When Joseph Quan arrived at the Wharton School of Business as an MBA, he knew he was set on starting a company.

Two years later, his HR software startup Twine, which uses a proprietary algorithm to help companies put their employees in best-fit roles, has won well over $50,000 in no-strings-tied grants and received funding from two on-campus venture capital funds in the same year.

Much of Twine’s early success has to do with the proactivity with which Joseph and his team sought out resources at his university.

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?

The Harvard Business Review conducted a survey of founders of enterprises — 141 Harvard Business School alumni and 20 non-MBA — to find out. The study participants were asked to rank which skills are most crucial for entrepreneurs.

The answer? They're all important.

In a recent article published in the Hastings Law Journal (embedded below), Duke University School of Law Associate Professor Elisabeth de Fontenay discusses the relationship between the recent decline of IPOs and the deregulation of private capital. Professor Fontenay also spoke at the SEC’s recent Investor Advisory Committee on June 22 which discussed capital formation for smaller companies and the decline of IPOs.

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Piet Dircke is standing on the sidewalk at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport pointing up to the building’s second floor. Or, as he puts it, sea level. The tarmac, where planes taxi nearby, should be about four meters under water, he explains. It isn’t submerged because of more than a century of work by Dutch engineers, like Dircke, on a complex network of dikes, sea barriers, and pumping stations.  

Image: Piet Dircke (left) looks across the Nieuwe Waterweg from beneath one of the giant arms of the Maeslantkering storm surge barrier. - https://www.technologyreview.com

When it comes to fundamental goals, 23 percent of entrepreneurs in their 20s cited becoming more influential or having a positive impact on their communities. It’s a considerable increase over the 13 percent of entrepreneurs over 50 who say the same. The data shows a considerable difference in values between two generations of entrepreneurs,  says the 2017 HSBC Private Bank: Essence of Enterprise with a fairly comprehensive global survey of entrepreneurs from the two generations.

One of the best innovation stories I’ve ever heard came to me from a senior executive at a leading tech firm. Apparently, his company had won a million-dollar contract to design a sensor that could detect pollutants at very small concentrations underwater. It was an unusually complex problem, so the firm set up a team of crack microchip designers, and they started putting their heads together.

Now in its 10 edition, the Global Innovation Index surveys 130 economies using dozens of metrics - from patent filings to education spending - for a high-level look at the innovative activity that increasingly drives economic and social growth.

Key findings for 2017 show the rise of India as an emerging innovation center, high innovation performance in Sub-Saharan Africa relative to development, and an opportunity to improve innovation capacity in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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Since the Canadian federal government announced that it is accepting applications for its $950 million ‘supercluster’ initiative, Canada’s top tech players have been going the extra mile to show why their local hubs are worthy of a serious cash infusion.

Among the tech players racing for a chunk of the $950 million investment are research organizations and innovation groups from British Columbia. The BC Tech Association, the Research Universities’ Council of BC, Wavefront, and Santa Ono, chief advisor of the Innovation Network, just released a commission report to show why BC might have what it takes to become a global technology supercluster.

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In the recent INSEAD/WIPO Global Innovation Index, Estonia was a very creditable 25th in the league table.  The nation performed particularly strongly across digital metrics, whether in terms of the ICT education of its citizens or the sophistication of the government's digital services, with the country of just over 1 million citizens significantly outperforming much larger peers.

To develop an idea into a business, incubation seems to be the new industry “normal.” There are thousands of incubators worldwide and each year that number is continuing to grow. There are private, public and corporate incubators, many with a distinct focus on local economies, global, communities, or a specific vertical.

At this point, it sounds like variations of ice cream. Over 9,000 flavors, all around the world. If there’s incubation happening, it’s because there is a demand from companies, and because the companies that incubate probably accelerate beyond their competition.

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H-1B visa applications have declined for the first time in years, according to a recent report from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The department announced last month that it received 199,000 applications this year — 37,000 fewer than last year.

