Google's Mountain View headquarters — known as the Googleplex — has long been lauded as the cream of the crop when it comes to tech campuses.

But Google's offices in other cities aren't too shabby, either. 

Google employees worldwide have many well-publicized and fantastic benefits like in-house massage rooms, free gourmet food, and fabulous parties and retreats. The physical space employees work in is definitely a perk of the job, too. 

Image: Peter Wurmli

A good gadget solves a problem, but solving a problem isn’t the same as making your life easier.

A fitness tracker might help you live healthier, but being constantly reminded to move isn’t very relaxing. A drone might help you take awesome photos, but you have to not crash it. A smartphone might let you communicate with anyone in the world, but social media exists.

Image: Hellonomad

Three quarters of the lowest-income University of California students needed to take out loans, according to a 2015 PBS News Hour report.

This is despite the state’s effort to accommodate its poorest students, and make a college education more accessible. Student loans continue to grow nationally, as college costs continue to spiral out of control.

Annual tuition at a public college will be $44,047 in 2030, according to U.S News and World Report. This puts the cost of a four-year education at $176,188 – without considering the increases that occur over the time a student is in school.

New Delhi: IT firm Infosys will create 2,000 tech jobs in North Carolina over the next few years in a bid to woo the Trump administration that has been critical of outsourcing firms for "unfairly" taking jobs away from the US workers.

In May, the Bengaluru-based firm had announced its commitment to hire 10,000 locals for its US operations in the next two years. The first hub is being set up in Indiana and will hire 2,000 American workers by 2021.

Why would a Washington, D. C.-based think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy be interested in cities such as Boulder, Colorado or Austin, Texas? Why would its staff want to spend time in places like Madison, Wisconsin talking to residents about local issues, including city and state government policies, local culture and regional business practices?

The answer is that cities such as these are worth understanding because they and other “tech hubs” like California’s Bay Area (of which Silicon Valley is a part) are the cutting edge of America’s knowledge economy. The United States enjoys its position as the world’s economic, scientific, and military leader precisely because these places are key to the U. S. innovation ecosystem, the engine that churns out the nation’s scientific discoveries, breakthrough technologies, and commercially valuable products.

Javad Marandi, a Switzerland-based British entrepreneur with investments spanning continental Europe, explains why Switzerland remains one of the most attractive countries for investors. Switzerland was recently named the world’s most innovative country, topping the Global Innovation Index for the seventh consecutive year. The index commended Switzerland for the environment it provides for growing businesses and the nation’s ability to transform resources into innovations. So how has Switzerland become such an attractive environment for an investor?

It was 50 years today — on June 27, 1967, a few weeks after the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — an innovation came out of England that transformed an industry and changed consumer behavior around the world. The first automatic teller machine came into use at a Barclays Bank branch in a London suburb. As technology historian Michael Lamm points out, the tech was nontrivial: It brought together innovations in photography (to recognize deposited bills), financial security (including the invention of the PIN), vacuum-based mechanics (for dispensing cash), magnetic coding (for ATM cards), printing (for receipts), and industrial design (to forestall theft, the steel was tough enough to resist an acetylene torch for eight hours). In the ensuing half-century, the ATM has proved to be one of the most important innovations in the history of banking — and beyond. Although it is often taken for granted today, this device changed shopping and weekends, and was the forebearer of the on-demand economy.

Today is July 4th, Independence Day in the United States of America. A day to think about and celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. 241 years ago, in just two days, our Founding Fathers crafted, voted to approve, and signed this short document that has guided my country ever since then.

Soon after, the Constitution was in place. In all this time, there have only been twenty-seven additions to the Constitution, ten passed together within a few years and known as the Bill of Rights. Only seventeen more amendments have been added in all the years since.

Dubai and the UAE are on the cusp of greatness. Some might argue it is already great. Others, with their eyes fixed on the horizon, can sense that this is only the tipping point.

As the geographic intersection between Europe, Africa and Asia – where fragmented markets are creating innovators targeting local challenges – the Gulf seems like a natural hub to bring together the global startup scene.

