1. Open those windows! Air filtration and ventilation is critical, according to a recent 60-page report from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This can be as simple as opening the windows, or, in windowless spaces, turning on fans and air purifiers in classrooms.

Four months after an unprecedented pandemic struck the Midwest, partners from more than a dozen startups, established businesses and universities are set to pitch their solutions for developing and deploying emerging technologies to fight Coronavirus.

Image: Brendan Waters and Jon Ruiz, EB Systems

Deloitte’s third edition of the “State of AI in the Enterprise” survey, conducted between Oct. and Dec. 2019, finds businesses are entering a new chapter in AI implementation where early adopters may have to work harder to preserve an edge over their industry peers. The study shows that companies at the top will be those that utilize AI to pursue creative and novel applications, actively address inherent AI risks and — as more organizations buy AI-powered capabilities — become smarter consumers of AI technology.

The decision by other investors to pull back new investments or take a wait-and-see approach during the pandemic isn’t just aiding Capital Innovators' accelerator program. The pandemic also has boosted its Series A investing.

Image: Brian Dixon, managing director and chief operating officer of Capital Innovators. DILIP VISHWANAT | SLBJ

Fourteen businesses in New Jersey’s technology, life sciences, and clean energy sectors received a combined $12.3 million from 50 investments approved through the state’s Angel Investor Tax Credit Program during the first half of 2020, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) announced yesterday. Two of the approved companies benefited from legislation signed by Gov. Phil Murphy last year expanding the program.

A bipartisan bill called The Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act has been introduced into the Senate that would allow small businesses who received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of $150,000 or less to obtain automatic forgiveness after submitting a one-page attestation form. The attestation form would be limited to one-page, and the small business would simply attest that the loan is eligible for forgiveness and that the business complied with the requirements of the Paycheck Protection Program found in the CARES Act.

“Our three-year transformation towards a more participative organisation helped us to overcome this,” shared the CEO of the Brussels-region governmental employment agency regarding the Covid-19 crisis.

Experience told us that self-managed organisations should be well-positioned to handle upheaval. They rely heavily on employees’ initiative, entrusting them and nurturing their autonomy and responsibility – key features of any resilient organisation.

Image: https://knowledge.insead.edu

Earlier today, following a lawsuit filed by MIT and Harvard University, the federal government rescinded a policy that would have prevented potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign students from studying in the U.S. this fall if classes were taught remotely.

“Yet the larger battle is far from over,” MIT President L. Rafael Reif writes in an op-ed published this evening by The New York Times. “This misguided policy was one of many signals that the administration wants foreign students to stay away — an attitude that reflects a stark misreading of our national interest.”

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- JumpStart Inc., the entrepreneurial support organization in Cleveland, has updated its business model every handful of years since opening in 2004. That’s what entrepreneurs do, right?

In the midst of a pandemic and a major rewrite of its strategic plan, the organization last week acknowledged that it had laid off 12 employees — a first in its history.

Image: https://www.cleveland.com

HOUSTON and NEW YORK, June 18, 2020—The Gulf Coast & Southwest Resilience Innovation Hub’s creation was announced today by the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and ResilientH20 Partners and will be a key part of the Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative.

The Resilience Innovation Hub will allow private and public sector entities to collaborate and bring-to-market resilience and flood mitigation technologies. Moreover, the Hub will connect investors with governments and academic institutions while also highlighting pre-disaster mitigation success stories through a resilience portfolio and technology showcase program. 

The Innovation Hub is opening effective today at the Cannon’s downtown Houston Cannon Tower, a venue which already houses workspaces where entrepreneurs gather as their ventures develop. The locale, also the headquarters for ResilientH20 Partners, is at 1801 Main Street, Suite 1300, Houston, Texas 77002. The Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative is aimed at reducing the impact of extreme weather events and building more resilient communities through insurance.

American consumers are crowding back into stores, restaurants and other places of business as states ease pandemic-related restrictions that strangled the economy for months. But a full return to normal isn’t likely to happen until November 2021, according to Ezekiel (Zeke) Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton professor of health care management.

