Every four years the Winter Olympics capture the collective attention of sports fans around the world.

While the fast-paced action of alpine skiing and skeleton provide solid doses of adrenaline, there's no better winter sport to casually enjoy than curling. Calmly paced but full of strategy, skill, and drama, curling is the perfect sport to invest your energy in at Pyeongchang 2018 and start cheering on the men and women of Team USA.

For six consecutive years NewVantage Partners has conducted an annual survey on how executives in large corporations view data. Each year the response rate increases, and the reported urgency of making effective use of data increases as well. This year the results are both more encouraging and more worrisome than in the past.

Six years ago, the primary focus of questions and answers in the survey was big data, which was relatively new on the business scene. In the 2018 survey, the primary attention has moved to artificial intelligence. AI is now a well-established focus at these large, sophisticated firms. There is both a stronger feeling that big data and AI projects deliver value and a greater concern that established firms will be disrupted by startups.

Access to higher education for the city’s fastest-growing ethnic group, lower average wages paid by small business and a major lack of affordable housing are among the issues negatively affecting the region’s economic growth potential identified in a report released Thursday by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation.

The rise of the innovation economy in San Diego has created wealth and opportunity across the region while contributing to a widening of economic inequality. If the region does not act to address these concerns, it will lose employees and employers to other areas, according to the report on economic inclusion commissioned by the EDC.

We’ve all had nights when we lie awake in bed, unable to quiet our racing thoughts. There are plenty of reasons why sleep may be evading you—maybe you had caffeine too late in the afternoon, for example, or you’ve been staring at your laptop screen for hours and haven’t given yourself time to wind down before bed.

$950-million investment positions Canada for an innovation boom in high-growth sectors

OTTAWA, Feb. 15, 2018 /CNW/ - When small, medium-sized and large companies, academic institutions and not-for-profit organizations come together to generate bold ideas, Canadians benefit from more well-paying jobs, groundbreaking research and a world-leading innovation economy.

That's why the Government of Canada is investing up to $950 million under the Innovation Superclusters Initiative.

The investment, which will be matched dollar for dollar by the private sector, is expected to create more than 50,000 middle-class jobs and grow Canada's economy by $50 billion over the next 10 years.

OTTAWA—The federal government will pump $950 million into five innovation “superclusters” spaced evenly across the country, promising the injection of cash will set up hubs of collaboration between researchers and industry players to position Canada to compete in the 21st-century global economy.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains unveiled the recipients of the federal cash Thursday, predicting the establishment of the hubs of industry and research will grow Canada’s economy by $50 billion over the next decade and create more than “50,000 middle-class jobs.”

Image: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains predicted the superclusters would grow the country's economy by $50 billion over the coming decade and add "50,000 middle-class jobs." (SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)

Not every day is rainbows and unicorns.

If you've spent even one week on the entrepreneurial thrill ride, you'll know what I mean. 

Maybe it was those targeted ads you hired someone to create that weren't so targeted after all. Maybe all the money you put aside to invest in new tech gear turned out to be merely a down payment. Or maybe it was that morning you were set to pitch the biggest deal in the history of your startup, but your nose started dripping like mad and your drip-campaign dried up.

PHOENIX — Whether through crowdfunding or the launch of a new cryptocurrency, fundraisers seeking investors will have new rules and regulations to work under in Arizona.

Rep. Jeff Weninger (R-Chandler) has introduced a slate of bills that collectively update the way in which state government looks at new e-commerce technologies like crowdfunding, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), cryptocurrency mining and blockchains.

If any of that sounds new and unfamiliar, that’s because it is — these represent some of the newest advances in how virtual data is processed and money is exchanged.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) celebrates its 25 years anniversary this year.

Innovators Magazine is a media partner with one of BIO’S flagship annual events, the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology, and we’ve distributed special Congress editions at the last two instalments, in San Diego and Montréal.

Watch Jim Greenwood, President and CEO of BIO, reflect with its Chair, Dr John Maraganore this week on the state of the industry – as BIO turns 25 – at the body’s annual CEO & Investor Conference in New York.

