Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
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I’ve always been horrified, even as a child, by the clouds of black smoke emerging from the back of vehicles, especially diesels. As a pedestrian, a cyclist, or in a car following directly in the slipstream of a diesel vehicle, you breathe in a huge volume of this filth. In Britain alone, 34,000 people a year die from inhaling exhaust fumes.
Image: https://www.fastcompany.com - Dyson
As companies rely more and more on data, and it creeps into more parts of business, data literacy is a skill that everyone has to have now. But, evidence suggests that most companies are still struggling to build this skill, even after they’ve identified it as critically important: just a quarter of employees report feeling confident in their data skills. Here are five strategies to help companies expand their data literacy: 1) Make it an organization-wide priority, 2) develop a common language for speaking about data and talk about how it connects to your business, 3) create spaces where you connect business concepts and data concepts, 4) incentivize data-driven decision making, and 5) teach data literacy in the context of your specific business — and use tools and programs that actually engage your employees.close
Image: HBR Staff
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ave you faced the awkward prospect of having to ask someone to mask up at work? There is no denying that mask-wearing has become morally loaded, which makes this conversation particularly tricky. The author offers three suggestions for how to make the request more effective: 1) Be prepared. If you know what you are going to say in advance — instead of having to come up with something on the spot — it’s a lot easier to follow through. 2) Ask in a way that allows the other person to save face. That is, you want to affirm that you don’t think the other person is a bad person, and that you aren’t rejecting them interpersonally. In essence, your script should convey, “You’re good. We’re good. But I just need you to do this thing.” 3) Be direct. A direct request, in contrast to indirect beating around the bush, is much more effective for securing someone’s compliance.
It is time for someone to take a contrarian, positive-sum view about the current situation regarding United States-China science and technology (S&T) cooperation and academic exchanges.
The S&T cooperation and educational and scholarly exchanges components of the US-China relationship were first consummated during the 1978-79 period as China was just re-opening to the outside world. Early exchanges were limited in number as were the numbers of Chinese students and scholars coming to the US.
As a business advisor, one of the most disheartening things I see in business today is a serious lack of engagement at all levels, consistent with Gallup’s global engagement survey from a while back, finding only 13 percent of workers fully engaged in their job. I see people walking around every day like zombies in a trance. The sad part is that is seems to be getting worse, rather than better.
The allure of being your own boss — of making the rules and reaping the rewards — can be a siren song. The reality is, of course, that a daunting number of new enterprises fail within a few short years (20% in the first year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and just under 92% overall, according to a 2019 Startup Genome report).
I know how it feels to strike out on your own, full of enthusiasm, only to find yourself back at square one in relatively short order, and for too many, new businesses achieve just a modicum of success before the wheels fall off. I made myself a millionaire twice, then lost it all, before I finally found the answers. Now I live the life I’ve always wanted, free of the fear that it could all be taken from me.
If you’ve seen the before-and-after photos of U.S. presidents, you know that job stress likely causes gray hair. Modern presidents from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush to Barack Obama have entered Pennsylvania Avenue with dark heads of hair only to depart in haloes of gray. But the connection to stress had not been proven in a lab, due to the difficulty of correlating moments of stress with hair pigmentation.
April is National Stress Awareness Month–but you probably didn’t need the official permission to become aware that you’re overworked. In fact, 65% of professionals blame their workplace as a constant source of angst, according to the American Institute of Stress. Though you know the feeling all too well, your body actually shows signs of stress, too. From how you physically react to intense conversations to the function of your mind and the beat of your heart, when you aren’t finding enough zen, it’ll show. Here, medical professionals reveal these signals of stress–and share the most effective ways to manage and move forward:
Image: elizabeth lies/Unsplash
The U.S. government’s announcement that it is investing $3 billion into research on antiviral medicines for Covid-19 is a step in the right direction and comes at a critical moment in the pandemic — though earlier, of course, would have been better.
But based on my experience with drug development, in particular with antivirals, in both government and the private sector, I know that the process takes longer and is more expensive than anyone ever anticipates. I believe that $3 billion in federal funds is not nearly enough, and that at least $10 billion in clinical research funding is needed to discover and develop the new antiviral medicines that patients desperately need and that physicians have been asking for since the start of the pandemic.
