There is no better proof of learning other than to embark on a journey and gain from one's own mistakes. Similarly, for an entrepreneur, one has to jump in with both feet to truly enjoy the adventure. While this is all worthwhile, what can definitely support is learning/tips from fellow entrepreneurs gained from their personal experiences. This sure has helped save time, cost and efforts of those who want to move fast.

Most of the human population now lives in urban areas. But the growth of these urban landscapes is something that we can only partially appreciate from the ground. Instead, we should also look from the sky. Imagery produced from satellites and infrared technology shows the ingenuity and expansion of cities, the symbiosis of urban and natural landscapes and how a changing climate is also changing the places most humans call home. Our goal as remote-sensing scientists — and the aim of our new book, City Unseen: New Visions of an Urban Planet — is to offer insights from these satellite-enabled perspectives.

Image: http://time.com

Over the last few years, the health industry has experienced a major shift in technological innovations. What seemed impossible years ago can be solved now only with the touch of buttons. Modern technological innovations in drugs and equipment have completely revolutionized the health sector. The medical machines and the computers that power them are now becoming more smaller, faster and even more intelligent which has made medical practice easier for the doctors and cheaper in the long run. There are lots of technological devices that have made the lives of thousands of people easier and better

Erie’s fortunes have been measured for decades largely by the loss, gain or retention of manufacturing jobs.

A new path forward opened in 2016 with the announcement of a $4 million grant awarded by the Erie Community Foundation in partnership with the Susan Hirt Hagen Fund for Transformational Philanthropy and the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority. It would be used to create the Erie Innovation District, led by Mercyhurst University and modeled on successful initiatives launched in other former manufacturing hubs. Innovation districts partner local academic expertise with entrepreneurs to create new economic engines.

Every year, I meet with thousands of college students across the country, learning about what they hope to gain from their first job. In previous years, some of the most common questions that they asked in job interviews involved core responsibilities and professional benefits–like the chance to work on a marquee client. Now, however, I find that recent grads are increasingly asking questions centered on what an employer might be able to offer them. Is there mobility? Flexibility? Upskilling opportunities? Professional development?

Thanks to dropping costs, technology has become far more accessible than it used to be, and its proliferation has unleashed the creativity and resourcefulness of people around the world. We know great ideas are coming to life from China to Brazil and everywhere in between. But how do you get a read on the pulse of innovation in a given country across its economy?

Sometimes a week is so upsetting you just have to find joy in the unexpected. Take this huge-ass pumpkin, for example.

Steve Geddes of Boscawen, New Hampshire just made U.S. history by growing a pumpkin so large it surpassed the record for largest pumpkin in America.

Congrats, sir!

It gives “turtle power” a whole new meaning. An injured wild box turtle was lucky enough to be recently found just outside the Maryland Zoo by a zoo employee, People reported Thursday. The Eastern box turtle was apparently found at nearby Druid Hill Park, with extensive fractures to his shell that required immediate attention.

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation released a new report called Ohio BOLD: A Blueprint for Accelerating the Innovation Economy

Image: Career tech superintendent says action needed on skills gap

The idea for making North Carolina a bigger player internationally has its genesis in the administration of Gov. Jim Hunt almost 40 years ago. Hunt had some international service with the Ford Foundation before he was elected to his first term. He later worked in North Carolina to bring international businesses to the state using modern, technology-based economic development.

Image: "Charlotte through its own actions and in coordination with things done at the state level has really presented itself and succeeded as a global city.” — Jim Fain MELISSA KEY

California coastal cities should be prepared for the possibility that oceans will rise more than 10 feet by 2100 and submerge parts of beach towns, the state Coastal Commission warns in new draft guidance.

The powerful agency, which oversees most development along 1,100 miles of coast, will consider approving the guidance this fall. A staff report recommending the changes was released last week.

In the Netherlands, one recycling plant is doing what many in the industry have labelled “impossible”, by recycling household packaging and making a financial success of it. EURACTIV went north of the Belgian-Dutch border to see the operation in action.

