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.
THE stuff some colleges know right now about their students, thanks to data-mining of their digital footprints, boggles the mind. It may even seem a bit creepy.
Has their attendance slipped? Have they stopped logging in to read course packets or file assignments? Did they just drop the very class they needed for their major?
Image: Dan Bejar
The Ohio Third Frontier Commission approved $43.5 million to support start-ups and advance entrepreneurship across the state and $19 million of those dollars will come to Northeast Ohio's collaborative network of 16 organizations working to help accelerate the success of entrepreneurs across 21 counties, which houses nearly 40 percent of Ohio's population and more than 35 percent of the state’s GDP.
There is little doubt that Northeast Ohio's entrepreneurial ecosystem is in a much better place today than it was a decade ago. We are proud of the work we have done and even more optimistic about what lies ahead.
PITTSBURGH, PA – The latest release of the Fourth Economy Community Index (FEC Index, #FECIndex) was announced today listing the nation’s top ten mega-sized Fourth Economy Communities. These communities are recognized as the regions ideally positioned to attract modern investment and managed economic growth among all regions with a population greater than 500,000 people.
Image: http://fourtheconomy.com/
Mr. Shore Gregory was skeptical. As owner of Island Creek Oyster Bar and Row 34 in Boston, he gets pitched by a lot of Harvard students who claim to be building the next 'distruptive' app for restauranteurs. Unsurprisingly, this is rarely the case, and the result is a huge waste of time. So when he got approached by Reserve, led by Co-founder and CEO Gregory Hong, he had his guard up. Here was another team with an app designed to improve the dining experience — only something was different. The product actually seemed to answer real needs.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Entrepreneurs on college campuses got another boost Thursday with Boston-area Xfund closing a $100 million fund to bankroll new ideas and support startups it has backed so far.
The move comes just two months after the University of California Board of Regents approved the $250 million UC Ventures fund to target work done at campuses, medical centers and national laboratories. Well before that, Stanford University established its StartX accelerator and First Round Capital launched its Dorm Room Fund.
Image: Harvard University celebrates Commencement 2013. Graduates await their degrees from Eliot House. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer Harvard University
Although corporate leaders have long recognized the competitive benefits that accrue from adopting flexible supply chain management and production systems, few have even begun to implement strategies designed to deliver the equivalent agility and flexibility to their global innovation activities. Most are stuck in a paradigm where innovation is located in “brick-and-mortar” R&D sites, when what is needed is an adaptive, globally dispersed capability to access critical knowledge from different markets, industries and emerging innovation hot spots.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Peter Aceto, the CEO of Tangerine, recently said in The Globe and Mail, “I would rather engage in a Twitter conversation with a single customer than see our company attempt to attract the attention of millions in a coveted Superbowl commercial.”
This is the preference of a truly social CEO. Unfortunately, chief executives that embrace and understand the promise of social media are rare, so rare that we call them “blue unicorns” in our book, A World Gone Social. Why blue unicorns? Because CEOs that embrace social as much as leaders like Aceto are still so uncommon that we aren’t just looking for any unicorn, we’re looking for a specific color of unicorn.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
There are a few glaring marketing faux pas that crop up everywhere, from newsletters to email campaigns, over and over again. But what could seem like a small social media offense to you could actually be costing your business thousands of dollars — a price most early-stage startups can't afford to pay.
To find out which marketing mistakes are truly embarrassing, I asked a panel of entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) for major marketing don'ts.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
When I started AppLovin, creating a strong family culture that instilled a good work-life balance was a priority for me and my co-founders. I have three young daughters, so balance and family is of the utmost importance to me, and I want to ensure that my employees are able to create the same balance.
Image: FLICKR, STEVE HARDY
Greater Cincinnati is getting its second angel capital investor group, and it'll be the first in Northern Kentucky. Brad Zapp is creating Connetic Angels to invest in startup companies at the earliest stages, when they first need outside money to get off the ground. He has put together a group of 50 accredited investors, mostly from Northern Kentucky but some from the Cincinnati area on the Ohio side of the river, who are investing $5 million in an angel capital fund.
Image: Brad Zapp is founding Connetic Angels, a Northern Kentucky angel capital group.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Despite delaying their college education, nontraditional college graduates -- defined here as those who earn their degree at age 25 or older -- have personal incomes later in life that are similar to those of traditional graduates, or those who earn their degree before age 25.
