Plastic pregnancy tests create 2 million lb. of waste each year—a figure that first motivated Bethany Edwards to develop Lia, a paper-based, biodegradable alternative. But as she started working, she realized she could address another issue too. “Who hasn’t hidden a (plastic) pregnancy test in the trash before?” she says. “There is a privacy need that’s not being met.” Because Lia is paper-based, it’s also flushable, which makes it more discreet. The test is set to go on sale by early 2019 and will cost about as much as a traditional version. Already, it has a 28,000-person waiting list. —Jamie Ducharme

Market conditions for venture funding remained very strong in the third quarter of 2018. Deal size and pre-money valuations across all equity rounds decreased slightly but still remained high by historical standards. Median pre-money valuations inched down across the board in Q3 2018. The decline in median amounts raised was more significant, with Series B financings taking the most significant hit, and with the median size falling nearly 50% from the prior quarter. However, more post-Series A financings were up rounds, reversing the decline seen in the first half of 2018.

Image: https://www.wsgr.com

Lausanne, Switzerland 19 November 2018 - Switzerland in first and Denmark in second, firmly lead the IMD World Talent Ranking 2018 for the fifth year in a row, followed by Norway, Austria and the Netherlands. Norway joins the top three, advancing four places up from last year, thanks to an improvement in public expenditure on education and the readiness of its talent pool. Canada (6th), Finland (7th), Sweden (8th), Luxembourg (9th), and Germany (10th) complete the top 10.

Image: https://www.imd.org

Herminia Ibarra, a professor at the London Business School, argues that job transitions — even exciting ones that you’ve chosen — can come with all kinds of unexpected emotions. Going from a job that is known and helped define your identity to a new position brings all kinds of challenges. Ibarra says that it’s important to recognize how these changes are affecting you but to keep moving forward and even take the opportunity to reinvent yourself in your new role.

In October the business press reported that Israeli cybertech startup Sygnia was acquired by Singapore’s billion-dollar Temasek Holdings for an estimated $250 million. The return for the owners is over 50 times the initial investment, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. And last year, the Israeli company Mobileye, a pioneer in autonomous car technology, was purchased by Intel for a whopping $15.3 billion.

As obtaining an H-1B visa becomes more difficult due to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and work visas, universities around the country are tapping into a creative way to legally attract and retain foreign talent: the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program (GEIR).

Most founders likely celebrate National Entrepreneurs' Day--first proclaimed in 2010 by President Obama--by working on their companies. After all, when you're putting in 18-hour days, raising a glass to yourself feels a little frivolous. But for those who love and support the entrepreneurs in their own lives, or who simply appreciate those men and women who risked it all to make the world a better, livelier place, here are some ways to pay tribute.

Earlier this month, the European Commission named Athens, Greece, its annual capital of innovation, in part because of an online platform called SynAthina, which lets citizens and groups submit city-changing ideas and connect with the officials, nonprofits, or businesses that can help make them happen.

Image: Patrick Tomasso/Unsplash

The Innovation America team would like to wish you and yours a very happy, safe Thanksgiving Holiday.

You walk down the hall, head spinning — unsure of how to stabilize yourself.

You went into your one-on-one thinking you had clarity on your current priorities. You just left it wondering how in the world you would squeeze in the five new ideas your boss just dreamed up. You cringe when you have the premonition that an email with the subject line “another thought” might be waiting for you once you reach your desk.

Are you ready to survive the due diligence process for getting your startup funded or acquired?

You’ve built the framework of a high growth startup, maybe you’ve even got real customers and are turning a true net profit every month. Now you’ve got offers of more capital investment and perhaps even a merger or acquisition on the table. It’s time to sit back, relax and break out that bottle of champagne you’ve been holding for the day you really arrived, right? Probably, not yet.

Start-Up Chile (SUP), the public startup accelerator launched by the Chilean government, has built a reputation as a world-leading program, and has transformed entrepreneurship in its native country and throughout Latin America. Its influence extends globally, and it has spurred a new class of public accelerator programs around the world.

Given that Start-Up Chile has existed for 8 years, and has compiled data from its participating companies, it’s possible to look back and answer the fundamental question of how and why the program has been so successful.

Image: Start-Up Chile impactSTART-UP CHILE

Robots are key tools for boosting productivity and living standards. To date, most robot adoption has occurred in manufacturing, where there are robots designed to perform a wide variety of manual tasks more efficiently and consistently than humans. But with continued innovation, robot use is spreading to many other sectors, too, from agriculture to logistics to hospitality. As this trend continues—making robots increasingly important to productivity and competitiveness economy-wide—robot adoption will be a vital economic indicator for policymakers to monitor as a sign of growth and progress.

Unlike film, television or music, there’s a low barrier to entry in the podcasting world: All you need is a microphone and someone to speak into it. Perhaps the ease and intimacy of podcasting is what drives so many people use the medium to ask uncomfortable questions. For many, 2018 was a year of conflict and upheaval, a year that left us wondering: How did we get here? Several shows tried to whisper the answers in our earbuds: Slow Burn and The Wilderness looked to presidents past in order to explain our current political divisions. Several years into the true crime boom, investigators on Serial and In the Dark focused on local cases to trace historic, systemic problems in our criminal justice system.

Teddy bears that connect to the internet. Smart speakers that listen to commands. Great gifts—unless they spy on you. We created this guide to help you buy safe, secure products this holiday season.

Image: https://foundation.mozilla.org

Small businesses are finding an easy way to cut down their hardware costs by letting employees use personal devices to do work. There are a few reasons why this might be a good idea: low upfront costs and employee convenience are definitely benefits. When you run a small business that can't offer the same salary, health insurance deals, or long-term security as larger, established companies, you have to get creative. But there are some circumstances when you should absolutely prohibit the practice, and several reasons not to do it no matter what.

In the early days of America Online, the Internet was by no means "mainstream." Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, easily admits it was a struggle. He almost failed – a couple of times.

He received more than a couple calls from his parents. "Like, 'Steve, we love you. We’re proud of you, but it doesn't seem to be working. You have, like, a plan B to get a real job, right?'

And that is the story of most entrepreneurs."

Image: A conversation between Kauffman Foundation Vice President of Public Affairs Larry Jacob and Co-founder of AOL Steve Case at the NationSwell Summit, 2018. - https://www.kauffman.org

Harvard University believes the world’s next Einstein is among us — and she’s a millennial.

At age 23, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski is already one of the most well-known and accomplished physicists in the U.S.

The Cuban-American Chicago native graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in just three years with a 5.0-grade point average, the highest possible, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard with full academic freedom — meaning she can pursue her own study on her own terms without staff interference.

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

If you look up the phrase “leaders should find people who complement them”, Google may just show you results for “leaders should find people who compliment them”. Funny – or scary?

In our previous article, we explained how difficult it is for leaders to know themselves and described how our development tool, the x360, can assist them in this critical task. While leadership is about knowing who you are, it’s also about your actions and, ultimately, your impact. In this article, we focus on what effective leaders do. Specifically, our decades of research (in collaboration with Thomas Malone, Wanda Orlikowski and Peter Senge at the MIT Sloan School of Management) have uncovered the five key capabilities of effective leaders.

Cyber-exposure is the best predictor of future hacking activity.

We normally think of hackers as isolated and anti-social – like the hypothetical “genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer” whom Donald Trump surmised might have been behind the 2016 theft of Democratic Party emails. However, cybersecurity experts like myself know that while hackers may not mix well in polite company (at least not openly), their work is highly collaborative, even communal. Without the ability to interact with one another online, hackers would pull off much less cybercrime.