Adding to the national debate regarding U.S. immigration policy, the Center for American Entrepreneurship (CAE) reviewed the 2017 Fortune 500 list, finding that 43 percent of the companies were founded or co-founded by a first or second generation immigrant. Those companies account for 52 percent of the top 25 firms, are headquartered in 33 different states, and accounted for $5.3 trillion in global revenue in 2016, the CAE analysis found. CAE posits that such analysis provides strong support for the creation of an entrepreneur visa, a piece of the Startup Act, the bipartisan legislation which SSTI has supported.

For the first time in five years, federal funding for higher education research and development increased in both current and constant dollars, according to recently released data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation. In FY 2016, universities reported $72.0 billion in total R&D expenditures, a 4.8 percent increase from FY 2015. Of this amount, more than half (54 percent) came from the federal government. Institutionally financed research represented 16 percent, the second largest source of R&D funds at universities in FY 2016.

Sooner or later, you may follow in the footsteps of countless business leaders onto the board of one or more nonprofit organizations. Maybe it’s the board of a local institution you care about personally, such as a small-scale theater, public radio station, or your child’s school. It also could be a national or even global organization—an international development group, a major university, or the like.

Time Magazine published its “person of the year” edition today and honored “the silence breakers” for speaking up and forcing our society to confront its position towards men in power exploiting their power for sexual gain. Real change is clearly needed.

These brave women who have taken on personal risks and faced doubters to change the culture globally to stop sexual misconduct, harassment & gender bias deserve the recognition x1000 along with the many other women who have spoken up.

Image: https://bothsidesofthetable.com

The distributed ledger technology that started with bitcoin is rapidly becoming a crowdsourced system for all types of verification. Could it replace notary publics, manual vote recounts, and the way banks manage transactions?

Image: Illustration by Dan Page

Facebook is the place to be, according to job website Glassdoor’s new list ranking the 100 best companies to work for in 2018.

Technology is a recurring theme on the list. Other companies span healthcare, consulting, and retail. Bain & Company (No. 2), Google (No. 5), and Apple (No. 84) are the only three employers to score a spot all 10 years that Glassdoor has released the list. Facebook has made an appearance for eight consecutive years.

Asgard this month became the first European VC firm to announce it will hold a token sale to finance its next investment vehicle. Oscar Geen explores how the rise of initial coin offerings (ICO) has changed the relationship between startups and their backers and how investors should respond

For an entrepreneur, getting the right guidance and mentorship is an important part of their success. Right from the validation of their idea to evaluating their business plan and even finalizing their marketing strategies, start-up founders are always on the lookout for mentors who can help them scale. And this is where, incubation fits into the picture.

Jeanna Barrett had spent the last 20 months in Seattle helping grow a location-based mobile app. In April 2011, Groupon acquired the startup, and it declined to keep her on staff. 

Fine by her.

"I called my parents after I found out I didn’t have a job at Groupon and said, 'I'm moving to San Francisco.' I just knew I wanted to make it work," Barrett said. 

If you want to win, you need to be smart. As a pitch presenter, you’re ought to not just capture the attention of your prospects but also win their hearts. In today’s marketplace, innovation is highly appreciated and wanted. Coming up with a brilliant new product idea is the first aspect. The second is about how you present it to those who might be interested to get involved.

In today’s post, we’re presenting several effective strategies which you can take advantage of when presenting your next pitch. You’re also getting a lot of extra tips and tricks, so pay attention and take some notes!

Australia’s startup community has enjoyed a record-breaking year of achievement, but improved access to global talent is critical to the growth of an internationally competitive local tech sector, according to the fourth annual Crossroads Report, released recently by StartupAUS, Australia’s national advocacy group for startups.

Image: Alex McCauley, CEO StartupAUS - http://anthillonline.com

Hiring is a deeply imperfect process that probably has as many misses as hits. You’ve probably seen it in action: a new hire looks perfect on the paper and interviews well but has mediocre performance or clashes with co-workers constantly. Finding the person with the right skills is hard, but there are ways to pick more of the right candidates for a job.

As a business advisor, I strongly believe that continuous innovation and design thinking are the keys to long-term viability and success. Recent surveys of global business leaders show that they overwhelmingly agree, but less than a third believe their organizations’ culture and leadership are ready today, They and I are always on the lookout for ways to prepare current and future leaders.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel has designed windows and a table that uses colored solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity. Her ultimate goal, however, is to all surfaces capable of harvesting solar energy, just like flowers.

In October I worked from a Rio de Janeiro cafe, finishing up a PR campaign. In November I did business development in Tokyo. This month I’m designing a new product line from Seoul. For the past two years I’ve run a marketing agency and an e-commerce store from 20 countries with just a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection.

As most of you might know, business angels (or angel investors) are typically wealthy individuals who aim to help entrepreneurs succeed with a business idea by investing their own money. On the fundraising scale, business angels are filling the vacuum between the 3Fs (friends, family and fools) and venture capital firms. However, it can be challenging to find the right angel investor who is passionate about your business and helps you grow it with funding and advice. Below you’ll find a list with 40 of Europe’s most active and most influential angel investors:

Image: http://www.eu-startups.com

Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest seed fund has raised $150 million from a cavalcade of high-profile investors.

Investors in the new fund, named after Case's yearslong effort to draw more attention to nontraditional areas outside of Silicon Valley and New York, include Amazon chief and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, The Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and members of the Koch, Pritzker and Walton families, according to a release.

Newswise — Although reindeer noses aren’t typically red, or infused with enough light to guide a sleigh, Farber says other earthly creatures are that color and glow through bioluminescence or fluorescence — everything from jelly fish to sea anemones to the zebrafish he studies. If genetic material from one of those organisms found a way into Rudolph’s DNA, Farber supposes he, too, could glow red — or at least a certain protuberance on his face could.

How might that happen? Say Rudolph’s mother, while pregnant, came upon Anthozoan coral, a brilliantly red species found in shallow tropical waters. And say she cut herself on the coral. Coral DNA might have entered her bloodstream, Farber says. In a one-in-a-million event, only slightly more likely than running into a flying reindeer, the coral DNA might have moved from her blood into a virus-like genetic element that transferred it into the egg cell that formed Rudolph.

LAWRENCE — Public universities have made strides in evolving their technology transfer activities, but they must do more to address the demands of the innovation economy, according to a new report by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).

The report, Technology Transfer Evolution: Driving Economic Prosperity, calls on universities to accelerate their transition to a technology transfer model that reflects broader engagement in economic development and connects to the learning and discovery missions of universities. APLU’s Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness & Economic Prosperity produced the report to help public research universities evolve toward more comprehensive technology transfer efforts.

Image: http://today.ku.edu

Every year, we survey as many venture-backed startup founders as possible to figure out what it's like to run a technology company right now. This year, we got more responses than ever before — 869 — giving us an even more precise pulse on what entrepreneurs think, feel, fear, and value. As we have since 2015, we're excited to present the results here — starting with the trends and insights that stood out as important or counterintuitive.

Image: http://stateofstartups.firstround.com/