Visit almost any thriving metropolitan area, and you’ll notice at least one thing it has in common – a section of the city that’s buzzing with activity. Here you’ll find professionals, students and families mingling amongst each other; buildings that house everything from start-ups to minority-owned businesses to national corporations; and amenities like public art and green space.

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Back in the early 2000s, the Maker Movement took hold in California, based on the emergence of such do-it-yourself (DIY) tools as 3-D printers, and now sites such as SketchUp and Makerspaces have all the tools you need to make almost anything computer related. Thus entrepreneurs were able to build prototypes and design new products without the traditional huge prototyping cost.

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Famous entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, are often portrayed as mythical creatures who have left the womb imbued with the talent, burning desire, and tolerance for risk-taking required to be the exceptional entrepreneurs they ultimately became.  It’s a narrative that portrays great entrepreneurs as being born rather than made.

The reality isn’t quite so romantic.  For instance, German research suggests that entrepreneurship is most definitely a skill that can be learned, and the researchers argue that action-oriented training can enable us to unlock any entrepreneurial potential within us.  While this suggests that the best approach is very much one of “learning by doing”, a second study, from the University of Groningen, found that classroom-based study is just as effective as experiential study.

Innovation has, in many ways, flourished over the past 19 months. In the face of Covid-19, efforts to transform national economies towards a more ecologically and socially responsible approach, while taking advantage of the most recent digital tools, have not slowed down. On the contrary, digital transformation has accelerated, as it became a vital necessity for firms around the globe, and the abrupt reduction in human activities showed both the opportunity and peril of a quick transition towards a carbon-free economy. Barcelona, Milan and Paris innovated their urban development, for example, barrelling through a previously unthinkable increase of cycle lanes as public transport usage plummeted in 2020.

PARIS/NEW YORK -- South Korea has placed among the top five technological innovators for the first time, according to the latest global ranking, as other Asian economic powers moved up the hierarchy.

South Korea jumped from 10th place to fifth in this year's Global Innovation Index, the World Intellectual Property Organization reported Monday. The East Asian country was bested only by Switzerland, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.

Many leaders solicit the help of internal and external consultants, and the return on that advice depends on who’s receiving it. The author, currently an internal advisor and formerly an external consultant, reflects on the different returns leaders get for the same investment. Some engage consultants on interesting problems and create a sense of team and joint mission. They benefit from consultants’ best thinking, innovative advice, and hard work. Yet others oversimplify the issues at hand or underestimate what it takes to create results and treat consultants as transactional vendors. Those leaders not only pay the cost of a missed opportunity, they also run the risk of not addressing the issues they’re seeking to resolve. The author presents three ways to get the most out of your engagement with internal or external advisors.

According to the findings of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) latest Global Innovation Index, (GII) governments and enterprises in many parts of the world scaled up investments in innovation, demonstrating an acknowledgement that new ideas are critical for overcoming the pandemic.

“We expected a harsh slump in 2020 of around 3 per cent, however, the GII shows there are reasons to be optimistic… with governments showing foresight and not cutting spending,” Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, WIPO Composite Indicator Research Section and GII co-editor, said at the launch of the report in Geneva.

Image: ADB/Tengo Giorbelidze A research scientist in Georgia works on COVID-19-related experiments.

It’s infrastructure month. Congressional negotiators are deep in budget negotiations, trying to figure out how much of the Biden social and climate infrastructure proposals they can fit into a reconciliation bill. Democrats argue that we finally have a chance to bring the United States into line with other advanced developed economies: providing the infrastructure necessary to allow caregivers to work and contribute their skills and talent to the economy while also ensuring that our children thrive, our seniors live with dignity and autonomy, and those who are sick in body or mind or less abled get the care they need. Republicans worry about deficits, inflation, and dependence on the government.

Every new business dreams of becoming the premier brand in their space, like Starbucks is to coffee, and Apple is to consumer electronics, but they have no idea how difficult that is to achieve. In fact, only 100 of the 10,000 multimillion-dollar consumer companies around the world can claim to be an “apostle brand” – one that inspires enduring trust, loyalty, and endorsement.

When you think of boards, whether it's a board of advisors or a board of directors, you think of big companies. The prevailing wisdom is that boards are for large, established companies. But how did they get big and established? 

Most entrepreneurs have big aspirations for their company, yet every entrepreneur will have seasons of struggle along the way. Statistics show that many companies don't make it longer than five years, and one of those reasons is that they don’t get enough good advice.

