The Center for Innovative Technology is now known as the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation. But it’s more than just a name change.

The rebranding is seen as a vital step in helping to propel Virginia forward as a nationwide leader in innovation, startups and technology, said Bob Stolle, president and CEO of VIPC

“Our vision is that we create an innovation economy in Virginia that is second to none,” he said. “This is such a critical part of our economy that we wanted to be able to be more efficient, more effective,” he said.

Entrepreneurship is the backbone of the innovation engine in the United States. For example, the creation of the internet and smartphone uplifted the national economy forever. In addition, universities like UC Berkeley have played a crucial role in incubating new technologies for the benefit of society.

UC Berkeley is driving a creative, new way to cultivate entrepreneurship in a multi-disciplinary manner. Their unique approach that converges multiple sciences and business streams together fosters the diversity of thoughts.

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Although the potential benefits of driverless motor vehicles are significant, designers must first address key automation challenges before these vehicles are ready and accepted by the public for widespread use, a safety expert says.

In an article for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Christopher Hart, former chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, compares the development of automation in the aviation industry with that in road vehicles and discusses why automation will not discharge human operators in the near future.

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A few years ago, having an office was one of the most important aspects of starting a business. Cut to the year 2020, when the entire world was made to stay at home, coercing enterprises, and firms to manage things online. Slowly and steadily, companies realized that it is no longer essential to have office space. Though initially, they faced some troubles adapting to an online setup. Over the course of time, it became evident that things could be managed, even when the team is not present in the same room.

Here are seven recent health IT vendor contracts and go-lives accelerating innovation efforts at healthcare organizations. 

1. Memphis, Tenn.-based St. Jude Children's Hospital inked a deal to share deidentified patient data with medical image processing platform developer IQ-AI Limited.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Blue Technology Barometer, a new study by MIT Technology Review Insights in association with Infosys, Morgan Stanley, and Canada's Ocean Supercluster ranks 66 countries and territories on the progress and commitment they are making toward sustainability by protecting the ocean environment, monitoring marine activity, contributing to technology innovation, as well as the degree to which governments are implementing effective coastal policies.

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The capacity for technology innovation to improve people’s lives depends first and foremost on individuals’ and communities’ willingness to use it, and the importance of the latter’s trust grows as the former promises greater transformation. A journey to earning it should be core to any development plan and every MVP.

COLUMBIA, Md., Nov. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDCO, Maryland's economic engine for technology companies, announced its recent round of funding, including investments in 12 start-up companies and funding to 36 university projects through the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII). 

Established in 2012, the MII program was created as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions: Johns Hopkins University; Morgan State University; University of Maryland, Baltimore; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and University of Maryland, College Park. The program's mission is to accelerate promising technologies with significant commercial potential to market while leveraging each partner University's strengths.

When non-alcoholic craft beer company Sobah needed cash to expand, they turned to equity crowdfunding.

The Indigenous-owned company raised $1 million from 580 investors.   

"It's a range of people, from a whole bunch of different backgrounds. We got a good handful of First Nations peoples who have signed up to be an owner, which is awesome," says Sobah business owner Clinton Schultz. 

Image: Non-alcoholic beer company Sobah shunned traditional ways of raising capital when it wanted to expand. (Supplied) 

Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, isn't a fan of the phrase "work-life balance."

At an April 2018 event hosted by Insider's parent company, Bezos said new Amazon employees shouldn't view work and life as a balancing act. Instead, Bezos said it's more productive to view them as two integrated parts.

"It actually is a circle," Bezos said. "It's not a balance."

Corporate merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is rarely far from the news, but that is not to say that the subject is always well understood. Contested takeovers make for lively copy, as do the “mega-mergers” that can be presented as blatant empire-building and a search for monopoly profits.

Far less coverage is devoted to the critically important role that M&A plays in the ecology of venture capital, the source of the funds that power new, pioneering businesses of the type that have put the United States at the cutting edge of commercial and technological innovation.

A “downer” is defined here as someone who seems to dwell on the negatives of every business challenge, and loves to highlight bad news or potential problems. No matter how smart or experienced this person may otherwise be, things must change or they will kill your startup.

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We are in the midst of the “Great Resignation.” A record 4.3 million U.S. workers left their jobs in August, as reported by the Labor Department. Although some are chasing new jobs, the past 20 months have inspired many to rethink their career paths, passions and priorities. Some are even considering starting their own small businesses to pursue a personal dream. If you’ve found yourself considering what’s next, here are four reasons why starting a business could be right for you.

With how rapidly the business world leans into depending on technology, and the number of investment dollars thrown towards new tech, it's not crazy to feel like you should have majored in computer science. But don't dwell on that — you may not have developed that acute business acumen if you went into computer science.

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The mesmerizing #3D map of the undersea #cables connecting the globe

This is how we are all connected via an extensive undersea fiber optic cable network. 426 active submarine cables in the world span on more than 807,000 miles

Source: Tyler Morgan-Wall, leveraging GeoJSON and data from TeleGeography

Every business founder knows the need for a culture that promotes continuous innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit, and one that creates sustainable value across all functions in the business. Yet most don’t really know how to create that environment, or assess when they have achieved it. They only know in retrospect too late when they don’t have it, and the business is in crisis mode.

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Warning as toxic devastation washes in with the tide  

Warmer oceans have brought a sudden growth in vast floating mats of seaweed, smothering coral reefs, seagrass and fish populations, according to new research.

A study in Mexico, led by marine scientist Dr Ian Hendy, at the University of Portsmouth, found climate change has opened up new territories to giant mats of sargassum blooms, threatening the survival of other species and turning the ocean brown.

Dr Hendy says the risks the spread of sargassum poses to other plants and animals are extreme, and conservation management and protection is urgently needed.

It is the first study to directly examine the direct impact of sargassum on ocean biodiversity.

Five years ago, Penn State opened Happy Valley LaunchBox in a leased building on South Allen Street in State College as part of a burgeoning economic development effort to drive business creation and innovation among university students and community members.

This week, the university cut the ribbon for the Innovation Hub, a $56.8 million new six-story building on South Burrowes Street that is a capstone of President Eric Barron’s Invent Penn State initiative. Located at the former site of the James Building, it provides a new home for the LaunchBox with a community makerspace and state-of-the-art entrepreneurial and innovation resources.

Image: Penn State's new Innovation Hub is located on South Burrowes Street in State College. Photo by Geoff Rushton | StateCollege.com By Geoff Rushton - November 21, 2021

Matthew Mendelsohn’s accession to become Yale’s new chief investment officer marks a milestone for the rise of university endowments investing in venture capital.

Since joining the Yale Investments Office in 2007, one of Mendelsohn’s core focuses has been venture capital — an asset class that has gained traction among an increasing number of institutional investors in recent years — and Yale’s investment approach has long been a model for other endowments.

Image: https://news.yahoo.com

I often recommend business networking as the most effective way for a startup founder to find investors, advisors, and even key executive candidates. But what if you are an introvert, or new to this game, and don’t know where or how to start?

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