Google does no evil to its employees.

The tech company has been named the best place to work in 2015, according to a new report from Glassdoor. The career database compiled the top 50 places to work in 2015, based on feedback from employees.

Currently, the wearable tech market mainly features a few smart watches and headgear devices that connect with users’ smartphones. But there are a few tech startups that are working on more specialized wearable tech. One of these products is Showpiece, a hoodie that doubles as a musical instrument.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com/

The Emirates Development Bank (EDB) has partnered with the Abu Dhabi Technology Development Committee (TDC) to help UAE innovators patent their ideas.

The bank will provide long-term support to TDC’s Takamul programme, which provides a foundation for inventors to develop an original idea and move it towards a commercial application.

Paul Freedman’s last big venture in higher education did not end well. But apparently he rebounds fast.

Less than two years after being ordered by an accreditor to shutter the 2,500-student Ivy Bridge College at Tiffin University and then selling most of what was left of his Altius Education to another company, Mr. Freedman is back on the ed-tech scene with an unusual business approach designed to bridge the gap between what colleges actually need and what Silicon Valley-type companies are creating.

Image: Noah Berger for The Chronicle “The fundamental problem is a translation problem,” says Paul Freedman of the disconnect between what colleges need and what ed-tech companies are offering. “I can be a translator.”

A new app developed by the innovation arm of Monitor Deloitte of Deloitte Consulting – called Doblin – gives those struggling with innovation a chance to get on board. A new iPad app called Ten Types of Innovation allows users to test new ideas using the same framework that Doblin has used to simplify the creative process for its own clients.

“It’s a stylized value chain that helps organizations think more broadly about innovation, and it gives them a tool and a language system for talking about it and creating some building blocks for it,” Melissa Quinn, chief operations officer at Doblin, told the Chicago Tribune. “One of the philosophies we have is innovation is more science than art. There are actual methods and tools and ways to approach it more systematically than just lying on the floor in a dark room and trying to brainstorm ideas. We help companies build their innovation capabilities more systematically.”

Image: http://www.govtech.com

As technology evolves and startups jump on these advancements, a few industries are fundamentally changing. And as these industries push forward, they create even greater advancements of their tech.

Curious what market sector is most likely to be disrupted in the next few years, we asked a group of startup founders the following question:

“What industry do you believe is going to have the biggest advancements in technology in the next five years, and why?”

As entrepreneurs, we tend to publicly celebrate our successes in financial terms – when we raise a big round of funding, when we hit record sales, when we exit in spectacular fashion. But as entrepreneurs we also privately know, away from the press (and investors!), that financial reward is not our only, or even our most important, motivator. As Daniel Pink puts it in his framework for what gives us “drive,” entrepreneurship, for me at least, has always been about three things: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

It's deeply troubling, right? There is always something new fighting for your time and attention. Being an entrepreneur, you have a lot going on -- from prospecting customers, to building an active and engaged list, to marketing your wares to the right audience. And you need to learn the ropes of multiple aspects of your business as you go.

There's a common complaint in Arizona that we lack an ecosystem for innovation. Actually, this isn't quite true. We don't have one ecosystem, we have several, each one operating in its own tiny orbit, either ignorant of or inattentive to what's going on everywhere else.

Now that is about to stop. A group of business leaders – not government workers or even service providers – from that dispersed ecosystem has decided to pull it together.

If you're thinking about jumpstarting your own cause, an innovative new product or a future small business, you'll need capital -- or access to it.

For many, the answer has been crowdfunding, a fast-growing, web-based system of raising funds from individuals around the world. It's an industry less than a decade old that allows artists, activists and a growing number of entrepreneurs to connect with financial support far outside the conventional lending system. Currently, Kickstarter, Indiegogo and RocketHub are leading the industry. Estimates vary widely, but research organization Massolution put 2013 global crowdfunding revenue at $5.1 billion.

Top executives need advice about their leadership styles and operating environs—in government as well as in the private sector. How do they get it?

Suzanne de Janasz and Maury Peiperl interviewed dozens of corporate executives over the past two years to understand how “new CEOs in large organizations gain access to seasoned counsel and feedback.” In a recent Harvard Business Review article, they summarized their findings.

