Perhaps because of the dot-com boom at the turn of the century, there has been speculation that the surging U.S. technology sector could eventually burst. But this time around, it’s not a bubble. Tech adoption is steadily increasing as society becomes more and more dependent on its various forms.

As a result, the industry is growing at an exponential rate. In fact, the tech sector closed 2017 as the largest contributor to U.S. office leasing for the third straight year — responsible for 29.9 million square feet of leasing activity over the calendar year, according to JLL’s U.S. Office Outlook Q4 2017.

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So you want to be successful? Perhaps you’re inspired by the self-made entrepreneur touting her Rolex collection. Or perhaps someone’s exotic car collection on Instagram has motivated you to kick your professional self into high gear.

If you’re after financial success, the first thing you must recognize is that it stems from a particular mindset that views building a successful business or striking it big within a traditional corporate environment as a game.

Have you updated your employee handbook recently? If not, it could be out of date in regards to changes to local, state and federal laws, as well as other areas such as operations and company policies.

An outdated employee handbook can put your business at financial risk if you’re ever hit with a lawsuit from an employee. It can also put your business and your staff at risk literally if safety policies or procedures are incomplete or outdated.

ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, April 26, 2018 – Galen Robotics, a Johns Hopkins University spinout, was chosen from five finalists as the company with the most commercial potential by judges at the 3rd Annual Crab Trap Competition. This year’s judges included industry leaders Amgen’s Bethany Mancilla, AstraZeneca’s Shaun Grady, Blu Venture’s Dr. Paul Silber, J.P. Morgan’s John T. Rubin, New Enterprise Associates’ Sara Nayeem, Roche’s Robert Silverman, and Sands Capital Ventures’ Stephen Zachary. They were impressed with a presentation by Lead Software Engineer, Yunis Sevimli, on Galen Robotics’ low-cost, compact, and intuitive to use novel microsurgical robotic platform designed to assist surgeons with minimally-invasive applications in otolaryngology, neurosurgery and similar critical fields. Galen Robotics is the third Johns Hopkins University spinout to win this competition following  LifeSprout (2017) and Sonavex (2016).

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Brazen Global, the St. Louis-based organization that supports women-led startup companies, said Tuesday it is expanding into six new markets: Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia and Fort Worth, Texas. 

“Many women-owned businesses today are innovating in sectors and industries ripe for growth, but they simply don’t personally identify as ‘high-growth’ or ‘tech’ yet,” said Jennifer Ehlen, CEO and founder of Brazen, in a statement. “With Brazen’s help, we hope women entrepreneurs will realize their growth aspirations, regardless of labels or definitions they choose to wear.”

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In the past decade, collections shops globally have faced different challenges depending on the markets they operate in. In many markets, historically low loss rates led lenders to reduce the size of their collections operations. Their shops are now running lean, focused on efficiency and minimizing costs. The low losses also led to relaxed acquisition criteria and offers of riskier products to customers with low credit scores or little credit history. As consumer spending—and revolving balances—rose, so too did delinquencies. With loss rates mounting, lenders suddenly find themselves without adequate tools or staff to address their at-risk accounts effectively. The new approaches discussed here can help all lenders achieve best-in-class collections operations, improving revenues and lowering costs.

Before we were able to do our first project as a nonprofit, we had this pesky problem of actually having the funds to do the work. We knew we needed a fundraiser, and we knew we needed to get creative since we had no money to host an event.

We work in clean water, so we decided we would go on a “Shower Strike.” There were 12 of us, and we each announced to our networks on social media that we would no longer be taking showers until we each raised $1,000 for our first water well. We raised $25,000 in one week, so we decided to make this quirky campaign an annual event.

Springboard Enterprises is a women-led nonprofit connecting female founders to experts who have “been there, run that.”

Helping women entrepreneurs establish and grow their networks is the top priority of Washington, D.C.-based Springboard, which operates a virtual accelerator that’s designed to propel women’s businesses forward. It’s “very hard to actually make money or figure out how to do this -- for women specifically,” says President and Co-founder Amy Millman, and knowing the right people can make all the difference.

