A surgeon can perform a complex, minimally invasive medical procedure with state-of-the-art robotic technology. But when she needs to communicate with her colleagues, the doctor is stuck with antiquated phone systems and outdated email clients.

When it comes to technology – not life-saving medical equipment, but the tools used in everyday communication – doctors are sometimes years behind the times. Despite rapid advances in technology (think smartphones, videoconferencing and more), physicians are largely reliant on slow, clunky and inconvenient tech.

The seven-week Innovator’s Accelerator® IAx online training program has been created specifically for intra-organization teams. By working together, participants will get an infusion of fresh ideas and solutions to energize your organization and develop a common innovation language that fosters transformation in workplace culture.

Universities across the country have developed entre pre neur ship programs in recent years aimed at encouraging students and faculty to turn promising business ideas into actual companies. Now, an increasing number of them also are giving money to help those businesses get started.

In the last several months, some of the nation’s top universities have poured millions of dollars into venture capital funds. The goal is to help promising businesses secure much-needed money while also giving the university a chance to reap handsome returns if the company finds success.

China’s new government fund for venture capital has real potential to significantly promote China’s domestic entrepreneurship and innovation. But if access to the new funding is too easy, the projects main objective will be jeopardised.

On 14 January 2015, the State Council — China’s chief policy body — announced it will allocate 40 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion) to a new venture capital fund to support new startups and foster emerging industries. The announcement read that the fund ‘comes at the right time’, but that ‘follow-up efforts are still required to ensure the fund works’. The government said the fund will come from the government’s existing budget designated for the expansion of emerging industries. Details on how it will be managed have yet to be announced. The government has referenced the possibility of including ‘social capital’ and will invite tenders from fund managers.

VENTURES AFRICA – What is the draw for an aspiring young entrepreneur to pursue membership at an incubator? Is it office space, networking opportunities, or training? Could one sit under a tree at a local park or at a desk at a local library and generate the same results? Entrepreneurship has never been an individual activity, and even though many moguls will tell you their stories about how they made it to the top, in most cases they had an unnamed mentor, and core team of roll up your sleeves types that helped lay the groundwork. But what role do incubators play, especially in the emerging market context, and are they useful?

SINGAPORE -  The world is not in the throes of another tech bubble, although an overvaluation of tech companies is slowly edging in, says Tim Draper, the California-based investor whose venture capital firm DFJ has backed billion-dollar ventures such as Skype, Twitter and Baidu.

"This isn't really a bubble, or a cycle," Mr Draper told BT at the DBS' Bay Area Series Talk on Thursday, referring to the recent sky-high valuations of global tech companies and heightened activity in the startup space.

Image: Tim Draper, Co- Founder and Managing Partner of leading Venture Capital firms Draper Associates and Draper, Fisher and Juverston. - http://business.asiaone.com

Buzzwords are terms that become popular for a relatively short period of time. These words are just as prevalent in the business community as they are anywhere else. But if you’re going to use buzzwords, you have to know when to stop. These terms can become overused, outdate or cliché. And at that point, using them can only be detrimental to your business.

The most well-known examples of commercial innovation by Indian companies probably come from the automotive, pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. For example, Mahindra & Mahindra has gained market share and stock market respect due to their investments in world-class research and development (R&D), Mahindra Research Valley. But some wonder whether Indians can truly innovate on a global scale worthy of a nation whose economy now exceeds Japan in purchasing power parity.

Image: Best-selling author Vijay Govindarajan (left) and management consulting firm Amritt Inc MD Gunjan Bagla 

When the economy began its rapid descent into recession in 2008, Oxford's Jason Heavner found himself, like many others, looking for work.

Instead of continuing a career focused on information technology, Heavner took the leap and made his hobby of making folk art into a career.

"I have to be creative in everything that I do," Heavner said. "It makes it hard to keep a normal job."

Heavner was among the just over 60,000 people employed in the creative economy when the state funded an extensive survey in 2011.

A burgeoning tech startup scene is stirring the ashes of the once-great city of Detroit. It’s constructing new office space, giving young entrepreneurs a place to launch and giving off a powerful feeling that something is about to blow the roof off this city.

The momentum started a few years ago, fueled by some wealthy homegrown investors. Detroit Venture Partners is one firm run by some Detroit heavy-hitters such as Quicken Loans chairman Dan Gilbert, also owner of the Cleveland Cavs. The venture capital firm invests in early-stage digital technology companies.

