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.
Two years ago, we highlighted collector David Rumsey’s huge map archive, which he donated to Stanford University in April of 2016 and which now resides at Stanford’s David Rumsey Map Center. The opening of this physical collection was a pretty big deal, but the digital collection has been on the web, in some part, and available to the online public since 1996.
Image: http://www.openculture.com
WuXi AppTec, the mainland’s leading biotechnology firm which privatised in New York two years ago, has been given the green light to relist on the A-share market via an initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai, just seven weeks after filing its application.
The listing is expected to raise more than 5.7 billion yuan (US$907.5 million), which the firm will use to expand research facilities and build new plants.
Colleges are increasingly offering three-year B.A.s and other accelerated programs in response to a growing market of money-conscious go-getters and career changers.
In 2016, Pfizer and the Institute of Pediatric Innovation (IPI) organized an open innovation competition in hopes of addressing an ongoing challenge: administer multiparticulate medicines to children more easily. HS Design, a design firm specializing in medical devices and life sciences, decided to enter the competition and ended up not only winning the program but taking its innovation further toward commercialization. The experience not only served HS Design, but it also exemplifies how open innovation programs could help launch medical advances.
Without strong patent rights the incentive for risk-taking entities and the investors who support them is simply not present. The risk-reward calculus tilts too far toward risk for investors when patent rights are weak, as they are now in America. This is one reason why today there is more funding in China for inventions related to artificial intelligence than in the United States.
I love powerful quotes. Words can inspire entire societies to change and they act as mile markers for historical shifts. And few people have had the historical impact and amazingly eloquent quotability of Winston Churchill. Churchill could put into words the ethos, courage, and struggle of leadership in a way that has always provided me with inspiration and comfort during some of the most difficult periods of my professional and personal life.
Image: http://innovationexcellence.com
A list of the largest private equity and venture capital health system investors, ranked by the system's fiscal 2017 total private equity and venture capital assets. This dataset includes:
You’re running around with a to-do list a mile long, crossing off item after item. You’re feeling super productive. But are you really being productive, or are you just being busy?
Barbara Hemphill, founder of the Productive Environment Institute and an expert on time management, says checking things off a long list may simply be a way of relieving the pain of procrastination. Being productive, she says, means accomplishing those tasks that will get you closer to meeting your goals. Any other tasks that don’t help you to do so are just clutter.
Image: FLICKR USER ERIC WÜSTENHAGEN
There aren’t any awards to be won for solving science’s minor mysteries—why yawning is contagious, why puppies make us melt—but that doesn’t mean we don’t want the answers anyway. Add to those everyday puzzles the matter of knuckle-cracking. Why, exactly, should some of the body’s smallest joints produce such an outsized racket?
Now, a study in Scientific Reports at last provides an explanation. It’s a theory that was first posited as long ago as 1971, but had been furiously debated (as these things go) ever since. Thanks to some creative thinking and a new mathematical model, however, the matter may have been settled.
Bald-headed males could help accelerate the shift a future powered entirely by clean energy, according to new research.
January’s global baldness census reveals that 58% of men over 43 are currently bald. And by connecting them to local grid systems via wifi, the renewable power institute (RPI) believes these human ‘domes’ could potentially operate more efficiently than conventional solar panels.
If you have a software development background like mine, I’m sure you often get questions about when to outsource, versus building the solution in-house. The same applies to manufacturing and almost any process these days. Outsourcing is defined as contracting the work to another company, usually located in a developing country, like India, China, or Eastern Europe.
Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com
People often confuse being extroverted with being an outgoing person. And a lot of times the two traits do go hand-in-hand.
But to me, being extroverted isn’t about being outgoing. It describes the way an individual gains and loses energy. Nothing gives me more energy than socializing and collaborating with my friends and coworkers. When I walk out of a meeting, I feel inspired, energized, and ready to take on the world. Personal interactions are the way I recharge.
Around the world, in places like Barcelona, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York, there's an exciting new co-location concept spurring innovation: Multi-sector innovation hubs that span a range of business models, ownership structures, and physical layouts. The goal of all is to create a motivating work environment where businesses of all kinds can learn from each other, make connections, develop new skills, and get inspired to reach the next level.
Image: Barcelona Tech City - https://www.forbes.com
The most popular place to put a city park is, increasingly, on a highway.
Cities looking to boost their downtowns, or to improve downtrodden neighborhoods, are creating “highway cap parks” on decks constructed over freeways that cut through the urban center. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Denver and Dallas have deck parks underway. Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis and Santa Monica, California, are among the cities considering similar projects.
Talent should be part of every conversation in an organization, says the CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Group.
Dubai-based Majid Al Futtaim Group has its roots in the asset-heavy world of real estate. Since opening its first mall in 1995, the group has become a leading developer and operator of shopping malls in the Middle East. It also owns VOX Cinemas, the region’s largest movie-theater chain; several leisure and entertainment centers; and the Carrefour franchise in 38 countries.
The University of Pittsburgh will soon have a central home for all of its entrepreneurship activity on campus.
Trustee Bob Randall announced Thursday afternoon that the university will soon open the “Big Idea Center,” a physical incubation space and hub for mentorship. The Randall family is donating $2 million in seed funding toward the effort.
Image: Courtney Linder / Post-Gazette
AngelPad, an accelerator program that has launched more than 140 companies across 11 different “classes,” has raised $35 million in capital commitments for a new, $50 million venture fund, shows a new SEC filing.
Its husband-and-wife cofounders, Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas, declined to comment on the filing.
Image: https://techcrunch.com
Newly released census data for the first seven years of this decade signal a resumption of the population dispersal that was put “on hold” for a good part of the post-Great Recession period. The Census Bureau’s annual county and metropolitan area estimates through 2017 reveal a revival of suburbanization and movement to rural areas along with Snow Belt-to-Sun Belt population shifts.
As an entrepreneur mentor and startup investor, I see with sadness the 50 to 90 percent that fail. If you ask them for a reason, most will insist that they couldn’t get funding, or they ran out of money too early. But I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as that. Many are just not facing the reality that their passion had a critical business flaw.
Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com
BEAVERTON — Rural entrepreneurs with a promising business idea could win $1000 at the conclusion of an eight week Virtual Incubation Program (VIP) beginning Thursday offered by the Oregon Technology Business Center (OTBC) with sponsorship from the Oregon Community Foundation.
The eight week business training program will be live interactive webcasts designed to help rural Oregon entrepreneurs start or build a growth business. The eighth session will be a pitch delivered to Angel Investors who will vote on the most promising business idea and award a $1000 cash prize.
