The typical life of a busy entrepreneur consists of long hours of work, meetings and more work. 50-hour weeks, late nights and an overflow of coffee are quite normal. Interestingly most entrepreneurs hardly feel the pinch. Although they get so absorbed in their work, they still enjoy every minute of it.

Once the funding option for early-adopters and those looking to move away from traditional means of start-up finance, crowdfunding has officially gone mainstream and has become one of the major funding avenues for new businesses in the UK today.

In the past 12 months, we’ve seen a high-street bank merge with a crowdfunding platform, a number of high profile sports stars such as Andy Murray and Victoria Pendleton invest in crowdfunding campaigns, and the launch of a crowdfunding platform solely focused on supporting female entrepreneurs.

It may be deemed “alternative finance”, yet crowdfunding is now a popular, and conventional, finance option.

KITCHENER — It used to be the biggest leather tannery in the British Empire, and today it is the world's largest startup accelerator that supports technology entrepreneurs at no cost, as long as one of the founders graduated from the University of Waterloo.

Opening ceremonies Friday for the university's 37,000-square-foot Velocity Garage attracted scores of people from government, academia and the tech sector. Currently, more than 80 startups are working in the space on the main floor of the Tannery inside 151 Charles St. W.

A new study published by the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship has revealed that 54.1 percent of Danish schools taught entrepreneurship in the last academic year.

“Almost 200 schools have embraced entrepreneurship. This is important because teaching entrepreneurship has a positive effect on pupils,” said Christian Vintergaard, the CEO of the foundation.

Sight Machine is a manufacturing analytics company based in the Ann Arbor SPARK Central Innovation Center. It takes all the different resources available to manufacturing companies – quality, ERP systems, etc. – and integrates them into a digital twin of a factory to help stakeholders in the manufacturing process improve quality and efficiency.

The value Sight Machine provides its clients is illustrated in its work with a major global apparel company. For this Fortune 100 Company; it not only automates the process of data collection and analysis, Sight Machine works across a number of factories simultaneously. The intelligence it provides is helping this client resolve issues like debugging over several different locations, offer insight on what’s going on in individual plants, and how similar assets are performing in different locations.

MIT President Rafael Reif announced Wednesday night that the Institute will launch The Engine, a new accelerator program with a planned $150 million venture fund to support startups innovating in the science and technology spaces, providing them with funding, space and a network of expertise. Tech industry leaders from GE to VCs made it clear they view this upcoming accelerator: as a prime opportunity to retain our local tech talent.

Are you getting the most out of your investors?

Chances are, the answer is “no.” Founders who seek funding from potential VCs are fastidious about selecting their investors wisely. But once that funding is secured and partnerships are forged, even the smartest founders and CEOs frequently underutilize the power of their board to help the company grow.

Jeffrey Garten of Yale School of Management discusses how Genghis Khan, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Margaret Thatcher, and others made the world more integrated. Garten is the author of From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization through Ten Extraordinary Lives.

It’s not easy getting ready for a big presentation. The stakes can feel high, and in our desire for things to go well, the anticipation builds. Fear, anxiety, or even paralysis can kick in. What can you do to calm your nerves when this happens?

Observe, Accept, and Reframe First, recognize that feeling anxious or being nervous before a big presentation is normal. The human fight-or-flight response kicks in, attempting to ward off the threat. But instead of running or fighting, which just creates more resistance and angst, simply observe those instincts and get comfortable with the idea that discomfort is part of the game.

STEPHANIE VOZZA 10.28.16 5:24 AM If you watched the presidential debates, you may have come to the conclusion that answering questions is optional. If you don’t want to provide an answer, simply insert your own topic and carry on.

When you’re at work and your client or boss asks a question, however, it’s not always smart to change the subject and promote your own agenda. Questions need to be addressed.

The Iowa Startup Accelerator is an intensive program that matches tech-based startups, especially those in ag, health, education, manufacturing and transportation technology, with world-class mentors, Midwestern work ethic, seed funding and development expertise to take them from concept to successful launch in 90 days.

When we talk of virtual reality or VR, the names that come to mind most often might be Mark Zuckerberg, Samsung, and other big names. However, even before these names have made waves for making VR a byword in our modern society, VR would be impossible without these early innovators on the list.

Mort Heilig

Mort Heilig started building a machine in 1958 which he called the Sensorama. He launched the machine in 1964 allowing people to feel, smell, and and hear Brooklyn while riding on a stationary bicycle. To describe the Sensorama more specifically, Heilig installed a large screen in front of the bike showing the city of Brooklyn in full color. There's also a fan blowing in your face to give the feeling of the breeze while biking through the streets.

One of the world’s coolest and scariest airport landings is ending. The Dutch carrier KLMwill no longer fly the four-engined Boeing 747 to St Maarten airport starting Oct. 30. The flight will be operated by an Airbus 330 instead. This video shows the penultimate landing of the flight.

Image: http://mashable.com

I’m from a small town in northern Saskatchewan, where I was raised with a passion for math, tinkering and sports. As a kid, I was obsessed with sports. I competed nationally in junior golf. I played a lot of hockey. At 15, when my parents bought me a Commodore VIC-20, one of the first software projects I wrote was a stats tracker for my high school basketball team. Later, when I followed my passion for math into a career in tech, I still found myself using sports metaphors: It’s about learning from your losses, playing to the final whistle and, most importantly, teamwork.

“Chemistry is the study of matter,” Walter White once opined on Breaking Bad. “But I prefer to see it as the study of change.”

If you take matter (in this case, brick and mortar real estate) and you factor in change (the rising price of this matter), what you’re left with are fewer places to study heady topics like chemistry.

Enter Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ new endeavor: LaunchLabs.

You are the sum of your habits. When you allow bad habits to take over, they dramatically impede your path to success. The challenge is bad habits are insidious, creeping up on you slowly until you don’t even notice the damage they’re causing.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia's U.S. senators say Bluefield will get $2 million from the federal Economic Development Administration to develop an industrial incubator for start-up businesses in the region hit hard by the decline in coal mining.

According to Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito, incubator projects are needed to lay the groundwork for tech innovation and help the state strengthen and diversity its economy.

New rules announced this week will make it easier for small companies to raise capital from small-time investors, another step forward for Minnesota’s fledgling investment crowdfunding community.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday released the guidelines, drafted in response to the 2012 JOBS Act, for in-state crowdfunding by companies who aren’t required to register with federal regulators.

Unlike startups who are usually just starting out in business, large companies tend to have trading histories and reputations to protect. Part of this reputational equity is captured in the company’s brand. At the same time, innovation involves experimenting with ideas and building minimal viable products. This tension between running innovation experiments and protecting the brand is an expression of the innovation paradox. How well this tension is resolved will determine a company’s ability to innovate successfully. Below are eight ways innovators can test ideas without hurting their company’s brand.

The students at my lecture were particularly attentive this week. Across the audience of some 70 students, not one – that I noticed – checked a smartphone. They scribbled notes. After the lecture, I asked them to spend a few moments talking to their neighbours about what I’d said about the role of universities in meeting the challenges of the 21st century, about the changing dynamics of knowledge creation and the implications for university missions.