PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA – March 29, 2018 - The University Economic Development Association (UEDA) is currently seeking nominations for its annual Awards of Excellence program, which recognizes cutting edge university-based economic development initiatives from across North America.  

The 2018 Awards program features an open nominations format, allowing non-UEDA members to participate for the first time. “We are very excited to welcome nominations from the full spectrum of institutions engaged in higher education-based economic development, regardless of their affiliation with UEDA” said Julia M. Potter, 2018 Awards Committee Chair.

Dallas favorably stacks up against cities across the U.S. and the globe in entrepreneurial spirit and innovation-readiness per a new “Innovation Scorecard” released by the Dallas Regional Chamber along with Accenture, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, and Southern Methodist University.

The four groups are partnering for a larger regional study with a two-fold goal of accelerating the growth of the North Texas innovation economy and boosting the area’s reputation as a hub of innovation. The Dallas-Fort Worth Innovation Scorecard itself compiles 11 different rankings of cities around the world to create a snapshot of expert perception and to serve as a benchmark of the area’s entrepreneurial and innovation standing. 

As labor markets tighten, finding qualified workers is becoming more of a challenge for many companies. And recruitment missteps may be making it harder to reach older workers.

Carl Dorvil, CEO and president of GEX Management, Inc., a management and professional services company based in Dallas, says there’s good reason to invest in “mentor capitalists” who invest their time and expertise in companies.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released their final 2017 metro area job numbers. It was a pretty good year for job growth in a lot of major metros. Here’s how they fared, ranked by percentage job growth. Job totals are in thousands.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

The Government of Quebec is proposing a series of updates to its Entrepreneur immigration category.

The changes would revise the two components through which entrepreneurs will be selected into one focused on startups supported by a business incubator/accelerator or university and the other on owner-funded and operated businesses.

Each year, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, sends a much-anticipated letter to leading CEOs. This year, chief executive Larry Fink’s focus was on why it is imperative for business to contribute to society. One of the first big issues he highlighted was retirement:

“Many (individuals across the world) don’t have the financial capacity, the resources, or the tools to save effectively; those who are invested are too often over-allocated to cash. For millions, the prospect of a secure retirement is slipping further and further away — especially among workers with less education, whose job security is increasingly tenuous. I believe these trends are a major source of the anxiety and polarization that we see across the world today.”

This week, as sports fans everywhere watch the NCAA men's basketball Final Four, we'll be speculating about the NBA stars of tomorrow as a tournament worth billions of dollars entertains us today.

The Final Four is part of a talent pipeline -- as Gallup CEO Jim Clifton often comments, kids everywhere with basketball talent dream of playing in the NBA, and from junior high through college we have a pipeline. The next Steph Curry -- who was a little-known basketball talent until he torched the NCAA tournament at Davidson -- can get a chance at the stars.

It's Demo Day in San Diego.

That's an annual competition put on by EvoNexus, a startup incubator. Eight founders with promising ideas will pitch their companies to the region's startup community.

The companies at Demo Day are just starting out, but they're part of what San Diego business leaders and politicians like to tout as the region’s “innovation economy.” A report last year from the group CONNECT found one-quarter of the county’s economic activity comes from those high-tech companies. And more than 400 new startups are created here every year.

Image: PHOTO BY NICHOLAS MCVICKER - Above: San Diego Startup Week attendees at Quartyard in downtown San Diego, June 2016.

The Maine Technology Institute helped six companies receive more than $6 million in federal grant money.

Each company received an award from the Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer program. The programs offer grants from 11 federal agencies for early stage, high-risk, technology-oriented research and development that could lead to the commercialization of new products and services.

Image: A technician at Montalvo Corporation in Gorham assembles the inside of a Z4 tension controller in 2015. Staff photo by Gabe Souza

You're a student, and you've got an idea for a new app. It's handy. It's intuitive. It solves some commonplace problem you've encountered yourself too many times to count. This idea of yours is going to take off, you know it.

But how do you juggle schoolwork on top of learning the ins and outs of starting a business?

Luckily for Johns Hopkins students, there's a Hatchery for that.

Image: https://hub.jhu.edu

If you’ve never watched a game of Dota 2 before, you might be overwhelmed at first. You’ll see a screen full of animated characters, special effects, and battles on battles. It can be difficult to keep tabs on all the action.

