Many governments in industrialized countries aim to encourage entrepreneurship and start-up activity to spur job creation and economic growth. To what extent governments are capable of doing so is uncertain. Nonetheless, policy makers at the regional and municipal levels are closer to the sources of innovation than those at the national level. For example, innovation in the form of start-up activity tends to occur in large metropolitan areas, initially without the involvement of policy makers. Take Berlin, where a vibrant ecosystem developed in the past several years without systematic government intervention.

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If you own a smartphone, you’ve no doubt been tempted to take a look at a map or see what message just popped up on the screen while you’re behind the wheel of a car.

A startup called Navdy is building a device that will let you see such information without looking away from the road. It sits on your dashboard and can project your current speed, turn-by-turn directions, and smartphone notifications that appear to float several feet in front of you in full color.

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Do you ever wonder if you have what it takes to become an entrepreneur and perhaps one day, start your own business?  Most people are really happy with their jobs and have no interest in starting their own business, let alone taking any unnecessary risks by quitting their paid jobs.  However, there are many other people that are at least intrigued at the idea of starting their own business and venturing into their own entrepreneurial life.

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Jordan Levy was driving Fred Wilson, one of the nation’s most prominent venture capitalists, past the Fairmont Creamery building in downtown Buffalo Tuesday. The building is the new headquarters of Liazon Corp., a homegrown benefits-exchange provider which was sold in 2013 for $215 million. The company has retained its Buffalo footprint and recently announced plans to add 500 jobs.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com - Fred Wilson, who founded Union Square Ventures in 2003, discusses venture capital at Larkinville. 

Since 2009, when I started FinSMEs, several things have changed in the startup financing world. From web to mobile and sensors, which allow the rise of IoT, from on-premise to SaaS based software, from SMS to communication platforms, from e-commerce to same day delivery, from social to mobile and VR gaming, from Peer to Peer lending to crowdfunding, from mpos to bitcoin, from traditional to 3D printing, several tech trends have emerged and become reality, following the usual period of hype and strong injections of capital (from angels, vcs and crowds), which allow consolidation.

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Facebook, Google and other Internet titans have been busy transforming themselves into Web conglomerates, making fortunes for the venture capital industry. But is it good for everyone else?

The stream of acquisitions has been head-shaking. Facebook acquired the social media companies WhatsApp for $16 billion and Instagram for $1 billion. Google acquired the thermostat and smoke alarm developer Nest for $3.24 billion and Waze, a social mapping startup, for $1 billion, while Apple bought the music brand Beats Electronics for $3 billion.

Image: The titans' buying spree has not just minted more than a few 20-something millionaires; it has revolutionized the venture capital business model. - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/39755888.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

2013 had all the signs of being a comeback year for venture capital. Booming public equities and a recovered IPO market generated record portfolio company exits and distributions from VC funds. The industry realized its highest returns since the Internet boom.

Yet 2013 annual industry performance data from Cambridge Associates shows that venture capital continues to underperform the S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000.

Last week we announced a significant new strategic investor in Sablono, a startup developing software for the construction industry. Sablono is one of six seed-stage investments we made last year. This little seed company has done very well: Three out of the six companies got externally funded, and we have another big A round on the way. Still, we are constantly discussing how we, as an early-stage fund, need to tackle seed.

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1.  Silence is golden.

Throughout most of my life, I had always been a big talker.  I always jumped at the opportunity to hear myself speak.

It has now become clear to me that saying less is much more powerful than talking.  Listening and asking questions is not only admirable and impressive-it makes you smarter and puts you in a better position.

Shut up and listen, others will pour their hearts out to you.  They will tell you too much.  They will give you the most invaluable commodity in the world: information. George Bernard Shaw, co founder of the London School of Economics put it perfectly.  “Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections and conceal your own.”

When it comes to succeeding at work, mastering the skills needed to do your job effectively is just one piece of the puzzle.

You also need to project a polished image--one that says you’ve got what it takes--to rise through the ranks and be a leader.

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If you’re interested in creating strategic impact, now is a natural time to be asking if your organization needs a strategic plan. The question makes sense whether you are considering an update to a previous strategic plan or something completely new.

From our perspective, it’s not a question you ask and answer as some type of check box, i.e., “We have a strategic plan, so we can check that off the list!”

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A new collaboration between the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) encourages SBIR applicants to license ARS technologies and be considered for a SBIR grant.

The relevant language in the SBIR’s “Request for Application” states: "Additional factors that will be considered in the review process include whether an application involves a CRADA with a USDA laboratory, or a license to a USDA technology, or is a resubmission. In the event that two or more applications are of approximately equal merit, the existence of a CRADA with a USDA laboratory or a license to a USDA technology will be an important consideration. If one application is a resubmission, this will also be an important consideration.” The SBIR Website can be found at: http://www.nifa.usda.gov/fo/sbir.

Accelerator Corporation, a US-based biotech investment and management company, has attracted a total of $51.1m for its Accelerator IV fund. The three major investors’ cash, Eli Lilly, Pfizer Venture Investments and Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, make up $50m of the investment.

The three pharmaceutical companies and other existing investors Alexandria Venture Investments, WRF Capital and Arch Venture Partners, are joined by two new strategic investors. These are Harris & Harris, a venture capital firm, and The Partnership Fund for New York City, an evergreen fund by the city’s business and finance leaders.

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Gender and generational gaps have recently become big buzz words in the business world. According to a new study, it's not a passing trend: Having millennials and women in leadership positions directly correlates with the success of a company.

The Global Leadership Forecast looked at the workforce issues affecting 13,124 leaders from around the world, representing 48 countries and 32 major industries.

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As an entrepreneur, it's beneficial to put together a smart, invested board of advisors to help get you through your beginning years and beyond. That's why we asked 12 startup founders from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) what is most important when choosing your board. 

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More than two generations ago, the venture capital community – VCs, business angels, incubators and others – convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centrepieces of entrepreneurial endeavour. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they've delivered to their investors and the astonishingly large companies that their ecosystem has created.

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Our reputation hinges on our ability to provide verified data and content on the private market financing industry. We do this through a team of experienced specialists adapt at uncovering and analyzing even the most unusual financing structures. This approach allows us to deliver accurate data that empowers a level of transparency in the private market industry that is highly sought after.

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Today, most healthcare organizations operate in ways that are antithetical to innovation. The trend in patient-centered healthcare is to focus on stability, predictability, standardization and the avoidance of risk. Process engineers are deployed to help hospitals and healthcare systems eliminate waste and improve their organizations using Lean and Six-Sigma principles. Few operators develop an effective focus on innovation. Therefore, few reap the rewards that innovative breakthroughs in patient care can bring.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

You wouldn’t expect an academic road map by the brainiacs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be, oh, shorter than a small textbook, would you?

MIT released on Monday a report on “the future of MIT education,” the result of 18 months’ work by a task force made up of dozens of faculty and staff members and students. It clocks in at 213 pages. (To be fair, the appendixes start on Page 31.) Among its 16 recommendations are:

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The town of Akademgorodok, nestled among birch and conifers 3,400 kilometers east of Moscow, is becoming a hub for 21st century Russian innovation and entrepreneurship. You’ve heard of Silicon Valley. This is Silicon Forest.

Visual journalist Grant Slater recently traveled to the remote Siberian city to document the tech boom and create a broad portrait of the people driving, and caught up in, the changes.

Image: Institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences surround the incubator. Academics there study everything from science to humanities. Anna Bolshakova, a numismatist, reviews ancient Slavic coins she collected during a field expedition for her studies at the Institute of Archaeology. GRANT SLATER