The National Science Foundation receives about 40,000 proposals a year for research, education and training projects. Of those, it awards grants to about 11,000 organizations.

When NSF automated its proposal acceptance system known as FASTLane in 2003, it was a bit ahead of its time. Now it’s taking another huge step to make applying for grants even easier.

Dorothy Aronson, the chief information officer of the NSF, said the modernization is focused on FASTLane’s user interface by applying automated tools in the cloud to make the grant application process even easier.

Canada’s new $950 million network of business-focussed superclusters has been welcomed by the country’s biotech industry.

The Canadian Government’s near one billion dollar investment supports superclusters that will advance progress in areas including digital tech, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing. It will bring together companies of all sizes, research institutions, universities and other key stakeholders, as ‘people with diverse skills work together’ to develop innovations that can impact positively on society.

The popular perception of millennials around the world is usually of over-caffeinated tree-hugging liberals who have eschewed traditional jobs and offices for co-working spaces to toil on their current start-up idea. People like to believe that millennials have little regard for tradition or norms, and would rather take a risk and fail than choose stability and stay mediocre.

AOL founder Steve Case and "Hillbilly Elegy" author JD Vance are headed to the southern United States to find the next big startups. They've got millions of dollars to invest from 38 of the country's highest-profile investors, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman.

Case and Vance are overseeing the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, through Case's Washington, DC-based venture capital firm Revolution. Vance joined the firm last year, and Case announced the fund in December.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 83 new members and 16 foreign members, announced NAE President C. D. (Dan) Mote, Jr., today.  This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,293 and the number of foreign members to 262.

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.  Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature" and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

Fairfax, VA, Feb. 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Inova Personalized Health Accelerator (IPHA) announced today that it will expand its free educational program designed to teach first-time healthcare technology entrepreneurs how to grow successful companies. The spring 2018 session will build on the curriculum provided during the fall 2017 program. Inova’s fall program supported 57 enrolled participants over a 14-week training period.  Entrepreneurs interested in participating in the program are encouraged to apply via the IPHA web site (http://www.inovapha.org/for-entrepreneurs/training-program/ ).

One of the most challenging aspects of growing up is realizing that the world is not as simple or predictable as we would like to think.

Complexity and uncertainty rule the day, and this inevitably clashes with our innate human desire to live in a world that is simple, predictable, and understandable.

Image: https://www.forbes.com

A new report on parental involvement and wealth shaping a college student’s experience presents the following striking scenario: one student is accepted into a prestigious dental program, steered by her family, who also carefully shape her undergraduate path.

Another, much poorer student, announces her intention to be a dentist, but without the same level of expertise and service from her parents ends up in $11-an-hour dental assistant job, which doesn’t even require a bachelor’s degree.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions- an age-old adage that holds good for the motivating stories of some of India’s promising grassroots innovators, who beat all odds and stunned others through their rural innovations.

Ranging from an energy-saving portable stove to a humble roti maker, from a novel bamboo instrument to a time-saving handloom weaving device, from low-cost tractor to fuel-efficient, multi-crop thresher, these socially useful innovations have simplified many laborious aspects associated with livelihoods in rural India.

Image: https://yourstory.com/

MedImmune Inc., the research and development arm of global drug giant AstraZeneca PLC, is spinning out a new company named Viela Bio with plans to create 100 jobs within the next three to five years.

As part of the launch, Viela Bio said it raised $250 million from a consortium of investors led by 6 Dimensions Capital, Boyu Capital and Hillhouse Capital with additional funds from Temasek and Sirona Capital. AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) will remain the largest minority shareholder of Viela Bio, which will lease space on MedImmune's campus in Gaithersburg.

Image: Bing Yao was named CEO of Viela Bio. MEDIMMUNE

National Pancake Day is one of those unofficial "food holidays" whose actual date is a little debated. Some establishments celebrate on the Tuesday before Lent while IHOP is celebrating this year on Feb. 27 with an offer of a free stack of pancakes for all its guests from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

Really, there are no rules when it comes to flapjacks — Pancake Day can happen any time you're craving a short stack topped with butter and maple syrup. 

MADISON, Wisconsin, February 27, 2018 – The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has collected opinions from Wisconsin leaders in a new web series of articles called “Innovation and the Wisconsin Idea.” Contributors include university researchers and educators, business leaders and entrepreneurs, investors, and public officials who share their views on the crucial interdependence between university innovations and the strength of the Wisconsin economy.

Our refresh of the Leading States Index looks at state performance from the citizens’ perspective to gauge what’s working well for governments and citizens, and where states can improve.

States have enormous responsibilities. They must not only meet their citizens’ needs on a wide range of issues—from education to healthcare to housing and job security—but also manage enormous budgets, often larger than most countries. How they do it, and do it well, is an important question. And for those that are succeeding, how are they succeeding?

Employers are continually upping the ante on academic credentials. Nearly a third of jobs that once required only a high-school diploma now demand a four-year college degree, while one in four jobs that used to require a bachelor’s degree now require a master’s degree. Meanwhile, 75% of Americans believe that higher education is unaffordable and out of reach.

Employers often overvalue pedigree out of desire to play it safe — but hiring mistakes still abound. Meanwhile, a huge number of potential superstars are being overlooked.

“We learned to take the long view, mostly because we didn’t have any other choice,” says Kate, now in her sixties and busy investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs. “Both sticking to our full-time corporate jobs or one of us becoming a full-time parent weren’t attractive options to us. We wanted to change the model, not just flip it.”

Kate and her husband, Matthew, were a classic dual career couple. They met in business school, married, and settled into two demanding corporate jobs. But Kate quickly saw that there were too many layers to get to the top anytime soon in her firm. Matthew had a quicker route in his flatter organization.

You don’t become one of the top five wealthiest men in the world without having your finger on the pulse. Known for being the “Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett has made his fortune by being able to read the signs and buy and sell stock accordingly.

In an interview with CNBC, Buffett talked about why he is such a fan of Apple, which is number two on the list of companies that Berkshire Hathaway has the most stock in (the top one is Wells Fargo).

If you’ve ever wondered why one person is drawn to a career in a creative industry while someone else loves to sit in an office and crunch numbers, the answer might be in their genes. Behavior and choice are responses from our cells to the environment, and they have more impact than you might realize, says Robin R. Hayes, author of My Cells Made Me Do It: The Case for Cellular Determinism.

Dropbox on Feb. 23 announced plans to raise $500 million through an initial public offering (pdf), making the 11-year-old file-storage startup the first company in Y Combinator’s portfolio to make a market debut.

It’s a big moment, and a potential inflection point, for the influential incubator. Y Combinator has a roster of big companies, including Stripe and Airbnb, that plan to go public eventually.

Image: https://qz.com

Ray Leach was 34 years old when he found himself at a crossroads.

It was 2000, and he’d already built an impressive resume — he started two companies, which he sold, then created two more companies, all in the technology space.

“I really wanted to get more involved in the investing side as opposed to getting up every day and working on the exact same kinds of issues in one company,” Leach says.

Image: http://www.sbnonline.com