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.
It takes a plan to write a business plan, but it’s not rocket science.
Writing a business plan isn’t hard, but it is more complicated than writing a shopping list. Do one of these 31 steps each day, and in a month, you’ll have a business plan to be proud of.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index enables business leaders, government policymakers, and taxpayers to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much is collected in taxes by state governments, the Index is designed to show how well states structure their tax systems, and provides a road-map to improving these structures.
Image: http://taxfoundation.org
As economies fluctuate, so strategies need to adapt. This has always been the case. But as the world around us changes dramatically and certain elements, such as globalisation and the internet, are irreversible, some strategic changes need to be radical – and none more so than in the way suppliers engage with clients and other key stakeholders. Yet we see plenty of compainies merely tweaking what they did in good times in the hope that the good old days will return. They will not.
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Courage. It really is that simple.
Not that courage is a simple thing. It comes in many forms and the people with the most people often don’t know they have it or that is what they are showing.
What kinds of courage does a start-up entrepreneur need?
You need the courage to …
Image: S Khan.
A popular myth these days is that finishing college only dilutes your entrepreneurial instincts, and the best of the best, including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, dropped out early to hasten their success.
I agree with Robert E. Litan, former VP of research at the Kauffman Foundation, that these are exceptions to the rule, rather than a model to emulate.
Entrepreneurship has never been easier thanks to digital technologies, yet there are less startups being created now than in the 1980s. This is having a negative effect on the economy, which has traditionally relied on startups as “the nation’s job creation engine.” Guest Columnist Irving Wladaswky-Berger writes about new research on “the entrepreneurship paradox” and the need for new policy aimed at protecting and nourishing new businesses.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Nathan Furr recently published a thought-provoking analysis in Inc. on why the skills developed while obtaining an MBA are misaligned with the characteristics required for driving innovation. The article cites strong sentiment from leading investors and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Scott Cook, who believe that graduate school curriculums stunt innovation.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa, -- Next month, for the second time this year, Penn State plans to auction some of its U. S. patents online. Winning bidders will get licensing rights to patents derived from faculty research in a broad range of technical fields.
The first auction, held in April and believed to be the first of its kind in the nation conducted directly by a university, was not a huge financial success -- only two patents were licensed out of 73 on offer. It was nonetheless judged successful by other important measures.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Silicon Valley’s tech culture is lost in translation at a European start-up incubator that recently opened in San Francisco.
In a bare office in downtown San Francisco, European bureaucrats wearing suits and ties cleared their throats and spoke about the glory of European innovation and American investment. They were launching a new Silicon Valley hub that they hoped would get European start-up talent American funding.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI) was selected as an International Economic Development Council (IEDC) Excellence in Economic Development Silver Award recipient. BHI is receiving the award in the Public-Private Partnerships category for its work to assemblethe partnership that sponsored DreamIt Health IT Baltimore accelerator program. The award, which recognizes outstanding and innovative development projects that have significantly enhanced the economic revitalization of distressed communities, states, or regions, was formally presented to BHI on Monday, October 20, during the 2014 IEDC Annual Conference in Fort Worth, TX.
Image: Thomas Kucharski (IEDC) - Ethan Byler (BHI) - William C. Sproull (IEDC) - See more at: http://www.biohealthinnovation.org/index.php/bhi-news-section/bhi-in-the-news/4166-iedc-recognizes-biohealth-innovation-inc-for-building-partnership-in-dreamit-health-it-accelerator#sthash.w9h7zP8N.dpuf
After hundreds of hours speaking with the leaders of America’s transformed cities, analyzing data until our eyes crossed and summarizing all of our findings in an action oriented report, I am ready to provide you with the cliff notes. To summarize, we found that there are nine key themes to consider if you are looking to transform your community.
Image: Free Digital Photos
A new Danish-led research suggests that signs of brain aging can be postponed in mice if they are placed on a high-fat diet. The finding may one day allow for developing treatments for children suffering from premature aging and patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The new research project, headed by the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen, and the National Institute of Health, studied mice having a defect in their DNA repair system, resulting in a Cockayne syndrome. Putting the mice on a high-fat diet postponed aging processes such as impaired hearing and weight loss. In humans, this defect causes patients to prematurely age as children and die at an age of 10–2 years.
Image: Kerala coconuts (credit: Dan Iserman CC)
The National Institutes of Health is challenging science innovators to compete for prizes totaling up to $500,000, by developing new ways to track the health status of a single cell in complex tissue over time. The NIH Follow that Cell Challenge seeks tools that would, for example, monitor a cell in the process of becoming cancerous, detect changes due to a disease-causing virus, or track how a cell responds to treatment.
Image: http://membercentral.aaas.org
SHENZHEN, China -- Chinese technology is chock-full of awkward analogies and misfit metaphors. The social network formerly known as "the Facebook of China" (Renren) turned out to be a flop, "the Twitter of China" (Weibo) is slowly sliding toward irrelevance, and e-commerce behemoth Alibaba has burst out of several rhetorical straitjackets.
We know that exercise is good for us.
But when our lives are full of meetings, deadlines, distractions, and endless tasks, adding one more thing to our to-do list can seem daunting. “I’m too busy,” quickly becomes our excuse for skipping our workout.
But what if making time to work out actually made us more likely to get work done?
Image: Free Digital Photos
In the past decade, we've seen dramatic advances in technology—Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE, cloud computing, smartphones—as well as the applications that make use of them. We now live with the reality that you can view, create, and share information whenever and wherever you want.
Image: Free Digital Photos
Back in the day, when it was time to find a manufacturer for your product, finding the information and contacts you needed was a challenge. Nowadays, in our interconnected online world, there’s a wealth of information available. You just need to know where to look. To help you get a jump-start on your search, we’ve gathered the best online resources for you to find a manufacturer for your product.
Image: Free Digital Photos
Dan Theobald had some good news for the elected officials and company executives gathered for the Shelby County Development Corp. annual meeting.
Shelby County is among the finalists for a couple of companies looking for new places to do business, the executive director told them. If things break right, the county will gain a few hundred jobs that pay above the median wage. Good news, indeed, if it comes to pass.
Image: Photo: Provided by the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute.
Yesterday, DreamIt Ventures announced the launch of an accelerator for women founders called DreamIt Athena, which kicks off in Philadelphia next spring.
DreamIt, which is ranked the #9 or #15 top startup accelerator depending whom you ask, believes they are the first top-tier accelerator to launch a program for women.
“Access to a valuable network, mentors, and early-stage capital are the critical resources that are largely unavailable to aspiring female founders,” says Karen Griffith Gryga, managing partner of DreamIt. “We see a huge opportunity for women-founded startups, and we want to change the conversation.”
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recent college graduate has turned a school assignment, originally funded by selling his car, into an award-winning invention with the potential to save lives.
James Roberts, 23, was named the International Winner of the James Dyson Award this week for inventing an inflatable baby incubator that could potentially be deployed in areas without medical resources.
Image: College Student Sells Car to Invent Inflatable Baby Incubator (ABC News)