This is concerning to tech companies, many of which expected a huge increase in applications, due to the program’s uncertain future. As a result, tech hiring managers are now racing to recruit from a very small pool of domestic candidates. Many have doubled down on their recruitment efforts by increasing their spending on LinkedIn and Facebook ads or by attending local networking events to attract candidates.

The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act of 2017, H.R. 2763, unanimously passed a House committee last week, moving one step closer to approval. “The bill ultimately helps small businesses advance innovation and research that will help industries across California and the nation,” Knight said. “The advantages of supporting small business in their ventures are endless as some of the greatest entrepreneurial developments in technology originate from the support of the surrounding community and government resources.”

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Welcome to the Philadelphia Business Journal's Best Places to Work 2017.

Each year, the Business Journal teams with Quantum Workplace to find the very best workplaces in our region. How do we come up with our list? The contest is based on employee surveys and contains various levels of safeguards to protect the integrity of the process.

A pod of orca whales shocked a group of ecstatic paddleboarders near Deception Pass Bridge in Oak Harbor, Washington, on Wednesday. 

According to Jennifer Bull, who shot the video, the orcas were hunting seals when they surprised the boarders in shallow water.

The boarders were all pretty pumped, and Bull even described it as the "best day ever." 

Image: http://mashable.com

Nations need to have well-articulated strategies addressing science, innovation, competitiveness and productivity. Confusing or conflating these distinct but complementary goals is a recipe for underperformance.

And, sadly, Canada underperforms where innovation is concerned. We need to take a closer look at how we develop and fund innovation talent in Canada to change this dubious record.

While we have significantly funded science excellence with globally recognized results over several decades, this has not translated into innovation outcomes that increase national competitiveness and productivity.

Innovations born in the world of academia have contributed more than a trillion dollars to the US economy over the past two decades, according to a new report.

Examining the licensing of university technology, a study undertaken by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), reveals that over a 20 year period  ‘academic patents and the subsequent licensing to industry’ boosted industry output by $1.33 trillion.

Being a new entrepreneur is stressful, and that stress is compounded when you start realizing just how little time there is in a day. You’ll be managing more tasks and responsibilities than ever before, and because you’re enthusiastic about the project, you’ll end up working long hours and weekends -- willingly -- to get it all done.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is disrupting businesses, governments, and consumers and transforming how they interact with the world. Companies are going to spend almost $5 trillion on the IoT in the next five years — and the proliferation of connected devices and massive increase in data has started an analytical revolution.

To gain insight into this emerging trend, BI Intelligence conducted an exclusive Global IoT Executive Survey on the impact of the IoT on companies around the world. The study included over 500 respondents from a wide array of industries, including manufacturing, technology, and finance, with significant numbers of C-suite and director-level respondents. 

Over the past four years, 1,668 deals involving university spinout companies from across the globe attracted approximately $35.6 billion from 2013 to 2016, according to a new report from Global University Venturing. The report, however, highlights that global deals peaked in 2014 with 529 deals and total investments dollars peaked in 2015 with nearly $14 billion invested. As the authors highlighted, these global numbers were unsustainable and 2016 saw significant declines in both deals and dollars. In 2016, the total deals reported were 407 (21.6 percent decrease from 2015) and dollars invested was $6.4 billion (a 54.3 percent decrease from 2015).

The Innovation Alliance commends Senators Coons and Cotton for introducing the bipartisan STRONGER Patents Act of 2017. This comprehensive legislation is exactly what is needed to strengthen our patent system, which will promote American innovation, competitiveness and job creation. For roughly a decade now, we have seen a steady weakening of patent rights in the U.S., undermining the ability of inventors to protect their innovations from infringement from large corporations and foreign entities. The STRONGER Patents Act says ‘enough is enough’ and ensures that patent rights are protected as a fundamental underpinning of our innovation economy.

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