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.
Whether it’s breaking the glass ceiling or battling stereotypes, no one’s denying women have come a long way. But we still have a long way to go.
From pitching to investors who are used to defining “entrepreneurs” as young, white, and male to tuning out the self-doubt that tears your confidence apart, below eight successful women entrepreneurs share how they take down the roadblocks in their way.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
What do we consider “living the dream” today?
Personal freedom and having basic needs met top the list. In 2004--the birth year of Facebook, a second-term W., and Janet’s legendary nip-slip--we felt more optimistic about our dreams than we do now. How is that possible? And what are we doing to compensate for it?
It’s been four years since the first accelerator was launched in the Arab world. Now, almost every country in the MENA region has one, and some have earned international credibility (see our list). As in any startup ecosystem, over these four years some of the pioneers have inevitably disappeared.
Image: http://www.wamda.com/
SurveyMonkey has come a long way since Ryan Finley started the company in his Madison, WI, apartment.
The online polling service, which counts Facebook and Harvard among its customers, began in 1999 after Finley earned his computer science degree from the state’s flagship university.
If you need to charge your phone while you're waiting for a flight at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, or while sitting at the train station in Lyon, you can get a little exercise at the same time. The waiting areas are filled with WeBikes, stationary bikes that power gadgets and a Wi-Fi connection as you pedal.
Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com
We live in an age of information overload. While many of us find ourselves inundated with vast amounts of data daily, our fast-paced society also requires us to make more rapid decisions.
Psychologist and behavioral neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of the upcoming book The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, says information overload creates daily challenges for our brains, causing us to feel mentally exhausted before the day's end.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
How do you get somebody interested in investing in your startup? You pitch them the idea. Pitching skills are widely considered fundamental to basic entrepreneurship, and this skill is taught, evaluated, and rewarded as part of almost any entrepreneurial education. The problem is that pitching is a waste of time and teaching this as a primary skill of entrepreneurship is misleading and sets the wrong priorities for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In early April a series of reports appeared online in the United States and the United Kingdom lamenting the “lazy French.” A new labor law in France had apparently banned organizations from e-mailing their employees after 6 p.m. In fact, it turned out to be more a case of “lazy journalists” than “lazy French”: as The Economist explained, the “law” was not a law at all but a labor agreement aimed at improving health among a specific group of professionals, and there wasn’t even a hard curfew for digital communication.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
In March 2014, the European Commission adopted a revised competition regime for technology transfer agreements.
Commission Regulation EU 316/2014 of 21 March 2014 applies from 1 May 2014 to agreements by way of which companies authorise the use of patents, know-how or software by another company for the production of goods and services. The new rules update and replace the previous legal regime.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Marc Andreessen recently lamented the death of the IPO in the United States, blaming over regulation and short sellers as the reason why the general public no longer gets to share in the spectacular capital returns that earlier technology stocks like Microsoft and Amazon delivered.
While over regulation in the US with regimes like Sarbanes Oxley is a major problem, the data from the National Venture Capital Association shows that over the last five years that both the number of IPOs and the total amount offered is actually in an uptrend. In fact, the first quarter of 2014 saw the strongest three month period for new listings since 2000, and Alibaba isimminently coming to market which will lift the trend in 2014 significantly.
Image: http://www.smartcompany.com.au
Earlier this year, Wamda launched its newest initiative, the Wamda Research Lab (WRL), a program that focuses on informing investors, policymakers, and other stakeholders on barriers and solutions for supporting MENA entrepreneurs.
The WRL’s first study, The Next Step: Breaking barriers to scale for MENA’s entrepreneurs, offers insight into the challenges that entrepreneurs face growing their companies, so as to provide policymakers and stakeholders with the information needed to build a supportive ecosystem in the MENA region.
Image: Photo courtesy of Joi Ito.
Technology is undeniably beautiful. The way humans have shaped even the ugliest devices into eye-pleasing shapes amuses me to no end. And like many others, I enjoy watching staggeringly-cool technology videos again and again. I cherry-picked the best of the best, your eyes will thank me later.
Image: http://gearburn.com
Even though some fixed terms such as seed capital, angel investment and venture investment are similar in many parts in the world, the reality is that in Latin America, with its particular context and implementation practices, these terms have totally different meanings.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/5Lc7PL
The U.S. federal government met its annual government contracting goal for small businesses — for the first time in 8 years. Government contracting goals are measured as a percentage of overall government contracts awarded. For 2013 the goal was to award 23% of all prime contracts to small businesses. In fact, the federal government awarded 23.9% of prime contracts to small businesses, worth $83.1 billion. As a whole, the federal government achieved a score of “A” or 100.60% on a scorecard methodology used to measure the goals. See image above containing a partial screenshot of the 2013 scorecard.
Image: http://smallbiztrends.com
People are always asking me for an inside tip on Internet sites that will be “the next big thing.” Those are hard, since someone has to invent something innovative, but I do have some views on other ideas whose time has come and gone.
In some cases, these are concepts that have already been done too many times, and the space is crowded. In others, the concept has been tried too many times, or no one has yet succeeded in making any money. Or both. Here are my favorites:
Photocopiers, PCs, and video conferencing rooms all rose from being technological novelties to standard tools of corporate life. Researchers at IBM are experimenting with an idea for another: a room where executives can go to talk over business problems with a version of Watson, the computer system that defeated two Jeopardy! champions on TV in 2012.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com
Intellectual property—patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets—plays a vital role in economic growth and prosperity. Yet outside of law schools, most American colleges provide little or no opportunity for students to receive any substantive instruction in it. As a result, students often graduate under the misimpression, no doubt shared by many of their professors, that IP is a topic of interest and relevance only to lawyers, with little connection to their own careers.
Geek-speak can torpedo your communications.You can’t present effectively to customers, employees, funding sources or any other audience that is vital to your business's success if they don't understand what you're saying.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
My blog post last Monday on disrupting entrepreneurship education prompted several people to reach out to me with comments about progress being made in Macedonia – somewhere I had not previously viewed as bastion of entrepreneurship. As part of our ongoing discussions about the region leading up to the GEC2 in nearby Croatia, I decided to dig further into what Macedonia is trying to test for the Balkan region.
Image: http://entrepreneurship.org
The latest outbreak of Ebola virus in west Africa is the worst ever—as of Monday, it had infected more than 1,200 people and claimed at least 672 victims since this spring. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone all have confirmed cases. An official at Doctors Without Borders has declared the outbreak as “totally out of control,” according to NBC News. Unfortunately, doctors have no effective vaccines or therapies. Health care workers can only attempt to support patients’ immune systems (regulating fluids, oxygen levels, blood pressure and treating other infections) to help the afflicted fight off the virus as best they can.
Image: Color-enhanced electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles Credit: Wikimedia Commons/PLoS Pathogens
