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.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Paying for college can take some planning, just ask the financial advisors.
"It does cost somewhere between five hundred dollars a month and one thousand dollars a month for a newborn to start funding for college if you want to fully fund," Natalie Brinkman of Prosperwell Financial pointed out for parents saving now for kids to go into higher education the years down the road.
Image: http://www.kare11.com
When you think of tech companies, incubators or startups, South Carolina is still probably one of the last places that comes to mind. But with its new Office of Economic Engagement, which launched in the summer of last year, and a steadily growing incubator program, the University of South Carolina is working to change any misconceptions about tech startups not meshing well with the Palmetto State.
Entrepreneurs, rejoice.
The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering have come together to announce a new joint venture accelerator program that will provide infrastructure, financial resources and mentorship to support early-stage ventures.
Image: The Ross School of Business, seen above, and the College of Engineering will come together to launch the Desai Family Accelerator to help fund and mentor startups. Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News
Most farmers go to great lengths to keep insects at bay. For a growing cadre of livestock and fish producers though, bugs have never been so welcome.
Despite the appearance of some insect-based foods on store shelves—protein bars and tortilla chips made from crickets, for instance—creepy-crawlies are still a little distasteful for most.
Image: Eat up: A petri dish of mealworms, one of the livestock food sources being developed by the French company Ynsect. - http://www.technologyreview.com/
Cities are back. For the first time in decades, and, for three consecutive years, cities in the United States are growing faster than their surrounding suburbs. The innovation occurring in cities is critical to the ongoing economic recovery. Nonetheless, legacy problems stemming from the historical decline of America’s cities in the second half of the 20th century, coupled with obsolete governance, persist. Cities will likely continue on their new path and prosper in the coming years, but the failure to address the legacy issues as well as the new challenges of affordability in today’s prosperous cities will be costly in the long run for cities, their surrounding suburbs, and the U.S. economy overall.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/6jYmzJ
Cincinnati’s biggest angel capital group, Queen City Angels, is the second-best group of private seed-stage venture capital investors in the country, according to a new ranking.
Queen City Angels, a 14-year-old group of about 50 wealthy individual investors, shot up the list because of its high percentage of successful investments and its high number of exits, according to New York-based venture capital analysis firm CB Insights. Exits are investments that have been successfully completed through a sale of the company or an initial public stock offering.
Image: http://www.bizjournals.com
Being a founder/CEO is nothing like you think it is when you watch as "just" part of the management team. You think it's about making tough calls and making key decisions every day, every week, every month. It is.
But what it's really about is 24/7/365 accountability — in a way you have never experienced before.
Image: FLICKR, STOCKMONKEYS
You're looking at a new job, and the salary is solid, the expectations are reasonable, the work is exciting and the location is stellar. The company is successful, there's lots of room for you to move up and ample opportunity for you make an impact along the way.
But how do you know if you're going to be happy there?
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
One of the most exciting initiatives we have been working on in 2014 is creating a series of articles on sourcing, recruiting and managing talent. We partnered with TechEdge, industry-leading HR experts, to develop new resources for founders and managers who are ready to grow their startup team. Of course, the success of any business relies on its team members.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
An invasive species has been introduced into the U.S. health innovation ecosystem, with a growing danger of permanent damage to the development of specialty drugs. The relentless assault on the price of Sovaldi is becoming a threat to the 30-year political balance that has energized the biomedical revolution.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
For the first time, there’s evidence that being fit can improve the speed and connectivity of brain neurons in children
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU WATCH: Why Philip Seymour Hoffman Didn't Leave Money to His Children Preventing Alzheimer's: Study Shows Diet and Exercise Are Effective Scientists Think Bee Venom Could Fight Cancer by Taboola There’s plenty of evidence that suggests that children who are more physically active do better in school. But what’s contributing to the boost in brain power?
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Over the weekend Mark Cuban published his thoughts about what it takes to be great in business, boiled down to six fundamental practices. But for startups in particular, Cuban, whose net worth Forbes recently estimated to be $2.6 billion, has a few extra pointers. Illumination Consulting, based in La Jolla, California gathered together those tips in the below infographic.
There are approximately 1,250 business incubators in the United States, including about 120 with some life science focus, according to the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA). These programs vary greatly in their structure and services.
Often associated with universities or medical centers, life science incubators frequently offer affordable office space attached to shared wet lab facilities. Others focus on accelerating companies' progress by offering intensive coaching, networking and support services. Some programs include seed funding up to $250,000 at a stage when few others are willing to invest.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Most technical entrepreneurs I know demand the discipline of a product specification or plan, and then assume that their great product will drive a great business. Serious investors, on the other hand, look for a professional business plan or summary first, and hardly ever look at the product plan. Is it any wonder why so few entrepreneurs ever find the professional investors they seek?
When you and your stakeholders don’t see eye-to-eye on the timing of communications and deadlines—stress happens.
Why is setting time expectations so important?
The challenge for leaders is that if you don’t set expectations, your stakeholders will. That means you may go for months—or even years—feeling like you’re constantly being thrown for a loop by everyone else’s whims. Most constituents don’t know what’s reasonable in your position, so for everyone to be happy you need to let them know what to expect.
No, not that word, the feedback word.
There is so much talk about the importance of providing feedback and yet for some reason it still seems to rank at the bottom of the list in terms of organizational competencies (maybe too much talk and not enough action/practice?). Even the most senior leaders struggle to master this important skill and despite all the talk about how important it is, few have the courage to actually do it.
We can all agree that choice is a wonderful thing. We can also agree that competition is generally regarded as healthy. But then again, for a small fish, in a big pond, deciding which predator to expose your soft underbelly too is a choice of the Hobson variety, and as such not a particularly welcome one.
Start-up businesses are by definition small. And by definition they need to engage with bigger players if they want to survive and thrive. And in business, by definition, it tends to be the strongest who survive.
Understanding how an organisation works is not enough. To be truly effective, a leader must understand the unconscious motivations of people around them.
Tim had always been on the fast-track. An Ivy League graduate, he joined one of the premier consulting firms as an associate, went on to take an MBA at INSEAD, graduated top of his class and was recruited by a pharmaceutical firm where he rose quickly through the ranks, joining the executive team in record time.
The lure of maximising profits at the cost of creating customer value can be devastating in the long term.
In 2006, I moved to Mumbai and as soon as I landed, I looked for a taxi. A smiling taxi driver came up to me and asked me where I wanted to go. When I told him my location, his smile vanished. He was almost leaving when he stopped and asked me if I would be willing to pay Rs350, the fare for a long distance (and more profitable for him) carriage.
Image: http://knowledge.insead.edu
BERLIN — With a faint electric whir, Iris Marossek pedals her bicycle through concrete apartment blocks in the heart of old East Berlin, delivering mail to 1,500 people a day.
Painted yellow and black like a bumble bee, her bicycle is a nod to both past and future. It is decorated with an image of a curving black horn, harking back to earlier centuries when German postal workers trumpeted their arrival. But the twin battery packs under her seat also reveal it is more than the average bike.
Image: Iris Marossek of Deutsche Post, the German mail service, delivers mail to 1,500 people a day with the assistance of an e-bike. Credit: Gordon Welters for The New York Times