Image: http://www.arabianbusiness.com 

Suppose you help run the R&D unit of a major technology company. To encourage innovation, you might have the unit run a kind of internal race, letting a wide variety of projects unfold on their own. That seems like an enlightened approach, given the difficulty of knowing exactly which ones will pan out — and yet you might actually be discouraging the unit’s overall productivity, according to MIT Associate Professor Alessandro Bonatti.

Image: http://news.mit.edu 

Steve Case and his wife Jean have been committed to startups and innovation throughout their entire married lives. Recently, with all of their actual children out of the house, they listed their McLean home, one of the largest private residences in the Northern Virginia Suburbs of DC, for $49.5 million dollars. Like most empty nesters, they’re ready to jump in an RV and head out on the open road. But there’s just one thing. Steve and Jean have done this before, five other times.

Image: http://www.nibletz.com

Recent years have seen the unprecedented progression of digital advances, with artificial intelligence and virtual reality making the stuff of science fiction movies not quite as unrealistic as previously thought. Combine this with a new generation of employees and consumers harbouring fresh expectations and it is easy to understand why innovation is enjoying a renewed sense of necessity and urgency.

Companies in almost every industry these days are trying to go digital. When digitalization is done in the context of a company’s strategic knowledge, powerful growth opportunities can be uncovered. One way to do it is by using a strategic knowledge-mapping framework that Ian MacMillan and Martin Ihrig had discussed in a Knowledge@Wharton interview in 2015. In this paper, co-authored with Jill Steinhour, Ihrig and MacMillan explain how the knowledge-mapping framework can shed light on recent strategic changes at Adobe, a software firm headquartered in San Jose, Calif.

Ihrig is a clinical professor and associate dean at New York University, an adjunct professor at Wharton, and the president of I-Space Institute. Steinhour is Adobe’s director of industry strategy and marketing for high tech and B2B. MacMillan is a management professor at Wharton.

Zachary Ostroff and a global collaboration of scientists, engineers and talented designers have taken a leap towards truly sustainable surfboard construction, with the first 3D printed, compostable and recyclable board – built using algae and eco-friendly bio-resins.

The team behind the board dubbed it the "Dolphin Board of Awesome". Zach said: "This is the very first 3D printed, compostable, recyclable surfboard ever made.

Image: http://magicseaweed.com

I was a small business owner building sound systems and providing DJ entertainment. Then, after a decade and a half, I dove into the 9 to 5 corporate world, managing databases, developing websites and creating corporate communications. These days, after a layoff and with my kids almost through college, I’ve begun my second act as an entrepreneur, using my writing skills to help clients form creative communications strategies.

Defining a great entrepreneurship scene requires a delicate balance. Sure, there has to be a healthy atmosphere of investment and innovation to get people in, but to get them to stay is a whole ‘nother story. Great startup cities need to have a culture, voice and mission. It’s what defines them as unique, a place to go because it’s not only where your skill sets lie, but where you feel like you can help change the world.

Virginia is the best state in the U.S. for online businesses. At least that’s what a recent study by business internet and phone provider Frontier Business found. If you are wondering what exactly makes Virginia the best state for online businesses, balanced factors like technological infrastructures (broadband speed, access, business phone, business bundles, etc.) combined with economic climates, workforce education, and overall quality of life are listed as some of the factors determining ranking in each state and region of the U.S.

The Census Bureau released its 2016 county level population estimates earlier this year. This gave us a window into the places that are gaining or losing total population.

Here’s a map of all the counties that have lost population since 2010.

The numbers in the legend are the percentage change in population (multiply by 100).

Image: http://www.newgeography.com 

The Business Innovation Factory is pleased to announce that it has received a $1 million grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to help integrate the many fragmented innovation solutions, tools, and approaches being tried across the U.S. education system in order to transform student experience and produce better student outcomes.

“I could not be more proud of the BIF Student Experience Lab team and its work with the Corporation to enable collaboration across the education sector to improve the student experience and learning outcomes,” BIF Founder and Chief Catalyst Saul Kaplan says.

A new pre-accelerator programme known as Startup Boost is to take place in Dublin and six other cities around the world this autumn. The initiative, which will run for one evening a week over six weeks, offers one-to-one mentorship, pitch training and expert talks. It is aimed at entrepreneurs who are either too busy to commit to accelerator programmes or who haven’t progressed their ideas enough yet to take part.