Image: http://www.gallup.com/
With most of India’s over 80 start-up incubators and accelerators located in Tier-I cities, entrepreneurs from semi-urban or rural areas were often forced to move to big cities to follow their dreams. Not any more; a new free mobile application could soon change the way these entrepreneurs interact with their larger ecosystem. Africa-based Mara group’s Mara Mentor app, launched globally for iPhones and Android-based handsets in May this year, allows entrepreneurs to reach out to experts in their domains, discuss issues, get suggestions from their peer group, and connect with the right people who could help gain traction or investments. The app functions as a social networking platform, but only for start-ups. It also provides e-coaching sessions, mentor chats and radio shows.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Gaurav Bagaria gives you a complete low down on why you should seek admission in an institute that has an incubation and entrepreneurship development centre
Amidst the debate about whether the growing number of higher education institutes are proving detrimental to quality education and creating more job seekers, there are certain institutes and universities that are more concerned about creating entrepreneurs. For long, these institutes have been working silently as incubation centres not only nurturing quality education but also endeavouring to transform this quality education into a business reality, paving ways to industrialisation and economic development.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The success of every startup company depends on the CEO. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard top angels say, I’ll take an A+ founder with a B+ technology over the reverse—and they mean it. Without great leadership, companies struggle to sell products and tank as a result. Even though it is the most critical part of evaluating investment opportunities, vetting leadership is often more art than science, leaving many angels to rely on gut instinct in determining a good CEO.
Whether you are an entrepreneur managing a startup, or a corporate executive with thousands of employees, it’s hard to ignore the evidence of big value from happy employees. For example, the Harvard Business Review a while back included an analysis of hundreds of studies showing an average of 31% higher productivity, 37% higher sales, with creativity three times higher. The challenge is to find the best way to keep everyone on your team happy and productive. Google, which was ranked by Fortune magazine as the world’s best place to work, seems to put a lot of stock in providing a free food source to every employee, within three minutes from each office, via many micro-kitchens open 24/7 throughout their campus.
Demis Hassabis started playing chess at age four and soon blossomed into a child prodigy. At age eight, success on the chessboard led him to ponder two questions that have obsessed him ever since: first, how does the brain learn to master complex tasks; and second, could computers ever do the same?
Now 38, Hassabis puzzles over those questions for Google, having sold his little-known London-based startup, DeepMind, to the search company earlier this year for a reported 400 million pounds ($650 million at the time).
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/
Mechanically, there are only two ways to run faster:
That's really it. The hard part is doing this correctly. To accomplish both of these things you need: Strength, especially in your core, lower body, and even your feet (yes your feet). Having bulky thighs, calves, and arms doesn't matter really and can actually hurt your speed, but you should cross-train with resistance training of some kind regularly.
In addition to the good tips already shared on this thread, I would add the following five tips:
1. Build a foundation for health. In your twenties it's easy to feel like you're invincible. That fast food and the five margaritas you downed the night before burn right off and you wake up the next morning feeling fine. This does not last. Start building healthy habits now before they catch up to you later. At 30, I'm still struggling with this one myself. Get in the habit of eating healthfully and exercising. Your body will thank you for years later.
Trends are a bit like spending a dreamy, sunny day at the beach. The next thing you know you have a drenched towel and phone. High tide and trends work like that. Here are 10 things you need to know before the water hits you in 2015. 1. Power of brand individual People are their own brands and as such stand for a point of view and attach value/values to themselves. Often that runs counter to the experience they receive from corporate brands. A spate of recent examples from Cell C vs George Prokas and Nico Niemand vs FNB (www.rottenbank.co.za) to Emmerentia and Monica Liebenberg vs ABSA all have shown how the individual has taken on and won against major corporates.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
If you added 'find a new job' to your list of New Year's resolutions, we're here to help. We talked hiring trends with Scott Dobroski, a career trends analyst at Glassdoor to help identify the hottest jobs in tech.
We looked at data provided by the site, which aggregates reviews of jobs and companies, that ranks tech jobs according to how many employees thought business was improving in 2014 to explore which could be next year's best bets. According to Dobroski, big data, mobile and privacy are going to be "very hot and very popular" in 2015.