The “creative economy” refers to a system where value is based on novel, imaginative qualities.

Some commentators on the subject view creativity as a defining characteristic of developed, 21st century economies, much like manufacturing typified the 19th and early-20th centuries.

The “creative economy” deals with the interface between creativity, culture, economics and technology.

We live in the era of tiny homes and micro-apartments, a global trend that’s only growing in urban areas as we all search for affordable housing. In turn, the American kitchen as we know it is poised for a makeover–from the giant, steel-clad, HGTV-approved wonderlands of the McMansion era, to tiny, modular, multipurpose units that can squeeze into a few hundred square feet.

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For 15 years in a row, the number of applicants for H-1B work visas has far exceeded the program's cap of 85,000 available visas. The H-1B program, which allows US companies to bring in foreign workers in specialized fields like math, science and engineering, has long been a magnet for controversy. Tech companies say they need the visas to get scarce talent, while labor advocates contend that it allows companies to hire cheaper foreign workers instead of Americans.

Starting a business has always been considered one of the more difficult career choices. However, the acute interest with which millennials are pursuing it has changed this perspective. Indeed, entrepreneurship has a charm that is hard to resist. Why shouldn’t it be? The promise of going after what one truly wants, personal and financial freedom and make meaningful contributions to humanity is something that we all deeply cherish.

Throughout the previous years, innovation processes have undergone a constant evolution in relation to the focus which they give to problems and their solutions, going through different stages that start with producer innovation to user innovation, and finally to consumer innovation.

However, and given the fast-paced advances in technology of our times, it could be said that we have arrived at a stage of open innovation or even free innovation, where thanks to open sharing of knowledge, insights that play a key role in conflict resolution can be detected.

Legoland Japan created the world's largest Lego brick cherry blossom tree. It was built using 881,470 lego bricks at the LEGO factory in the Czech Republic, then transported and assembled in Nagoya, Japan.

Welcome to the 2018 BioHealth Capital Region Forum: State of the BioHealth Capital Regions EcoSystem

Presented by: Rich Bendis, President & CEO, BioHealth Innovation Inc.

You’re running around with a million things to do, and you’ve barely made a dent in your to-do list. Then someone asks you to take on a project you definitely don’t have time for, and you answer “yes” without thinking.

Learning to say “no” is an ongoing challenge, but it’s a skill you can refine every day. Just like you diligently polish your writing and presentation prowess, you need to apply the same level of discipline when it comes to declining a request or invitation.

Tel Aviv University has established a new early-stage venture capital fund, TAU Ventures. The aim of the fund, reportedly estimated at $20 million, is to make pre-seed funding available to student and alumni startups coming out of the university, as well as to boost overall entrepreneurship on campus.

Plastic has been plagued with some bad press in the weeks leading up to Earth Day, which takes place Sunday, April 22, from a sperm whale that washed ashore in Spain with 64 pounds of plastic in its body to a 600,000 square mile area in the Pacific Ocean rife with trash.

Both headlines drew an outcry from concerned citizens calling for measures to protect the affected sea life. But as sad as the news may be, it is far from surprising. Plastic consumption has increased 20-fold in recent decades, with nearly a third of the material consumed bypassing waste collection systems and eventually winding up as pollution.

Image: http://time.com

Even if you diligently avoid caffeine late in the day and you quit scrolling through Instagram an hour before bed, there may come the occasional night when it’s just impossible to fall asleep.

After you’ve tossed and turned, adjusted and readjusted your pillow, checked the clock again, and sufficiently groaned about your lack of sleep, what are you supposed to do that’s actually going to help solve the issue?

Tech startups aren't the only ones in Silicon Valley that want to be unicorns. More and more VC firms are seeking to raise new funds of at least $1 billion, either for new flagships or growth-focused sidecars.

Why it matters: The last time we saw such a trend was during the dotcom era's waning days.

Image: Illustration: Axios / Lazaro Gamio