Agriculture is Nebraska's top industry, so it makes sense that startup companies will turn up with the goal to solve problems and make operations more efficient.

However, the companies starting out in the ag-tech industry in Nebraska and throughout the Midwest often have been hampered by a lack of investors willing to take a chance on them.

Image: Birds Eye Robotics co-founder Scott Niewohner speaks about his experience within the Combine Incubator Program. COURTESY PHOTO

In my years of working with entrepreneurs, I have heard many times the promise that their new idea will create the next Amazon or Apple, but I rarely hear the more important promise that the founder will practice all the good habits of winning entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. You see, I’m convinced that the entrepreneur makes the company, not the other way around.

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More than 15 million US workers—and counting—have quit their jobs since April 2021, a record pace disrupting businesses everywhere. Companies are struggling to address the problem, and many will continue to struggle for one simple reason: they don’t really understand why their employees are leaving in the first place. Rather than take the time to investigate the true causes of attrition, many companies are jumping to well-intentioned quick fixes that fall flat: for example, they’re bumping up pay or financial perks, like offering “thank you” bonuses without making any effort to strengthen the relational ties people have with their colleagues and their employers. The result? Rather than sensing appreciation, employees sense a transaction. This transactional relationship reminds them that their real needs aren’t being met.

Concerns that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and automation could wipe out wide swaths of American jobs aren’t backed up by data, according to a Sept. 13 report released by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The report examines decades’ worth of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics across 10 industries—construction, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, wholesale trade, financial activities, information, education and health services, and manufacturing. The report found rates of job loss in each industry were lower in the third quarter of 2020 than in 1995.

Scientists and engineers are still toiling in labs in a race to develop quantum computers that would significantly outperform traditional computers.

But that isn't holding venture capitalists back. They're pouring record-high funding into work on computing power that is still considered years away from being ready.

Investors have invested $1.02 billion into quantum computing companies so far this year. That's more than was funneled into the industry during the previous three years combined, according to PitchBook data.

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There’s no question that working with a diverse group can be more challenging than contributing to a more homogenous one. There are more opportunities for misunderstanding and conflict, especially in times when personal, professional, and societal tensions are running high. However, these hurdles are easily overcome with intentional leadership and teamwork. Start by establishing team norms that set the stage for psychological safety before stressful events occur. Work to find deeper connections through which you share and learn. Talk through challenges rather than ignoring them. And, finally, work to spread the culture through your organization.

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For 2021, the BHCR held onto the fourth-place position behind New York/ New Jersey, San Francisco Bay Area, and the greater Boston area. The latest ranking was revealed at the seventh annual BioHealth Innovation Forum. The region held onto the coveted spot for multiple reasons, including significant funding from the National Institutes of Health, available wet lab space, and patent strength protecting intellectual property.

Pete Brisbane, Executive Managing Director JLL, Mid-Atlantic Life Sciences Practice, said that as a cluster, the BHCR is doing “fantastically well” and will only improve over the next two years. In fact, Brisbane predicted that by 2023, the BHCR could overtake the New Jersey/ New York biopharma cluster in the number three spot based on increased venture capital funding, new wet lab space, and the fact that “the region will thrive as early-stage companies become commercial companies.”

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Welcome to Philadelphia's bright and bold innovation ecosystem.

Philadelphia's startup scene is unique in that the region has generated more enterprise tech firms than consumer-facing companies, but is not without its B2C unicorns like Gopuff. In addition to these, dozens of local colleges and universities are spinning out companies and educating the next generation of leaders, and the region's accelerators and incubators are taking startups to the next levels of funding, customer acquisition and growth.

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Risk comes with any business venture, but in the case of innovation, often the drive to create something entirely new overwhelms any fear that founders might face on starting down the entrepreneurial path.

Nikola Tesla's words get at the core of the "why" for innovators, who forge ahead with an idea, invention, or business despite the risk involved.

Code snobs are going to hate me for this, but no matter what they tell you when they're looking down their nose at people like me who make a living selling the products they build, you can be an entrepreneur without being a programmer.

No-code platforms have rewritten what it means to be a startup founder, and they've leveled the playing field in an entirely new way. No-code development has been around for a while. I've seen it change the way people think about what is possible to create and how easy or difficult it should be to build out an idea.