Value innovation is the cornerstone of new market creation.

The climb in the United States stock market over the last year has been greeted warmly by many, investors especially. That does not, however, take away the day-to-day challenges most businesses face. Think stiff competition, shrinking demand and squeezed profits. The newspaper and magazine industries can certainly attest to that. Many have been forced to close their doors, consolidate or let people go to survive, never mind thrive, while the stock market has reached previously unimagined new heights.

The ticket kiosks at Shanghai’s frenetic subway station have a mind of their own.

Walk up to one and state your destination, and it’ll automatically recommend a route before issuing a ticket. It’ll even check your identification (a necessary step in China) by looking at your face. In the interest of reducing the rush-hour stampede, the system is set up to let you find information and buy tickets without pushing a button or talking to a person.

Image: Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, China. ALIBABA GROUP

A new paper and brief explore how estate and inheritance taxes (or wealth transfer taxes) affect entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. It is a contentious issue. Efforts to repeal the “death tax”—or to slash the number of taxpayers subject to the estate tax, as recent federal legislation has done—appeal to concerns about hard-working entrepreneurs losing their life’s work to tax collectors dressed as the Grim Reaper. But the issue is not so cut and dried.

Breakthrough innovation is the dream of every entrepreneur, but it’s still a scarce commodity. Selecting and nurturing people who are likely to help you in this regard is an even more elusive capability, and one that every angel investor, like myself, wishes he could get a lock on. In fact, every manager and business owner needs this skill just to survive with today’s pace of change.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The life science industry is fueling New Jersey’s economy through revenue and job growth, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield.

The report suggests the life science industry contributes nearly 85 percent more toward the New Jersey economy than the rest of the states — $47.5 billion, to be exact. There are currently 3,280 life science facilities in the state that employ more than 117,000 people in a variety of fields, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and medical devices.

You thought the Shark Tank was tough…

wait until you enter the the BioHealth Capital Region Crab Trap!

Submit your application for the opportunity to be named the company with the most commercial potential at the 2018 BioHealth Regional Forum.

Application Deadline: March, 30th 2018 

Finalists will be announced: April 9th, 2018 

Finalist Presentations BioHealth Capital Region Forum Event: April 24th, 2018

Submit an Application

The march of time changes when the physical world has to measure itself against the virtual world. When the age of mass-product factories, populated by machines and workers, and of market places where sellers and buyers converge, it gives way to the age of networks intertwined with transformative ideas and virtual market spaces where knowledge, information and symbolic analysts coexist. What is more, when events that change the state of the art ought to be perceived while their relevance precedes the momentum – that is, when they are beneath the threshold of visibility.

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been a field of its own in the marketing community for the past two decades. But in a world where most industries are constantly responding to new cycles of innovation, and in a field with a technological focus, SEO can seem almost stagnant by comparison.

Sure, there are often new Google updates and new software platforms to consider, but the basic strategies are very similar to what they were a decade ago.

You’ve probably experienced the frustration of being distracted at work. Perhaps you were pulled into a never-ending Slack discussion, and when it finally ended you struggled to focus on the task you were working on. Or a coworker criticized you, and now you can’t stop replaying his comments in your head.

The role of women in the workplace has assumed enormous proportions. The Economist named the economic empowerment of women as one of the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years. Women contribute more than $3 trillion to the economy and own over 36 percent of all businesses. Companies with women founders have performed 63 percent better than all-man teams and have also received higher valuations.

This weekend's storm reserved its full might for southern New England, where winds gusted to 93 miles per hour and coastal flooding occurred for at least five tide cycles. But the nor'easter that struck Washington, D.C., New York, Providence, and Boston has churned up so much real estate across the Atlantic Ocean that high waves are causing damage in Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands. 

Since President Trump’s inauguration, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has built a robust team of over 50 staff members, including a corps of scientists and engineers, policymakers, and academics to advise the President on science and technology (S&T), support the President’s agenda, and ensure that S&T efforts across the Executive Branch are effectively coordinated. OSTP policy advisors are providing expert advice and developing policies on a wide range of topics, including advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, biotechnology, cybersecurity, digital economy, disaster preparedness, healthcare, infectious diseases, information technology, medicine, nanotechnology, nuclear energy, ocean science, quantum information sciences, space and aeronautics, and telecommunications, among others.

CARY – As they do every year, the Bull City Venture Partner team put together another great conference recently  focused on the venture capital outlook for 2018.  The event was held at the Carolina Theater in Durham and hosted some excellent key note speakers and panels made up of seasoned venture capitalists and major angel investors from all over the east coast.  It was interesting to compare and contrast the numbers being presented at the conference from a national and southeast perspective to those presented in the CED Venture report focused exclusively on North Carolina the week before.

The Future Builders Challenge allows students in Lincoln to identify their aptitudes to become entrepreneurs, innovators, and builders. Grounded in global Gallup research, the Builder Profile 10 (BP 10) assessment was provided for free to over 2,600 high school freshmen and business and entrepreneurship club members in all Lincoln public and private schools.

Image: http://siliconprairienews.com

No one likes difficult conversations at work, but everyone has them eventually–some people more often than others. For venture capitalists, tough conversations come with the territory; their jobs require them to tell founders they aren’t cutting it, that they’re getting removed from their companies, or that it’s time to close down their startups and halt their dreams.

The European Patent Office today issued statistics which it claimed show the continued ascendance of Europe as a premier destination for patenting, not only from European countries. The statistics focus strongly on the increased volume of patents filed and granted, which it argued is a result of the office’s focus on “efficiency and quality” and a boost to innovation.

WASHINGTON: The Army is studying 30 cities as possible sites for the Futures Command it’s standing up this summer — but the winning city may hardly notice.

“It’s not going to be an 800-person command,” Army undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters. The plan is to “lease….a couple floors in a high-rise, as opposed to a massive building that we own.” As technology and the economy changes, he added, the command may well need to move “10 to 15 years from now.”

Image: Ryan McCarthy

Depending on where you live, college basketball may have even more draw than the professional level does. For example, the most profitable team, the Louisville Cardinals, is worth an astounding $36.1 million. But the sport is about much more than the money; it’s about the players and the entertainment value. Which cities provide the most exciting teams to root for?

The 2018 BioHealth Capital Region Forum - we are looking forward to having you join us in April! We have an exciting lineup of speakers and sessions confirmed for the event, including a keynote from Dr. Walter G. Copan, Director of NIST and a fireside chat between the CEOs of two of the region's largest hospital systems, Children's National Health System and Inova Center for Personalized Health.

Don't let your colleagues miss out -- Forward this message to other senior leadership in the Region to invite them to attend the 2018 BioHealth Capital Region Forum. Register with the password: bhcrforum18

Check out the BioHealth Capital Region Forum website for regular updates on confirmed speakers and Forum agenda.

Today is a new day. What was once reserved for the elite is now a thing of the past. You, too, can become an angel investor with equity crowdfunding. In May 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enacted Title III of the JOBS Act, allowing non-accredited investors—the majority of the U.S. population—to invest in startups. There were a lot of legalities surrounding them so the birth of equity crowdfunding platforms was born.