Earlier this month, I was invited to speak at the internationally renowned India Institute of Technology conference at the Entrepreneurship Cell summit (E-Cell, IIT-Bombay).

I spoke about strategy, business development, and HR for startups, and more importantly, I networked with many founders, and C-levels of various India-based companies. You can view my slides here.

Most entrepreneur that fail are quick to offer a litany of constraints that caused their demise – not enough money, time, customers, or support from the right players. Ironically, as a startup investor and mentor, I have seen too many failures caused by just the opposite – too much money spent too soon, taking time to get product perfection, and assuming customers will wait.

A decade ago, Netflix meant DVDs by mail, video referred to TV and the Internet meant simple text and pictures.

All that changed in about 20 months. That was the period in which three former PayPal employees created YouTube on Feb. 14, 2005 and sold it to Google for $1.6 billion on Oct. 9, 2006.

The journey began with a possibly fictitious dinner party in San Francisco and ended with a breakfast at Denny’s in Redwood City, California. In between, there were maxed out credit cards, arguments over copyrights, humungous rats, a cameo by MC Hammer and the exit of a third, mysterious founder. When it was all over, digital media would be completely transformed.

Almost every entrepreneur starts their journey by developing a solution, based on their knowledge of a new technology or required service. Developer skills are necessary, but not sufficient, to build a business. A real business requires leadership – thought leadership to attract customers and mind share, as well as people leadership around a team, partners, and investors.

Later this year along the banks of the James River outside Richmond, Virginia, a paper products maker based in northeastern China will begin construction on a new U.S. manufacturing plant. The factory will churn the region's straw and corn stalks into household products including napkins, tissue and organic fertilizer—all marked "Made in the USA."

Shandong Tranlin Paper's new U.S. factory is forecast to generate about 2,000 new jobs by 2020, and is the latest Chinese company to invest in American manufacturing.

It’s not often that Congress and the president have the opportunity to do something to improve the economy and create high-paying jobs — while at the same time showing citizens that Washington can get past gridlock and dysfunction and enact important public policy.

That’s the opportunity Congress has with the Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) Act of 2015, the high-skilled workers immigration reform bill recently re-introduced by Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Image: The Immigration Innovation ("I-Squared") Act of 2015 is a high-skilled workers immigration reform bill recently re-introduced by Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch. J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press 

Early stage technology companies in Canada, including health IT, have quite a few opportunities for angel and seed stage investment. But an article in The Globe and Mail  points to a chasm at the mid level stage. Venture capital firms positioned to spend $10 million to $20 million are relatively few and far between in Canada. That could signal more opportunities for investment by U.S. firms.

The article warns that the stage is set for a capital crunch. “When startups begin earning revenue in the millions and need growth funding, they can’t self-finance, the funnel narrows and fewer financiers are still in the ring.”

What is the biggest deterrent to starting a business in this country? I don’t think there is much of a deterrent. (In 2013) we know that more than 520,000 new businesses started, so, as a consequence, we have more people that are wrestling with the challenges of how you scale a business.

I want to see a shift in emphasis from starting up to scaling up. I want to see “starting better” as a campaign. I want to see people using insight and access to data to make more informed decisions.

Image: Simon Devonshire: ‘I want to see people using insight and access to data to make more informed decisions.’ Photograph: PR 

New figures show that US investors are ploughing more money into London companies than ever before.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is currently in the US on a trade mission aimed at strengthening economic and ties between London and the US, revealed the figures which have been compiled by London & Partners, the official promotional company for London.

The figures show that US investors ploughed $795.2m into London-based tech firms in 2014, which is double the $296m invested in 2012. Investment from the US into the UK as a whole has also hit a new high of £1.35bn double the amount of $582 in 2012.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Blackstone Charitable Foundation today announced that it has awarded grants totaling $3 million to twenty non-profit organizations that strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems and support high growth entrepreneurs. Now in its third year, the Blackstone Innovation Grants program targets organizations that focus on fostering entrepreneurship and innovation.

Through these grants, the Blackstone Charitable Foundation is helping innovative organizations pilot, expand or replicate programs that will catalyze the growth of successful businesses, industries, and communities in their regions. As part of this program, the Blackstone Charitable Foundation is working to create a global network of entrepreneurship-focused programs in which participants can share best practices, methodologies and intellectual capital.