying the idea. "Everything's on the table," Kasich said, according to PolitiFact Ohio. "You could do a lease of the turnpike."

Venture capitalists came raging back in 2010, putting $26.2 billion into 2,799 venture deals, a spike of 11 percent from 2009 and a major sign that formerly wary VCs have begun to come off the sidelines, according to a study by Dow Jones VentureSource released today.

The data also showed that 2,636 deals took in $23.6 billion, with the fourth quarter alone raising $7.6 billion through 735 deals — a 6 percent increase in capital invested from the same quarter a year prior.

On Friday, President Obama appointed General Electric’s chief executive, Jeff Immelt — an advocate for carbon cap-and-trade — chairman of his panel of outside economic advisors, the newly branded Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

This council was formerly known as PERAB (the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board). Immelt was a founding member, and takes the chairman reigns from Paul Volcker.

GE is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of clean energy and related technologies. The company makes everything from large wind turbines, to electric vehicle charging stations, to good old lights and appliances.

Part 1: Production technologies: where are we?

The financial crisis of 2008 set back a number of projects and slowed actual construction of pilot and demo plants like it did in all industries, be they biofuels or traditional fossil energy projects. That, coupled with the negative press for corn ethanol, slowed progress and funding of biofuels to a crawl, causing delays of up to two years in many business plans. But despite these challenges, entrepreneurs have persevered and in many cases are further along than expected in achieving practical economics that now justify their first commercial units (FCUs).

I’ve been asked to visit the Bluegrass Region in Kentucky on February 7-8 to help catalyze a community conversation on turning the region into an entrepreneurial and innovation hotspot. Why is it you can stand on your head and scream from the rooftops in your own hometown, with few listening, while the same message resonates in the community right next door? I guess it’s true when they say the grass is always greener, or in this case bluer! I can’t wait to visit Lexington and Louisville to spark an important conversation among the many passionate entrepreneurs, innovators, and community leaders who are working hard to transform their local economy.

If Canada is to compete in the global innovation economy, we must increase and improve our capacity for innovation and productivity. To do this we need to take research from ideas to invoice: We must craft an Innovation Policy that encourages firms to invest in R&D and approves an “any point of contact” entry to link industry with our post secondary institutions (PSIs).

Canada’s colleges and polytechnics are stepping up to meet these challenges by working with established and complementary research centers to engage industry, our students and our faculty. This multi-stakeholder approach to solving industrial problems is resulting in a measurable impact on productivity. But much work remains to be done in this vein, and funding provided to support it, to help Canada realize its innovation potential.

The announcement of Eric Schmidt moving aside as Google CEO to let cofounder Larry Page take over is a "teaching moment" for CEOs of all kinds of companies. For a crucial decade in its growth, Google was led not by a single CEO, but by a team that gave it immense strategic and management strength. Google has taught us all a lot about search, maps, apps, and lots of other things, but it may be that the most important and overlooked lesson is in innovation management. Why? Google is a pioneer in what I call B-I Leadership--Bi-Generational, Boomer, Gen-X, Gen-Y management.

We all know by now that we live in an age of sharp technological and cultural bifurcation. There has been so much change so quickly that Boomers are immigrants to a world that Gen X and Yers are born into. The way people in their teens and 20s go about their lives--their platforms, their interactions, their values, their aspirations--are vastly different from their parents and grandparents. In addition, the acceleration and multiplicity of change is producing a world of extraordinary complexity. We know this.

Nobody wants to believe they’re the problem. Why that is, I don’t know. But it’s far and away the stickiest issue that plagues organizations big and small. That’s why it keeps coming up again and again here.

In last year’s most clicked post - 7 Signs You May Be a Bad Manager - we talked about how most bad managers aren’t consciously aware that they are bad managers. That was news to a lot of people.

It seems that, while we talk about denial all the time, we don’t really understand what it means: that, on some level, we are aware of our behavior and our issues; we’re just not consciously aware. That requires a measure of self-awareness few of us possess.

Eric Schmidt, the soon-to-be-former CEO of Google, will not stay long in his new position as the company’s “executive chairman,” whatever that is. How do I know? He’s too smart not to fly GOOGS for a new challenge.

Here is what I mean. In 1997, Schmidt left his position as CTO of Sun Microsystems to head networking giant Novell. What he didn’t anticipate was that company was in dire trouble, and his first job would be leading it through a massive turnaround. Here is the incredibly smart thing he did. He went hunting for the smartest people in the company to make sure he could a.) keep them at Novell, b.) listen to their insights on what was wrong and what needed to be done.

Colombia is the fifth-largest economy in Latin America in terms of GDP. The country boasts one of the best coffees in the world, rich natural resources, abundant gold and emerald production, and a relatively educated populace. And despite its international reputation for drug cartels and violence, the latest Doing Business 2011 ranking suggests things could be improving. Colombia is ranked number 39 among 183 countries in terms of the ease of doing business

According to Endeavor Colombia, the strong positioning in the World Bank´s Doing Business ranking is due to the fact that over the past four years the Colombian government and the private sector have worked on simplifying and reforming processes that promote entrepreneurship and new business generation. Consistent improvement in processes related to starting a business, dealing with construction permits, paying taxes and trading across borders made Colombia the #1 reformer in Latin America and #8 worldwide in the 2009 Doing Business report.