The competition format has fueled major successes in business. Fortune 500 companies like AT&T and American Express often sponsor online creativity contests to inspire innovation among their customers, while Kickstarter and other crowdfund platforms have ideas compete to win funding. And organizations can also use competitions to drive innovation within their own workforces.

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When Pieter Nota joined Philips, four years ago, to run the Dutch technology group’s Consumer Lifestyle sector, he found a business in poor shape. The market shares of several important products were falling in the wake of harsh trading conditions and a lack of earlier investment. Sales of the company’s televisions were declining alarmingly following a brief spike ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. More fundamentally, an overcentralized and functionally led organizational structure was proving ill suited to the task of managing the two formerly separate companies (small domestic appliances and consumer electronics) first brought together under the Consumer Lifestyle umbrella, in 2008.

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University of Maryland UM Ventures and Harpoon Medical, Inc., announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has invested $100,000 in Harpoon Medical. This is the first equity investment UM Ventures has made in a company and completes Harpoon Medical's $3.6 million Series A financing. The investment also coincides with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's decision to grant a patent for the innovative beating heart mitral valve repair technology Harpoon Medical licensed from UMB. The team in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine developed the licensed technology.

Thursday, November 20 the important role angel investors play in helping startups grow is being celebrated as part of the first ever Global Business Angels Day, part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.  Angels are often a hidden hero of the startup and innovation economy – so it is important to unveil and celebrate the important contributions angels make.

Yesterday, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann helped celebrate the launch of the Penn Center for Innovation, a new initiative that will provide the infrastructure, leadership and resources needed to transfer promising Penn inventions, know-how and related assets into the marketplace for the public good.  

“The new Penn Center for Innovation that we inaugurate today embraces great teamwork as an organizing principle and is part of a major plan to advance innovation at Penn,” said Gutmann.

Image: President Amy Gutmann spoke at the launch event. - http://www.upenn.edu

Deloitte recently released its 2014 Technology Fast 500 Rankings, and biotech companies ranked third-quickest in growth following software and internet firms. The biotech industry, over all, grew 940 percent this year – the lowest it’s been, actually, in the past decade. Last year, for instance, the it grew 2,723 percent, in 2012 it was 3,734 – the lowest since this year was in 2005, when growth was at 1,420 percent.

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Sustainable solutions rely on organisations that link people, science and government, say Ashvin Dayal and Anna Brown.

Rapid urbanisation and climate change are exerting overwhelming pressure on cities in the developing world. And there is a sense among some experts, city managers and business leaders that only science and new technological solutions will enable cities to become resilient to the daunting array of shocks and stresses.

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Coming from a scientific background, I thought I knew well enough about using slides and making presentations, whether in laboratory journal clubs or at hundred-attendee conferences. However, as I start to help fellow scientists on their fundraising campaigns, it has become apparent to me that academia and business speak very different languages.

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Entrepreneurship is a young man or woman's game, right? I mean, it involves endless hours, lots of sacrifice, and precludes any sort of family life...right? 

Not so fast -- the annals of entrepreneurship are full of stories of older entrepreneurs changing the game. For proof, check out this great infographic put out by Founders and Funders of "Late Bloomers Who Suceeded Despite their Age." And be prepared to be majorly inspired by the journey of Justine Bateman, who went back to school at the age of 48 to develop her career as an entrepreneur. 

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Around here, we taking the business of starting a business very seriously. But that doesn't mean we don't get a kick out seeing the lighter side of startup life as well. Here are seven of the funniest and more dead-on spoofs of the startup life. 

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Looking far outside your own industry can yield surprising solutions to tough problems.

A few years ago, executives at PepsiCo gave the R&D department a challenge: Find a way to cut the sodium content of snack foods, while still keeping the salty taste consumers crave.

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In the field of innovation, change that can impact a business runs the gamut between “just do it” ideas and ideas that take weeks, months, or even years before they start generating a return. But every idea has the potential to make an impact and save employees or end users both time and money.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Work and internship opportunities in college that allow students to apply what they learn improve the chances that college graduates will land work after college. A Gallup-Purdue University study of college graduates finds 71% of the most recent graduates who strongly agreed they had these types of jobs or internship opportunities as undergrads are working full time now for an employer, compared with 56% of those who strongly disagreed.

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If you are looking to buy a new car it is only natural to test drive the models you are interested in. You’ll quickly get a sense of quality, handling, comfort, and can back up your research with comparable data on cost, mileage, reliability, resale value and much more that is easily available online.

One of the first harsh realities that every entrepreneur has to learn is that most of the things that are critical to startup success are outside of their direct control. Just because you dream it and build it, doesn’t mean they will come – that encompasses not only customers, but also investors, partners, team members, and even your own family. They won’t come if they don’t trust you.

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You already know the price of entrepreneurship is high. 

Starting a company often means putting it all on the line, and there's no guarantee that the risk will pay off. And then there are the emotional swings--the euphoria of success and the crushing blow of failure. 

For a lot of people, one ride on that roller coaster is enough. But for some serial entrepreneurs, that cycle isn't just attractive, it's downright addicting in an unhealthy way, according to recent research. 

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Japan and China are lagging far behind the US in global entrepreneurship, according to the recently released 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Index.

With a historical score of 85, the US tops the list of countries on the index, followed by Australia, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Taiwan, Switzerland, and Singapore.

Japan is to be found in the 33th and China in the 61 position

It was the entrepreneurial skills instilled in me by my grandfather at an early age that not only shaped my future path to success as an entrepreneur, but also built the parameters for my mindset and my life. When I became a father I knew I wanted to install those same values in my children, regardless of their chosen career path as adults, because whether your kids grow to be entrepreneurs or not, they’ll grow into better people for knowing the skills of an entrepreneur.

The signs of the gap—really, a chasm—between the poor and the super-rich are hard to miss in Silicon Valley. On a bustling morning in downtown Palo Alto, the center of today’s technology boom, apparently homeless people and their meager belongings occupy almost every available public bench. Twenty minutes away in San Jose, the largest city in the Valley, a camp of homeless people known as the Jungle—reputed to be the largest in the country—has taken root along a creek within walking distance of Adobe’s headquarters and the gleaming, ultramodern city hall.

To gain a better understanding of your leadership strengths and weaknesses, take a look at yourself through the eyes of others.

How we see ourselves is often very different from how we appear to others. Actions we believe reflect decisive or confident characteristics may come across as controlling or arrogant while attempts at openness may be perceived as being indecisive or weak. Understanding how supervisors, co-workers, direct reports and clients perceive us can give valuable insights into our leadership behavior and help us become more effective leaders, better able to embrace and adapt to change.