It takes a special kind of person to chuck a 9-to-5, regular-paycheck, weekends-off job and risk your money and time to start and run a business.

Now there’s a way to identify your strengths, spot your weaknesses and improve your chances of success — or even find out if you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur after all.

It’s the Entrepreneurial Index Assessment, a 10-minute self-survey that the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) uses as a discussion-starting tool for would-be and, in some cases, practicing entrepreneurs.

PepsiCo, an American multinational food, snack, and the world’s largest beverage company, today launches its Nutrition Greenhouse accelerator program in North America, an innovation initiative designed to discover and support emerging brands in the food and beverage sector. The program is aimed at fostering collaboration with innovative startups that focus on health and wellness help food and beverage startups grow.

Email has been around for decades, and even though a lot of companies are moving to communication platforms like Slack, it’s not going away anytime soon. You’d think years of using the tool would make us proficient, but email is considered one of the biggest time wasters at work.

At the Dandora landfill in Nairobi–which officially shut down in 2012, but where people haven’t stopped dumping trash–some mounds made mostly of plastic bags rise 15 feet high.

In Edward Burtynsky’s new photo book, Anthropocene, the landfill represents the idea of “technofossils”–human-made objects, from plastic to mobile phones and cement, that will show up in the future fossil record. (Part-plastic rocks, dubbed plastigomerate, already exist.)

NORTH BRUNSWICK - Naresh Jain launched NJ Biopharmaceuticals LLC this summer in a laboratory off Route 1 and promptly hired three chemists who will research new drugs for late-stage cancer patients.

If his dream goes as planned, New Jerseyans could be big winners.

"The research has gone beyond imagination," said Jain, 53, of Flemington. "We hope one day if we continue to make progress we can find a cure for cancer.”

Image: https://www.app.com/ - From Video

The bluefin tuna is one of the biggest, fastest fishes in the ocean. Its streamlined body can sprint at up to 45 miles per hour in pursuit of its prey. Reaching some 500 pounds, this giant once dominated the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. But humans have hunted the bluefin for thousands of years. In the last century stocks have been decimated. The Pacific population is now just 2.6 percent of its original size.

On September 8, a ship towing a 2,000-foot-long floating tube will leave a shipyard in Alameda, California, and slowly move under the Bay Bridge, past Alcatraz, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and into the Pacific Ocean. A few weeks and 1,000 nautical miles later, it will arrive at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch–the gyre where an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic float in the water–and begin the first experiment to clean it up.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

Purdue University Global will stop using a contentious confidentiality agreement that critics say requires academics to waive their rights to course materials they create.

The nondisclosure agreement also prohibits ex-employees from hiring former Purdue colleagues for a year -- or from bad-mouthing Purdue once they’re gone.

Inside Higher Ed and other outlets last month reported on the agreement after the American Association of University Professors posted a link to four pages from an employee handbook. AAUP has since circulated an online petition urging universities to "Say no to NDAs and forced arbitration in higher education."

Having an idea begin in the laboratory and become a viable treatment or therapy for patients is a goal for researchers across the Texas Medical Center.

Recently, two TMC member institutions saw their cancer therapies gain the distinction of advancing to commercialization.

The University of Georgia’s Innovation District Task Force has delivered its final report to President Jere W. Morehead. The report outlines a strategic vision and corresponding action steps to create a hub—or district—on campus to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, creativity and industry collaboration.

DUBAI—Saudi Arabia’s national oil company is considering a $1 billion venture-capital fund to invest in international technology firms, according to people familiar with the proposal, as the kingdom deepens efforts to diversify its economy.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co., better known as Aramco, is weighing a fund to make multimillion-dollar investments in technologies that complement the oil giant’s operations and is also considering opening an office in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the U.S. to generate deals, the people said.

Four new grants will help to move scientific discoveries and technologies out of the lab and into commercial products that improve patient care and enhance human health. Awards for Regional Technology Transfer Accelerator Hubs for Institutional Development Award (IDeA) states will total almost $2 million in the first year and potentially more than $13 million over three years, pending the availability of funds. The grants are managed by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Global innovation index (GII) is an annual ranking of countries, parameterised by their capacity and success for innovation. It is published by Cornell University’s Institut Européend ‘Administration des Affaires (INEASD) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which is one of the 15 specialised agencies of United Nation.

Sound Ventures partners Ashton Kutcher and Effie Epstein said a founder needs to be able to convey a vision, attract and retain talent.

Image: https://finance.yahoo.com - From Video

A survey of millennials by global accountancy firm Deloitte has found that 48% expect the overall economic situation in Ireland to improve over the next 12 months - a decrease from last year's result of 56%. 

Only 40% of Irish millennials believe that they will be financially better off than their parents, while just 31% believe that they will be happier than their parents.

The survey also reveals that only 29% are optimistic that the overall social and political landscape in Ireland will improve by the same time next year.

Imagine you are a member of a purchasing team. Your manager sets a goal: she wants everyone on your team to make at least one deal with a supply company of their choice. You end up signing a deal with a supplier who offers a great price, but — unbeknownst to you — is infamously slow to deliver. One of your colleagues has worked with them before, but the two of you haven’t been communicating much with each other, so he fails to advise you against it. Because you never receive this vital information, your performance suffers.

The Nexercise co-founders have launched the “Sworkit Youth Initiative,” to make the app’s interactive fitness classes available to all students — for free.

Image: Nexercise CEO Benjamin Young, left, and Chief Operating Officer Gregory Coleman are making their Sworkit app available to all students for free. JOANNE S. LAWTON

APLU released a policy blueprint for how public universities and the federal government can strengthen their partnership to build a modern workforce that meets the evolving needs of employers and collaborate on innovation while also becoming more effective partners with their communities to address local problems and foster opportunity and economic mobility.  

The dynamics of corporate collapse are caused by three phenomena.

The annals of business history are replete with the names of once great companies that dominated an industry, only to lose pre-eminence and become shadows of their former selves or even disappear. Understanding why powerful companies fail and how to avoid such failure is one of the holy grails of business and management research, not to mention having spawned an enormous and lucrative consulting industry.

Entrepreneurship is the one word that fails to be defined by one universal definition, accepted by all entrepreneurs. Although, there is one saying that they would all prescribe to, ‘My way or the highway’.

When you are an entrepreneur, you know what you want, and you go out and get it. This is what is unique about you. This is what should be unique about you.