There are over 7,500 incubators/accelerators in the world. Most fail.

Entrepreneurs are thoroughly confused on how to evaluate incubators and accelerators.

Entrepreneurs are also thoroughly confused on why they get rejected by incubators and accelerators on the grounds of being too early.

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Yet if you are on the other side of the table, there are some other key questions that you need to ask, which will tell you more about the real success prospects for this business.

Graceland University administrator Kirk Bjorland has been appointed as the new president and CEO of the Iowa Innovation Corp. "Our selection committee performed a nationwide search for more than three months, with extensive interviews of more than twenty excellent finalists, and Kirk Bjorland rose to the top early," said Bob Riley, board chairman. "His enthusiasm, innovative outlook and breadth of experience, plus his knowledge of local and regional economic development, impressed the selection committee immensely. The choice of Kirk to be our next CEO was unanimous." Bjorland, former mayor of Lamoni,  is vice president for enrollment management at Graceland University in Lamoni, where he also served as director of marketing and admissions. "Kirk Bjorland is a driven marketer who has worked tirelessly toward Graceland's success. I trust the future of Iowa's innovation economy in his hands," said Graceland President John Sellars.  Bjorland also served as the city administrator and mayor of Lamoni.

In 2005, Y-Combinator gave birth to the modern day accelerator. Now, we are celebrating the 10th year anniversary of the modern day accelerator model and we estimate that there are 230 accelerators in the world. The phenomenon is not confined to the U.S., either – The Global Accelerator Network currently has 50 accelerators members across the world. There are accelerators that specialize in specific industries (vertical specialization) or different platforms (horizontal) and corporate led accelerators. We live in an accelerated world.

Startup accelerators make sense in theory, but how effective are they at actually improving the economy or encouraging the growth of emerging businesses?

From one of the earliest known accelerator programs, Y Combinator, to the thousands of incubators now found throughout the country, most startup accelerators share a handful of common traits. Throughout the course of an “incubation period,” accelerators recruit a handful of entrepreneurs with great ideas or the makings of an emerging business and gather them in one open space for collaboration, work, limited mentorship and development. In exchange, the accelerator typically receives a piece of equity in that company. At the end of this few-month-long period, entrepreneurs are then cut loose, or sometimes the entrepreneurs compete for a special round of extra funding.

There’s a crazy game played in Japan that looks like a cross between rugby, wrestling, and capture the flag. It is called "Bo-Taoshi" and the goal is simple: defend your pole while simultaneously attempting to topple the pole of your opponent. Sitting on the top of the pole is the "ninja," and it is his job to counteract the forces trying to bring him down. The game is not unlike business: the CEO is the ninja, with challengers seeking to disrupt the leader by being agile and attacking vulnerabilities. When you are at the top, the real challenge is being equally agile enough to stay there.

There’s a funding phenomena I’m wrestling with these days – the Straight to A. As VC Matt Turck notes, there’s been an increase in startups whose initial round of institutional funding looks more like an A Round than a Seed Round. That is, raising $5m+ at a $20m+ post-money, lead by a large multistage VC. These rounds most frequently occur when it’s a repeat founder with pre-existing relationships to a fund, but we’ve also seen them occur because a company didn’t raise institutional funding until later in its development or because some combination of their fast growth and competitive dynamics mutated what was originally intended to be a seed round.

People often keep silent when they think you’re making a mistake. But not in my case. Time and again, I kept hearing the same thing: “Don’t do it.” Teachers, advisors, authority figures. They told me straight out. “No.” “Bad idea.” “Go back and think about this.” Maybe I was a little crazy to think I could do it, but I was also determined.

STONY BROOK, N.Y., April 8, 2015 – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted Stony Brook University’s Center for Biotechnology a three-year $3 million award through the SUNY Research Foundation to establish the Long Island Bioscience Hub (LIBH). The award is part of the NIH’s Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program and one of only three granted nationwide. The LIBH will be a collaboration between Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory, and is designed to help accelerate the translation of biomedical discoveries into new drugs, devices, and diagnostics to improve patient care and enhance health.