When England beat Germany 2-0 in a June 2021 European Championship match, it was a major upset. But in the Washington Post, sports writers Karla Adam and Loveday Morris suggested that there was more at work than just luck. “England views Germany as one of its biggest rivals,” they wrote. “But it doesn’t apply so much the other way around, with German fans focused on other more tightly fought European rivalries.”
As covid-19 infections have skyrocketed across much of the United States, largely driven by the highly contagious delta variant, so have demands for access to testing, including at-home test kits that can answer the urgent question, “Do I have the coronavirus” within a matter of minutes.
In recent weeks, Google searches for “home coronavirus test” and related queries have sharply risen, closely mirroring the surge in cases, including some breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people, that have prompted many Americans to return to wearing masks and following pandemic-related restrictions.
Entrepreneurship isn’t an easy or simple profession, but as with any field, there are basic principles that govern success. The most fundamental truth in entrepreneurship is this: find a problem and be the solution. If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, your business must fill a gap, solve an issue, or provide a product that didn’t previously exist.
Image: Mitigate Partners act as the problem-solvers, consulting with businesses on employee benefits, risk management, and cost containment.
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ne thing is certain in any business – not everyone you have to deal with will be like you, or will like you (and vice versa). These people may include one of your business partners, an investor, a key vendor, or even one of your best customers. In my role as a business advisor, I see more and more how business people must bridge these differences to accomplish shared business goals.
Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com
You’ve seen the image. Someone is sitting at her desk. Or in an airline terminal. And around her head is a gigantic, gray pillow. Not behind her head, but stuffed over it. The pillow covers her ears and eyes in an upholstered LMTFA to the world around her.
This is the original Ostrichpillow, a $100 beanbag chair that you wear on your head. The concept was born at the Spanish design firm Studio Banana in 2012, as the design team was considering how people could nap at work without a dedicated nap area.
Image: Ostrichpillow
Last Friday, East Liberty-headquartered language learning company Duolingo hosted the third annual Duocon, a free, virtual, prerecorded conference providing updates on the company’s business strategy and product features, as well as more social events like this year’s baking class with Sohla El-Waylly.
Like past conferences, Duocon 2021 featured talks that shared a wide range of perspectives on the human connections language can provide, and the important of learning different ones because of that.
Image: Luis von Ahn at Duocon 2021. (Screenshot vis YouTube)
In 1999, the first camera-enabled mobile phone was launched in Japan. It could store up to 20 images. Now 350 million photos are uploaded every day on Facebook alone. The average person uses about 30 apps every month. For better or for worse, tech is fully embedded in our lives.
In a recent podcast, Alixandra Barasch, a Visiting Associate Professor of Marketing at INSEAD, shared insights on how everyday technologies, and namely our phone apps, are reshaping consumers’ well-being.
Image: https://knowledge.insead.edu
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, August 23, 2021 – BioHealth Innovation Inc. (BHI) announces the addition of Diane Ignar, Ph.D., and Dr. Loleta Robinson to the expanding Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) team. The Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program at BHI ensures that disruptive technologies receive all the resources required to transform the technology from a discovery into a commercially relevant product and eventually have a measurable impact on human health. The program was created to support scientists, early-stage startups, and licensed technologies to provide them with access to these resources. Diane will work with NIH’s National Institute on Aging, and Loleta will work with their Office of Extramural Research.
Image: https://biobuzz.io/
A Rp 50 billion (US$3.4 million) minimum capital requirement imposed by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) has proven to be a tall order for many venture capital companies (VCs) in Indonesia and is one of several regulatory problems believed to be holding back investors from putting money into the country’s burgeoning digital economy.
Image: Apps of Indonesia's six unicorns are displayed on a screen on Aug. 3, 2021. The six are ride-hailing company Gojek, e-wallet OVO, online travel agency Traveloka, logistics company J&T Express as well as e-commerce platforms Tokopedia and Bukalapak.(JP/Norman Harsono) This article was published in thejakartapost.com with the title "Indonesia’s venture capital progress hinges on new rules".
The pandemic has given many organizations an unexpected crash course in digitalization. While much progress has been made — from hardware and infrastructure to updated work processes and a rejuvenated corporate culture — many organizations are confronting the question of how to integrate fragmented and often makeshift digitalization efforts in a way that’s sustainable.
