In a mentorship relationships, questions are usually more important than answers. After all, how can you help prepare someone if you don't know exactly what they want to accomplish?

That said, not all mentors are created equal, which is why we polled nine entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) regarding what they wish their mentors would have asked when they first approached them. Their answers are below.

Last October, Mark Zuckerberg shocked the world when he addressed a group of students at Tsinghua University in Beijing completely in Mandarin. Media praised or lampooned his elementary grasp; some even called it mind-blowing.

The story reignited a decades-old debate: Will Mandarin overtake English as the global language?

For Zuckerberg, it’s certainly proven effective – prompting China’s Minister of Cyberspace Administration Liu Wei to visit for a meeting at Zuckerberg’s own desk in December.

On Friday, President Obama proposed a program that would make community college tuition free to most students. Such a program might go a long way to providing employers with a better-skilled workforce; it would also restore growing economic opportunity for many workers. Modeled after a program that is starting up in Tennessee, Obama’s proposed program would pay tuition for community college students who are enrolled in a degree program at least half time and who maintain a 2.5 grade point average. The Federal government would kick in $60 billion over 10 years to cover 75% of the cost; states would pay the remainder.

Image: https://hbr.org

When asked what policymakers can do most for entrepreneurs, sometimes the response has been “get out of the way.” That seems to be the overarching message of the latest report from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

The report, Small Business Policy Index 2014: Ranking the States on Policy Measures and Costs Impacting Small Business and Entrepreneurship, tracks 42 measures—33 of them pertaining to taxes and regulations—the fewer, the better.

Cities as Labs for Entrepreneurship Policy

When the Kauffman Foundation focused its annual State of Entrepreneurship Address in 2012 on ideas for a Startup Act for the United States, a new set of questions emerged in the entrepreneurship policy world. Mostly, those questions were around where and with whom it was realistic to focus energy on in order to create better environments and ecosystems for new firms to form and thrive.

PitchBook just released is recap of 2014 venture capital trends by region, focusing on the most active regions and presenting the information in infographic form. Each infographic can be found here: Bay Area, Pacific Northwest, New York metro and Europe. Below is also a quick summary of the highlights by region:

It can be challenging to keep up with which startups are coming into the healthcare scene around the globe, especially because most directories only keep track of those getting venture capital funding. But a new website, StartupBlink, is providing access to actually view the entrepreneurial landscape on an interactive map.

Here’s the map for the “Health Care” category of startups (this is a broad category – pharma, biotechnology, 3D printing, app development, etc. all have separate categories):

Image: http://medcitynews.com

Evans is confident the tax credit would bring new money into Maryland because has seen it work in New Orleans, where he is an active investor. In Louisiana, angel investors can get a 35 percent tax credit for investments up to $1 million a year. The program is budgeted to give out $5 million in tax credits this year.

A new N.C. State University initiative seeks to establish a new resource and research center for area entrepreneurs.

The school’s Poole College of Management plans to open the N.C. State Entrepreneurship Clinic inside HQ Raleigh in downtown in February.

“The Entrepreneurship Clinic, inspired by the university teaching hospital model that integrates research, teaching and real world experience, will provide a place where faculty, students, entrepreneurs and service providers go to teach, learn and build the next generation of businesses in Raleigh,” said Lewis Sheats, a Poole College professor and the clinic’s director, in a press release.

By Chuck Brooks, Vice President and Client Executive, Department of Homeland Security

Public-private partnerships have become essential for many government agencies, borrowing from the old adage – it takes two to tango. These relationships create a vehicle for cooperation that can help reduce costs, build expertise and innovation and provide business continuity and resilience. And yet, these types of partnerships can fail just as much as they succeed. According to InformationWeek Government, such partnerships may fit the bill of what’s “good” for the long-term, but the article questions PPP collaboration as viable.

Bioscience researchers in Central and Southern Oregon will soon have another option for laboratory space. The Portland-based Translational Research and Development Institute (OTRADI) is expanding its reach with the opening of OTRADI South on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis.

Some people are accused of living in the past. The photographer Rachel Sussman is captivated by the past living in the present.

In her first book, “The Oldest Living Things in the World,” Ms. Sussman stalks and photographs organisms that are at least 2,000 years old. The artist, who lives in Brooklyn, calls the work “an existential journey into deep time” that whisked her from a “temporal comfort zone.” For nearly 10 years, Ms. Sussman worked with biologists to photograph subjects on all seven continents.

Image: http://www.nytimes.com

You may have heard the old saw, “great ideas sell themselves.” After all, look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak working in the family garage, funding their fledgling company by selling a used Volkswagen bus and a scientific calculator. That story is legendary, but unfortunately it’s also the exception. Today, turning a brilliant idea into a market-ready product or process requires venture capital, legal advice, startup mentors, sophisticated business acumen and collaborative workspace.

Double Time may not mean what you think it means. Most people think of double time to mean do things twice as fast. Which is what it means if you are in the military. However, in this case it’s a way for you to increase the likelihood of a successful outcomes — double whatever amount of time you think it will take to do something.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Elevate Ventures, an Indianapolis-based venture development organization, reported record investment activity, program launches and partnerships in 2014.

"We had a very busy and productive year, and really took steps to understand communities' needs and create win-win solutions to stimulate and support entrepreneurial infrastructure-building activities," said Ting Gootee, Elevate Ventures' Chief Investment Officer. "It's a multi-pronged and customizable approach. With enough sparks in our networks, our belief is that combustion will happen sooner rather than later."

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the real estate firm that helped transform Mission Bay into a thriving life-science hub, now wants to raise up to $20 million to build digital-health companies from scratch in San Francisco.

Alexandria, the nation’s largest owner and developer of real estate for the life-science industry, said in August that it would start three new accelerators nationwide to support startups in biotech, agriculture and digital health. The biotech space is up and running in New York City with $51 million in financing, and the agriculture space is expected to open within the next six months in North Carolina.

Image: A snapshot of Alexandria’s existing investments in Mission Bay. (Courtesy/Alexandria Real Estate)

Young people deserve a better situation than either being unemployment or accepting unpaid internships, says Johanna Nyman . The inadequate response of the EU and national governments threaten to turn Europe's youth into a lost generation, she argues.

Shedding your natural advantages can liberate you and unlock your passion.

Shedding my natural advantages gave me an interesting career opportunity. After a 15-year career in investment banks, you learn a thing or two about determination, tenacity and endurance. True, the generous benefits help to cushion the associated sacrifices, but they can also shackle you to a purpose that might not be you at all. We’ve all heard plenty of stories about misaligned incentives in investment banks, but not what it means for the individuals.

Techweek, the nation’s leading technology conference and festival showcasing and enabling innovation ecosystems, today announced the addition of Kansas City to its roster. The inaugural Techweek Kansas City will take place September 14 – 20, 2015 and is presented in partnership with Launch KC. The event’s core conference, expo and startup competition will take place on Thursday, September 17 and Friday, September 18.

Is your capacity for learning is fixed or fluid? Can you improve your intelligence and talents through hard work and practice, or are you stuck with the brains you’ve got? Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck says most of us have either a “fixed” or “growth” mindset when it comes to learning. Most of us can get through sixteen years of schooling regardless of which mindset we have, but when it comes to lifelong learning–learning for the sake of learning, without outside pressure–only a growth mindset will cut it.

Image: http://www.innovationexcellence.com