Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at a holiday event. Instead of one of my usual (but awesome) presentations, I wrote some thoughts on a piece of paper and shared what I thought these businesses needed to know to align themselves for 2015. Here’s what I shared. I hope these rules (guidelines) help you.
Yann Le Beux, catalyst at Senegalese incubator CTIC Dakar, takes us through the advantages and disadvantages of different incubator models in Africa, based on his experience of running an active technology hub.
On a daily basis at CTIC Dakar, we are questioned about our model, how we get funded, who is the “boss”, why incubated companies have to pay us, how did we started, etc?
As 2014 draws to a close, while I read all the amazing achievements by my colleagues and all the upcoming new year solutions, I find myself thinking very philosophically about the topic of fear.
As individuals, we all have fears. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a founder or a funder, it’s an emotion nobody is immune to. That said, as individuals, I believe that we’re able to overcome our fears once we understand them.
LOS ANGELES (CNS/FOX 11) - An industry group ranked Los Angeles first in digital innovation among cities with at least 250,000 residents, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday.
Los Angeles came out ahead in the e.Republic Center for Digital Government survey, which looked at digital programs in cities nationwide. Among the California cities that made it to the top 10 were Riverside, which came in fifth, and Long Beach, which was in sixth place.
Image: File photo (Flickr/tiarescott)
The year in biotechnology began with a landmark event. A decade after the first human genome was decoded at a cost of about $3 billion, the sequencing-machine company Illumina, of San Diego, introduced a new model, the Hyseq X-10, that can do it for around $1,000 per genome.
The system, which costs $10 million and can decode 20,000 genomes a year, was snapped up by large research labs, startup firms like J. Craig Venter’s Human Longevity (which plans to sequence 40,000 people a year), and even by the British government (the U.K. is the first country with a national genome sequencing project).
This holiday season, my mother and I hosted a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for our local Humane Society animal shelter.
Hosted on Indiegogo, the campaign's aim was to raise $1,000 in two weeks to donate 50 bags of dog and cat food to the Northeast Arkansas Humane Society, located near our hometown, in time for Christmas.
Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
A presentation by Starbug at the 31st Chaos Communications Congress (previously) demonstrated a technique for deriving fingerprints from a couple of photographs of your hands. Starbug's proof of concept was a copy of the fingerprints of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
Image: http://boingboing.net/
Despite the enormous setback of the “Great Recession,” Massachusetts still remains a leader in a number of economic sectors, according to a report released today by the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
Here are some of the main points of the 2014 Annual Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy:
Image: http://betaboston.com
It's hard for big companies to innovate. With thousands of employees, miles of red tape, and investors to answer to, swift moves in the face of ever-shifting markets don't come naturally to them.
But tech companies have no choice. The products they sell today may be gone in just a few years. And startups are more than happy to seize markets by changing faster than the big guys can. Whether you call it "disruption"—ugh—or recognize it properly as fast, responsive evolution to fit the environment, it's a hard act to pull off.
Image: http://readwrite.com/
Should auld acquaintances be forgot, and never brought to mind? Here at ReadWrite, we say no!
As we get ready to usher in 2015, it's time to bid farewell to some of the things that left us in 2014. Some icons of tech made their exit this year, including the original iPod, ye olden spreadsheete sowftwayr, and Yahoo's original claims to fame. Fare thee well, friends!
Image: http://readwrite.com/
The past year has been eventful in the world of alternative finance. From crowdfunding to peer to peer lending the world of finance is changing rapidly – and for the better. While no industry is ever stagnant, the past several decades of the finance industry has experienced change but nothing quite to the degree as to what is occurring today. The internet, along with other technologies, is disrupting how investors find opportunity and people find funding for whatever their need may be.
Image: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/
One of the biggest problems you need to solve if you work for yourself is how to make yourself do work.
The best entrepreneurs have figured it out and just pound out the work they need to do.
But many others put off their dream careers, or stay in jobs they like, because they’re afraid to figure this out. Being in a job, or staying in college, means that you have someone else imposing work and deadlines on you, and you’ll get fired (or dropped from school) if you don’t do the work. So you put off doing the work until you can’t anymore because of the fear of being fired.
Most of us start the New Year hoping to be better versions of ourselves.
Our work lives, especially, are an easily quantified place to improve: We're rewarded for jobs well done in promotions or raises, and given formal reviews.
But what about the more vague aspects of your career—like why you're always showing up exhausted, or can't seem to focus deeply on what's most fulfilling? In the last year, we've tried to get to the bottom of those areas for improvement, too. The interpersonal soft-skills and self-care are what make the more tangible successes shine.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42931449@N07/5263540555
As 2014 draws to a close, while I read all the amazing achievements by my colleagues and all the upcoming new year solutions, I find myself thinking very philosophically about the topic of fear.
As individuals, we all have fears. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a founder or a funder, it’s an emotion nobody is immune to. That said, as individuals, I believe that we’re able to overcome our fears once we understand them.
Many of us bought fitness wearables in 2014. We counted our steps, our distance walked, our quality sleep time. But almost as many of us probably ended up abandoning our new devices before we’d worn them even a month.
Because my job involves testing many of these devices, I’ve been through the adopt-and-abandon cycle several times over. I had hoped that one of these devices would stick — that I would continue wearing it and benefit from the so-called “actionable insights” gained from the data. But they all ended up in the junk drawer.
Image: Fitness-tracking devices, like this one from S2H, can help motivate employees toward better health. Image Credit: illustir via photopin cc
The wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501, which disappeared with 162 people onboard while flying from Surabaya in Indonesia, was discovered in the Java Sea this morning. Air traffic controllers lost radar contact with the Airbus A320-200 on Sunday after the pilot requested permission to divert around a storm. And the lengthy search that followed highlights that airliners still cannot be tracked precisely over the sea.
Image: http://flightaware.com/
As we move to 2015, wondering if we'll still have "Shake it Off" stuck in our heads, look back at some of the more prominent quotes that sum up the last 12 months.
In 2014 we worried about online security, used hashtags to fuel social movements, obsessed over a suburban retail employee, inquired about celebrity stance on feminism and were blessed by the logic-defying wisdom of Jaden and Willow Smith.
Image: Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly acknowledged that he is gay in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. IMAGE: MASHABLE COMPOSITE. MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/AP IMAGES
When you’re looking back on a year that’s winding up, it’s tempting to try to name the one new product that’s going to change the world.
Our stories from the San Francisco Bay region have certainly turned up some candidates—from the Apple Watch to a potential new method of gene therapy nicknamed CRISPR/Cas9, which a University of California, Berkeley, professor has helped turn into a biomedical research sensation.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a funny phenomenon. While the phrase connotes “interconnectedness,” the truth is that these new gadgets, applications, interfaces, and systems aren’t nearly as interconnected as we expect them to be.
Image: https://hbr.org
I saw a post last week that suggested that VCs competing to win deals is leading to excess amounts of founder liquidity. We haven’t seen that sort of thing to be honest. It may happen but it is certainly not rampant.
I also saw this tweet from Sam Altman yesterday:
