For two centuries, people have crowded into urban areas, seeking higher standards of living than prevail in the rural areas they abandoned. Nowhere is this truer than in China. In just four decades, it has risen from 17.4 percent to 55.6 percent urban, adding nearly 600 million city residents. This has been accomplished while lifting an unprecedented number of people out of poverty.  

Yet in the future, China faces tough urbanization challenges. The United Nations forecasts that another 200 million residents will be added to the cities by 2035, increasing the urban population by nearly another one-third.

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With the publication of On the Lighter Side . . . , a humorous addendum to Alma Merit: Meritocracy and Universities, we hope we've shown we can laugh at ourselves and that we wish the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project to proceed in a cooperative, collaborative, and inclusive fashion, shunning rhetoric for rhetoric's sake or the sowing of discord, when there badly needs to be a new consensus and a unified vision for our collective alma maters.

We’ve seen a lot of consulting “misses” over the years — polished management products and services that fail to achieve what the clients want. Often it’s because executives recruit their consultants the wrong way.

They usually start the search sensibly — looking for recommendations from respected colleagues or friends, a reputation for cutting-edge work, a portfolio of similar jobs done elsewhere, deep subject-matter expertise, and industry experience. These are all good reasons to include a firm in your initial list of candidates. But once you’ve narrowed down the field to a few contenders and carefully read their proposals, it’s important to test them on two other dimensions:

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Impact investing is on the rise. Yay! But, um, what is it? Last year, Michael Drexler and Abigail Noble of the World Economic Forum took a stab at defining it as “an investment approach intentionally seeking to create both financial return and positive social impact that is actively measured.” That is, you have to intend to do good, and you have to measure whether you’re succeeding. This was in a report called From the Margins to the Mainstream that did a lot to introduce impact investing to the wider investing world. Now Drexler and Noble are out with a new report, Charting the Course, that gets more into the nitty gritty of how one might go about investing with impact. (In something of a sign of the times, it’s not the only big impact-investing report out this week; the G8 Social Impact Investment Task Force has weighed in too.)

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Trying to decide what to have for lunch today? Choose from these 11 "superfoods," and you'll come back to work with more than a full belly.

Salmon can help you finally remember your new coworker's name, while green tea lets you get to work with speed and accuracy. And don't forget the square of chocolate for a de-stressing pick-me-up.

Check out the video above for more foods to grab at the grocery store today.

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Who doesn't want someone to help them navigate all the tricky moments in their career?

But finding the perfect mentor isn't as easy as just asking someone you admire to give you advice, is it? Leadership coach Lolly Daskal has the answer.

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Be honest. When dealing with your work emails, how much of your time is spent in a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole?

According to a 2012 report by McKinsey & Company, workers spend 28% of their day reading, writing, or responding to email. We’ve all heard the advice that prioritizing our inbox or tasks is half the battle. But what if it’s not?

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Most Americans sit for at least six hours a day—an act that has been linked to obesity and heart disease, among other ailments. Mounting evidence suggests long hours staring at computer monitors may also be taking a toll on the eyes. People peering for hours into a screen tend to blink less often and have tears that evaporate more quickly, which dries out the eye and can cause blurred vision or pain. Left untreated, dry eye can lead to corneal ulcers and scarring.

As kids all across the U.S. head back to school, they’re being forced to spend less time in front of their favorite digital distractions. Or are they?   Video games are playing an increasing role in school curricula as teachers seek to deliver core lessons such as math and reading—not to mention new skills such as computer programming—in a format that holds their students’ interests. Some herald this gamification of education as the way of the future and a tool that allows students to take a more active role in learning as they develop the technology skills they need to succeed throughout their academic and professional careers.

Image: A student plays MinecraftEdu. Courtesy of TeacherGaming LLC

Summary: The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is the largest annual international research initiative that collects and analyses data about various forms of entrepreneurial activity, providing valuable insights into the state of entrepreneurship within and across different economies around the world. These insights are particularly relevant to Singapore, where the success of its innovation-driven financial system is largely dependent on the economic activities of its citizens. In this report, we describe the key definitions and terms used in the GEM and summarize the key findings of the GEM Singapore 2013. Wherever possible, we draw comparisons with findings from 2011 and 2012 reports, and with other developed countries or those located near Singapore. 

Dane Stangler, vice president of Research & Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, discusses four persistent myths about entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship education began in 1947 at Harvard University, with a course in “new enterprises” offered to returning veterans of World War II. Since then, it has become one of the fastest growing areas of study in higher education.

