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innovation DAILY

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.

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Facebook researchers have created a machine-learning system which can take an image of somebody with closed eyes and replace them with open ones.

Researchers Brian Dolhansky and Cristian Canton Ferrer note in their paper for Facebook that "face retouching algorithms" like red-eye removal and virtual makeup have become very popular. So they turned their attention to making an algorithm that could successfully replace closed eyes with open ones.

Image: Facebook's in-painting of eyes is pretty convincing. Facebook

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As an advisor to entrepreneurs and active angel investor, I often get questions about the realism of the Shark Tank TV series, compared to professional investor negotiations. The simple answer is that with all the staging of TV lights and billionaire investors, it’s nothing like Silicon Valley. Yet the process is eerily realistic, and every entrepreneur can glean some important lessons.

Here are eight key points that I believe should be taken from the show by every startup founder looking for investors in real life, across the range of venture capitalists, angel investors, or even friends and family:

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

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Kentucky Launches Fresh Approach to Supporting State s Innovators Small Businesses BereaOnline

To better serve, attract and develop innovators and startups, Kentucky will deploy a new regional approach to developing high-tech, high-potential-growth businesses, while continuing to assist small businesses seeking support.

KY Innovation, the state’s recently launched initiative supporting businesses founders and growing companies, will soon begin implementing Regional Innovation for Startups and Entrepreneurs (RISE), a strategy that unites each area’s most powerful economic drivers, prioritizes commercialization and promotes rapid scaling. The state’s outgoing model for supporting startups, the Kentucky Innovation Network, will dissolve July 1.

Image: http://www.bereaonline.com

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money

The DRIVe (Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures) website looks like it belongs to a VC company rather than a federal agency – smart graphics and succinct descriptions. That’s not an accident. DRIVe is taking a venture approach to solving some intractable health issues.

Part of BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority), and ultimately the Department of Health and Human Services, DRIVe is hunting for new technologies to detect and manage infectious outbreaks, control the rampant inflammation associated with sepsis and generally advance health security.

 

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failure

The best part of being an entrepreneur is having the independence to make your own decisions, the flexibility for a better work/life balance, and personal satisfaction from driving change. But nobody said it would be easy. The road to business success is filled with guidance on how to build and maintain the traction needed to survive and prosper. Of course, experiences and failures are the best challenges and frustrations that most aspiring entrepreneurs never even imagined.

 

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Rahul R

With entrepreneurship today focussing on aspects related to problem solving and mitigation of issues, it should do no harm for you to turn an entrepreneur and employ your entrepreneurial skills towards ensuring that people’s problems are solved. In this regard, a problem though underrated but still major, has been to cater to peoples’ taste buds.

 

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startup

I recently met a guy I’ll call “Ben.”

After 7 years of “blood, sweat, and instant noodles,” Ben built his startup into an exciting enterprise. He raised a hefty round from a “top-tier” venture capital firm. And in 2011, he found himself in the final stages of an exit, with an $88m buyout offer in his lap.

 

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supply chain

The supply chain is the heart of a company’s operations. To make the best decisions, managers need access to real-time data about their supply chain, but the limitations of legacy technologies can thwart the goal of end-to-end transparency. However, those days may soon be behind us. New digital technologies that have the potential to take over supply chain management entirely are disrupting traditional ways of working. Within 5-10 years, the supply chain function may be obsolete, replaced by a smoothly running, self-regulating utility that optimally manages end-to-end work flows and requires very little human intervention.

 

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read book

It seemed mundane at the beginning. On Monday, April 20, 2015, I opened a new spreadsheet on my laptop. I put the days of the week along the top. I put half hour blocks, from 5 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. along the left side. I began recording what I was doing on this time log: work, sleep, drive to train station, make kids breakfast.

 

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Entrepreneurship is part of the American DNA and broadly recognized as the basis for improved living standards through innovation and technological progress. Unfortunately, policy-makers in Washington and across the country, and average Americans more broadly, seem unaware of the decline in entrepreneurship over the past two decades and one of the causes of the decline: demographics.

Image: https://troymedia.com

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robots

People often fear that a robot will take their job. Unfortunately, that fear might not be so far-fetched.

The idea of a robot revolution is becoming more and more realistic. On average, one robot can do the job of 5.6 persons in the manufacturing industry. However, artificial intelligence threatens more than just manufacturing. From IBM’s Watson, which can specify cancer treatments for patients, to the rise of self-driving cars, AI is infiltrating nearly every industry and diminishing the need for the human touch.

 

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Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. They argue that the color of the money is the same from either source. They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

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science

There’s a whole lot of money being generated by Indiana brainpower. Looking at only part of the picture, the state’s three largest research universities, reveals a massive economic generator that contributes to each one of Indiana’s 92 counties via direct and indirect means. The impact of R&D is huge for the state.

Image: http://www.buildingindiana.com

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U S and China clash over technology transfer at WTO Reuters

President Trump has announced tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese-made products. The president said, quote, "trade between our nations has been very unfair for a very long time. This situation is no longer sustainable." Now, in a quick response, China announced its own duties on $34 billion worth of U.S. goods. Dan Ikenson is director of Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies and joins us now. Mr. Ikenson, thanks for being with us.

 

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