Clement Ivanov, however, views the scene differently. He sees each character as a pawn in a slow-moving strategy game, similar to chess. “You can individually play each character, but there is always one guy that understands its potential,” says Ivanov. “It’s not a fast-paced game. Once you get to a certain level, strategy is more important than the reaction times.”

Image: https://www.technologyreview.com

Whenever something is approaching universal acceptance it is never a bad time to be a little contrarian.

Accelerators are fast approaching the status of an essential ingredient in the primordial soup of innovation in the new economy. After all, who wouldn’t like some help with velocity in their enterprise? Accelerators provide some of the critical elements that all new ventures require: funding, knowledge, networks, facilities. But they aren’t free. The price of accelerator participation is equity and for a venture that succeeds this will be their most valuable currency.

Image: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk

The MIT innovation ecosystem spans a wide range of departments, centers, programs, and student groups that are spread across campus and beyond. With over 85 resources available to the MIT community, many find navigating this vast landscape on their own overwhelming, as not all possible pathways are equally viable or helpful for any given student or group.

Image: http://news.mit.edu

It was Aristotle who once remarked that “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

As humans, it’s true that we’re creatures of habit. Our faults and virtues are simply reflections of the actions we take over and over again.

As entrepreneurs, we’re more susceptible than most to the danger of bad habits. After all, we find ourselves in a constant fight for survival, living minute by minute in many cases.

Companies frequently struggle with interpreting the advice provided in FDA’s Guidance Documents. A favorable but incorrect interpretation could cause delays, disruptions and disrepute with the FDA reviewers while a more conservative reading could leads to overkill and waste of resources. FDA has released more than 4000 Guidance Documents on practically all areas of compliance and plans to release about 100 new such documents every year in the near future. As the number of these advisory documents increase, the uncertainty about how best to use them in a given situation also increases. Although the guidance document hold a prominent disclaimer that the information contained is not binding on either the FDA or the companies, these documents are practically the law. They describe the current thinking of the Agency and no discussion with the FDA is complete without referring to one or more guidance docs. Most guidance documents try to cover broad perspectives regarding all possible scenarios regarding a given issue. FDA expects that the affected companies will review, interpret, analyze and customize the provided information to their specific situation. Easier said than done.

Anyone who has sat down to a summer crab feast knows how hard, messy and delicious they are.

But University of Cincinnati biologist Bruce Jayne found some water snakes that specialize in catching and consuming live crabs, without the benefit of mallets, bibs or utensils.

Snakes can’t chew their food so anything they eat must be bite-sized, even if this amuse-bouche sometimes is an antelope. A species of water snake in Malaysia defies this limitation by ripping crabs into manageable bite-sized pieces, Jayne found.

Image: https://scienceblog.com

The structure of the EU's next research funding programme is based on the mantra of 'evolution, not revolution' and so will not contain any major surprises, according to Jean-Eric Paquet, the EU's recently appointed director-general for research and innovation, who takes up his new role on 3 April.

You previously worked in the team of Philippe Busquin when he was European Commissioner for Research (1999-2004). How has the research landscape changed in the meantime?

Image: https://phys.org - Jean-Eric Paquet says the the need for science to live up to societal challenges is greater than ever. Credit: European Commission

Created in 1974, the Federal Acquisition Regulation provides “uniform policies and procedures for acquisition” to ensure integrity, fairness, and openness in federal procurement. And for over 40 years now, federal agencies have implemented numerous contract writing and support systems. But no one technology has made it dramatically easier for contracting officers or industry.

Having had troubling experiences with bad bosses before, Jon Good, the founder of gourmet chocolate company Jon Good Chocolates, makes sure he sets the bar high when it comes to leadership, taking blame when things go wrong, showing support for his employees and doing everything he can to help them be their best selves.

"The buck stops with me," Good explains in the video. "One of the worst bad boss traits is blaming other people when things go wrong."

While it is very true that children often do what you do, not what you say to do, it’s important for parents, particularly entrepreneurial parents, to give their actions context and pre-empt that favorite question of all children: “But...why?” This way, not only do children understand the hard work you put in -- and why sometimes you have to leave them for a bit -- but they become empowered to see possibilities of entrepreneurship, even at an early age. Just by taking a few moments to reflect with them on a universe of possibilities, you can create avenues for greatness.