At a recycling facility in the town of Geleen, north of Liège and Maastricht, sorting machines, washers and industrial melters run around the clock every day of the year to convert problematic plastic waste into something useful.

Image: https://www.euractiv.com

When you’re interviewing for a position at a new company, you often have the chance to meet some current employees. In those interactions, you want to get as much information about what it is like to work there.

What questions should you be asking?

It’s natural to ask general questions like, “How do you like working here?” or, “What is a typical day like?” Those questions often don’t illuminate the most important aspects of what you’d like to know in order to figure out if this firm is a good match for you.

The local fishermen looked on skeptically. From the deck of a small motorboat scuba divers grabbed odd chunks of ceramic–which could be described as rocky brains stuck on stumpy stilts–and plunged into the aquamarine waters. The dive team assembled the pieces as a few triggerfish circled around to investigate the commotion. After just two air tanks (about an hour each), they had locked all of the items together into the final product: an artificial coral reef.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

The boxes-and-arrows approach to organisation design may have outlived its use.

Say “organisation design” and (too) many people think of boxes and arrows arranged in a roughly pyramidal shape. Organisation charts are tools for organisation design, but we shouldn’t confuse them with the design. They offer a high-level summary of a part of the structure (i.e. what is officially mandated) of a part of the organisation (i.e. the top two or three layers).

Image: https://knowledge.insead.edu

The last time you had your blood pressure checked, it was probably at a doctor’s office with a bulky cuff wrapped around your arm. One day soon, perhaps, you will just need a simple stick-on patch on your neck, no bigger than a postage stamp.

That’s the goal of Sheng Xu and his team at the University of California, San Diego, who are working on a patch that can continuously measure someone’s central blood pressure—the pressure of blood coursing beyond your aorta, the artery in your heart that delivers blood to all the different parts of the body. It could make it a lot easier to monitor heart conditions and keep an eye on other vital organs like the liver, lungs, and brain.

Image: CHONGHE WANG AND SHENG XU, UC SAN DIEGO

Here’s a little quiz: What do virtually all the world’s greatest innovations of the last 150 years — and all the huge job-creating new industries they spawned — have in common?

Simple. They were all launched by American entrepreneurs relying on the protections of the U.S. patent system.

The telegraph, telephone, and electric power industries, the auto and aircraft industries, television, plastics, photocopiers, semiconductors, computers, software, biotech, the $4 trillion Internet e-commerce industry, smartphones, and now AI and autonomous vehicles — all are based on U.S. innovations incentivized and protected by the U.S. patent system.

Image: Undersecretary of Commerce and Director of the Patent Office Andrei Iancu.COURTESY GENE QUINN.

The LEGO Group is opening up the doors of the Creative Play Lab in a new approach to innovation.

For years, the LEGO Group has developed new concepts and innovations behind closed doors. Now, the Billund based business has announced “a new strategic approach that will help foster open innovation and test ideas and concept experiences through pilot projects”.

Image: https://www.brickfanatics.com

By its very nature, inventive thought usually requires breaking away from the status quo. Usually something unanticipated, innovation can mark the death of old methods and the starting point of new paradigms. 

From artists and determined dreamers to daredevils and studious scientists, here we look at 10 of humanity’s greatest innovators, and the special attributes which helped them to help the world progress.

The venture capital firm co-founded by famed investor Peter Thiel is relocating from San Francisco to Austin, according to a TechCrunch report.

Mithril Capital Management co-founder Ajay Royan told TechCrunch that he chose Austin because of its lower costs and thought diversity. “If it’s expensive for the company to take risk, it’s going to be expensive for you to take risk inside the company, which means your career will take a different path than otherwise,” Royan told TechCrunch. “What made (Silicon Valley) really attractive was it was one giant incubator as a society, with a lot of pay-it-forward culture and a low cost of trying. Now I’m worried about all three of those.”