When Harvard University announced Lawrence S. Bacow as its president-in-waiting on Sunday, the institution focused heavily on his illustrious academic history, past presidential experience at Tufts University and family story as the son of immigrants.

Less discussed was Bacow’s age. He’s 66, about four years older than the average college president. If he stays at Harvard for 10 years -- the tenure he has previously said is about right for a president -- he will be stepping down in his mid-70s.

Image: HARVARD GAZETTE - Lawrence S. Bacow, 66, is Harvard's next president.

Applied Dynamics International recently announced it will invest $4.4 million and create 100 jobs in Ann Arbor as part of its expansion here. Ann Arbor SPARK and the Michigan Economic Development Corp. has and will continue to support to the company throughout project.

Applied Dynamics International, Inc., founded in 1957 in Ann Arbor, specializes in advanced computing and helps companies make better use of simulation assets through all stages of product development, testing, demonstration, training, and maintenance.

The leaders of Kansas City's Illumisoft share what sparked the idea for the program and why they're offering it.

Focusing on a “critical few” behaviors is one of the fundamental tenets of working effectively with organizational culture. Sometimes called keystone behaviors, these are patterns of acting that are tangible, repeatable, observable, and measurable, and will contribute to achieving an organization’s strategic and operational objectives. The behaviors are critical because they will have a significant impact on business performance when exhibited by large numbers of people; they are few because people can really only remember and change three to five key behaviors at one time.

Image: Kristy Hull is an advisor to executives for Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business. Based in DC, she is a director with PwC US.

People who don’t go to college are getting sicker and dying younger. That’s the reality playing out in a region of southeastern Missouri known as the Bootheel, one of many poverty-stricken rural areas across the country where few residents have four-year degrees.

Research has shown that education makes a difference in terms of health outcomes: Get a college degree, and you’re more likely to lead a healthier and more prosperous life. Go without, and, for a number of reasons, you’re more likely to face a range of health problems.

Image: Jason Andrew for The Chronicle - Research has shown that education makes a difference in terms of health outcomes. And the health gulf between people who get a college degree and those who don't is widening.

March 5-9, 2018, Tempe, Arizona

Spring Training is:

EDUCATION – plan on five must attend, highly interactive modules addressing professional and leadership development.

INFORMATION EXCHANGE – A week full of intense networking and collaborating opportunities which include the VIP AURP Board of Directors’ Sponsor Appreciation Dinner, group meals in the courtyard, informal evening dinners and tours.

AFFORDABILITY – A lifetime worth of knowledge offered in a one-week program. You can’t afford to miss it!

INSPIRATION – The Sonoran Desert is a great place to play. Whether your free time includes a stroll around Tempe Town Lake, a hike up A Mountain, cheering on your favorite Spring Training baseball team or hitting the greens, enjoy the Southwest and all that the region has to offer.

In a nondescript meeting room in a fluorescent-lit office park in Silicon Valley, a group of computer and planetary scientists were given the problem of deciding what to do with an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

The group–split into teams representing different world leaders, scientists, and citizens with different ideas of how to deal with impending doom–proposed solutions to the theoretical threat. Role-playing wasn’t necessary, but a Brazilian astronomer did his best Russian leader impression and tried to cajole the others.

Entrepreneurs often seek external capital to accelerate their growth. This is especially true in hotly contested markets where fast growth can be the difference between success or failure. And yet this outside funding may come with strings attached, which can (and perhaps should) give entrepreneurs pause. Founders will likely find their influence diluted, in terms of both financial equity and their control over the board of directors. They may even find themselves out of a job if their investors decide to fire them and find a replacement.

In 2017, the presence of women in venture capital made feeble progress at the country's top firms.

Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital were among two firms last year to take on their first female general partners.

And more and more women are founding female-led firms with an express interest in investing in female-founded startups, in order to break up tech's gender discrepancy.

For officials attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, D.C. in late January, the topic of job creation was high on the agenda.

So it was that job creators speaking at the final plenary session on “The Future of Work” attracted much interest with their vision of jumpstarting entrepreneurial activity in cities that are are not on the coasts.