The number of structured entrepreneurship programs offered by U.S. colleges and universities quadrupled during the last quarter of the 20th century, and these programs are an integral part of the American startup landscape. Business incubators are increasingly based within universities.

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The most successful venture capitalists carry one slogan around in their heads as they review new investment opportunities: "Bet the jockey and not the horse." This means that the quality of management is the key ingredient in a successful early stage investment strategy. This is not new news to anyone even casually familiar with private equity investing. In fact, it makes me curious about the avalanche of criticism in the media aimed at directors of public companies who award lush employment and option contracts to key managers. The fact is, the quality of management makes just as much difference in a public company as it does in a private, emerging growth firm…a make or break proposition. If the company has $1 billion in gross revenues and $100 million in margin in today's environment, it is likely to be headed in one of two directions…on the way up to $2 or $3 billion, with a consequent effect on shareholder value, or exactly in the opposite direction. As Dick Foster and Sarah Kaplan have pointed out, very few public companies are able to stand still these days. The gifted managers are continuously involved in the process of reinventing their firms. Intense global competition means today's good times, left unattended, are tomorrow's death spiral.

Access to professionals succeeding in their fields is vital for students of entrepreneurship, both in and out of the classroom.

These five schools offer the highest number of mentorship programs from among our cohort of entrepreneurship graduate programs.

1. Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) Entrepreneurs, senior executives and investors from Philadelphia and the mid-Atlantic region with a wealth of experience in numerous industries, and expertise in a multitude of disciplines, consult one-on-one with students, faculty and alumni who are starting entrepreneurial ventures.

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In all the talk about the mismatch between the projected number of STEM jobs (1.2 million new ones in the next six years) and the U.S.-based talent to fill those positions, we’re losing sight of another big skills gap that’s right under our fingers every day.

Ninety percent of all jobs in the next year will require information and communication technology skills, according to research by Capgemini. Yet more than half the companies polled lacked social media skills. That’s despite a McKinsey report that projects social media adding up to $1.3 trillion to our economy. No wonder the gap is poised to create a war for talent that quietly rivals the battle playing out amid the startups of Silicon Valley.

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“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

If any question ever felt like a trick, this one certainly does. Some days, it’s hard to say where you see yourself after lunch.

If it's asked in a job interview, there's a temptation to be less than sincere to land the gig: "Here at your company, of course, working tirelessly for you!" When you're only asking yourself, five years from now can seem like a vast span of possibility or potential for change. Considering the changes the last five years have likely brought for you--new technology, unexpected life events, relocation, or finding a new passion--how can we say anything for certain about the next five?

A NEW index ranks Japan as the most efficient among Asian countries in turning the building blocks of creativity into tangible innovations that benefit their economies and people while Myanmar, Pakistan and Cambodia are least efficient.

The Asian Development Bank said it developed the index with the Economist Intelligence Unit to give policymakers a tool to assess how best to foster innovation and creativity in Asian economies.

Finland and the US were included for comparison and ranked second and 4th respectively out of the diverse group of 24 countries that span some of the richest and poorest nations in the world. South Korea was third and China was 11th ranked.

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CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - Sep 15, 2014) -  Five organizations were named winners of SSTI's 2014 Excellence in TBED award, serving as national models for states and regions investing in science, technology and innovation to grow their economies and create high-paying jobs. Among the winners, a newer program was selected as the Most Promising TBED Initiative, recognized for creative use of existing resources and strong public-private sector support to spur entrepreneurial activity.

"This year's winners were able to bring together diverse groups of partners to collectively achieve a vision of regional prosperity," said Dan Berglund, SSTI president and CEO. "This group, along with past winners, exhibits that excellence in TBED can make a significant impact on regional economies."

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A profound change has taken place in the way science is paid for and practiced in America. American science, long a source of national pride has become the domain of private citizens, from the wealthiest to average people like you and me. Federal budget stalemates and partisan in-fighting have decimated government funded research programs, making ghost towns out of the nation’s research laboratories. Scores of scientists have been laid off, projects have been shut down and shelved mid-discovery and many labs have closed entirely. This has led to the burgeoning culture of “science philanthropy”, a controversial yet effective means to skirt the federal budget disasters and get scientific discovery and innovation underway once again.

Everyone wears many hats at a startup, and you rarely know what skills will benefit you most. And when hiring, it can be hard to tell who will turn out to be the most flexible asset to your company.

So I asked nine entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to share their most unexpectedly valuable hires in the last year and why.

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