Reforming retirement systems is a more urgent imperative globally as the coronavirus pandemic claims jobs, lowers economic growth and investment returns, and threatens to choke funding for already underfunded pension plans. The pandemic is also hastening the imminent insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund in the U.S., a recent report by the Penn Wharton Budget Model has found. In two recession scenarios the report laid out, the trust fund would run out of money in 2032 or 2034 – between two to four years earlier than pre-pandemic projections.

The technology sector has been a high-performing group, experiencing record gains in 2020 thus far.

With our new virtual reality accompanied by a surge in online activity, e-commerce and software development are seeing aggressive growth.

Consumer and business spending in these areas has beefed up tech stock price targets and increased shares, reaching new highs.

2020 has been an unprecedented year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, with radical changes in the way tech companies do business coupled with economic disruption that arguably is unrivaled since the Great Depression — and venture capital hasn’t been completely spared either.

The VC industry was disrupted in the second quarter as predicted, but the good news is that the results were not nearly as bad as they could have been, according to the quarterly PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report released early Tuesday.

VC deals to US-based, VC-backed companies see quarterly increase but are down 18% YoY in Q2’20

Deal activity sees 3% quarterly rise in Q2’20: 1,374 US deals take place in Q2’20, up from 1,336 in Q1’20. Despite the quarterly increase, Q2’20 deals fall 18% YoY. US-based, VC-backed companies raise $26.9bn in Q2’20, down less than 1% from Q1’20. YTD funding and deal activity decline 7% and 16% YoY, respectively.

Number of quarterly mega-rounds hits a new record: 69 companies raise rounds worth $100m or more in Q2’20, while mega-round deal share is relatively flat at 45%.

IPO exits jump while M&A activity falls in the pandemic:After three quarters of declines, 24 US-based, VC-backed companies exit in IPOs in Q2’20, up from 15 in Q1’20. On the other hand, M&A activity sees sharp declines, falling to 120 exits in Q2’20 vs. 155 in Q1’20.

Unicorn births decline for fourth consecutive quarter: There are 11 new US VC-backed private companies valued at $1bn+ in Q2’20. The total number of unicorns reaches 209 in Q2’20.

Joe Biden has raised the ambitions of his climate plan, in a clear sign his campaign is responding to demands for greater action among the progressive flank of his party.

In a speech on Tuesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president announced proposals to spend $2 trillion on clean-energy projects and eliminate carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2035, stepping up his primary targets in an effort to revive the economy and combat climate change.

Image: ASSOCIATED PRESS - https://www.technologyreview.com

The best innovators “walk the talk”, use their company’s size to good effect and constantly fine-tune their innovation systems for success.

That’s according to Boston Consulting Group, which has just released The Most Innovative Companies 2020: The Serial Innovation Imperative study, ranking the world’s 50 most innovative companies.

When I worked in manufacturing, we worked tirelessly to reduce job changeover time.

Like a Nascar pit crew--the analogy productivity consultants always used--we hunted for 10 seconds here, 20 seconds there...incremental improvements that would hopefully add up to meaningful gains.

Then, one day an operator said, "Instead of trying to find ways to shave off a minute...what if we pretend we can't shut down at all between jobs, and work from there?"

That simple perspective shift completely changed our approach to solving the problem--and while we never got to zero, we got really close, really fast. 

BOULDER — Startup accelerator Techstars is kicking off a campaign to raise $100 million for investment for its cohort companies next year.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday, the Boulder-based accelerator has yet to receive any investment in the venture fund.

Techstars run multiple industry and geographically specific accelerator programs across the world, including the latest edition of its Boulder program. Applications for that accelerator open on July 20, with the program kicking off in late January 2021 and ending on April 22 that year.

From bioluminescent testing kits to disinfecting robots, Horizon examines six innovations and technologies currently being developed to tackle the coronavirus.

1. Coronavirus-popping surface coating

An anti-microbial coating that destroys the coronavirus on impact could help to decontaminate commonly used surfaces, according to scientists from the UK. The coating, which can be dipped or sprayed on to surfaces such as touch screens and lift buttons, is made of synthetic antimicrobial peptides (mini-proteins), which pop the outer lipid membrane of the virus, effectively killing it.

Image: Single-patient isolation pods can help protect air ambulance crews from infection, allowing coronavirus patients to be transported to areas with higher intensive care capacity. Image credit - EpiGuard