Startup ecosystems are the key to growing a vibrant regional economy. Time and time again, these clusters of talent and science drive job creation, new business formation, and attract investment capital. Ultimately, these are the elusive ingredients that lead to greater prosperity and equity in our communities. The Amazon HQ2 opportunity was a wakeup call for many business and civic leaders. Despite all the applications from smaller and mid-size cities, Amazon chose to invest in two metro superstars: New York and Washington, D.C (and the company wound up pulling out of plans for the New York headquarters). That result was an indication that the traditional economic development strategy of deploying taxpayer dollars as subsidies and incentives in exchange for corporate relocations is a waste and needs to be replaced by an intensive focus on public investment in startup ecosystem infrastructure.

The European Union’s new innovation chief wants to “revitalise” efforts to create a real single market for research, education and innovation, bridging the performance gap between eastern and western Europe.

In an interview with Science|Business, Mariya Gabriel, the new commissioner for research, innovation, education culture and youth, laid out her plans for R&D policy in the next five years.

Image: https://sciencebusiness.net

Commitment to gender parity at the senior level in companies has been on the rise, and we are starting to see results. The average C-suite has 24 percent more women than in 2015. The share of open roles going to women is rising, through either promotions or hiring.

That progress engenders more progress: C-suite members have an outsize impact on promoting diversity and inclusion in their companies. They also are visible role models to other women coming up the ranks.

Image: https://www.mckinsey.com/

It’s the new year and we still have a few minutes to think about strategy. Soon enough we’ll be in the middle of projects and daily crises. Before that happens, consider adding these three tasks to your annual plan. We promise your incentive program will be better off as a result.   

12. Automation Anywhere $290.0M Round: Series B Month of Funding: November Description: Automation Anywhere is an enterprise-grade, cognitive Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform. Founded by Ankur Kothari, Mihir Shukla, and Neeti Mehta in 2003, Automation Anywhere has now raised a total of $840.0M in total equity funding and is backed by investors that include General Atlantic, Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Salesforce Ventures, and World Innovation Lab (WiL).

Ask nearly any artist or freelance worker and they’ll tell you: the current economic paradigm — profit at all costs — isn’t working. While a few at the top of the ladder are getting increasingly wealthy, many are facing increasing displacement, economic instability and disenfranchisement.

AmbitioUS is proving to be a catalyst to change that. Launched earlier this year by the Center for Cultural Innovation and the backing of justice-oriented foundations, the group is investing heavily in entities developing new economic systems that benefit the collective, rather than just a few at the top. And they have begun with a population particularly vulnerable to economic downturns: artists.

At first, it just didn’t make sense. It was 1963, and a young research fellow at Johns Hopkins medical school was spending the summer on Cape Cod, studying blood coagulation in an animal totally unfamiliar to him – the horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, a catcher’s mitt-shaped creature with an evolutionary history stretching back nearly half a billion years.

Image: Jack Levin, MD, carrying out his early studies with horseshoe crabs in the late 1960s. Photo courtesy of Jack Levin

Visitor numbers keep setting records year after year, but core questions about tourism and the Hawai‘i economy haven’t changed for half a century: How do we hedge against economic vulnerability when tourism is our No. 1 industry? And how can we build viable, sustainable and scalable economic industries in our unique island environment that create prosperity for local people instead of for just a few heads of industry, many of them out-of-state owners?

Image: https://www.hawaiibusiness.com

Retirement is more than just leaving work. 

If you want to make sure that you'll be able to retire when you want, retirees from Business Insider's Real Retirement series have some tips from their own retirement experiences, from paying off your mortgage and other debts, to working with a financial planner.

Here are these retirees' best pieces of advice for anyone who wants to leave work someday. 

Image: Bill Davidson's advice: Own a home you can afford — he and his wife Rose moved to New Mexico to live cheaply. Courtesy of Bill Davidson

Executive insights on US- and UK-based tech companies and trending markets to watch.

For tech businesses, international expansion is an inescapable requirement of continuous growth. A survey of 1,000 U.S. and UK tech executives revealed their short- and long-term ambitions and motives for global expansion.

As we enter a new decade, we approach a world that is, and has been, developing exponentially on all fronts. Globalization, technology and social media are affecting and evolving societies and economies across the world, and things are changing rapidly. The way we do business, the way we live and the way we invest are quickly transforming. Not exempt from this epidemic of change is the investment economy. The ways we invest our money as individuals, as well as the ways that organizations find investors, are quickly changing with the times.

Recent Census population estimates show that New York suffered a bigger population decline than any other state between 2018 and 2019.

But despite that drop, New York City continues to be a thriving cosmopolitan metropolis. One example of NYC's vibrancy is the plethora of languages spoken across the five boroughs.

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey provides a picture of several demographic, economic, and social characteristics of the US population. One of the questions on the survey asks respondents what language they mainly speak at home.

Image: The first wave of runners making their way across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge during the start of the New York City Marathon. Reuters//Lucas Jackson 

While everyone overthinks certain situations once in a while, some people are plagued with a constant barrage of thoughts all the time.

Chronic overthinkers rehash conversations they had yesterday, second-guess every decision they make, and imagine disastrous outcomes all day every day.

Thinking too much about something often involves more than words — overthinkers conjure up disastrous images too. Their minds resemble a movie where they imagine their car going off the road or they replay distressing events over and over again.

WESTLAKE, Texas, Jan. 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Chicago team won the 10th annual MBA National Case Competition by presenting a thorough analysis and innovative solution to the business problem posed during the Competition. Team members Lauren Fish, Leslie Glotzer, Ryan Hetherington and Bill Stueben earned a combined scholarship of $20,000 for their winning presentation.

Vanderbilt University second place; Northwestern University, and University of Michigan followed in third and fourth place, respectively. The competition was held Jan. 2 through 5 at Deloitte University, Deloitte's leadership center near Dallas, Texas.

It no longer matters how big or small a brand is; a startup’s success does not hinge solely on rate of innovation, but also on the speed at which it scales, especially for founders chasing the coveted “unicorn” status. Today, the startup landscape is full of businesses that are ramping to $20 million in top-line revenue in just a matter of months. Increasingly, companies are moving forward with international expansion at earlier stages of the business lifecycle in an effort to tap into new customers and markets, gain access to suppliers, better serve domestic customers with global operations, achieve cost savings and more.

Image: https://vc-list.com

Although the rich world is enjoying a long spell of unprecedented job growth and low unemployment, competition for the most competitive roles remains fierce. Tech companies like Google and Microsoft reportedly receive two million applications per year, and banks like Goldman Sachs attract in the thousands.

In the coming year, U.S. investors will have to shift tracks as they adjust to a different set of risks and opportunities. Many of the concerns relating to the trade war with China and uncertainty over Brexit have diminished, but new ones have surfaced. Globalization is no longer about just economics, but also about national security and human rights — and it could take a 180-degree turn, potentially hurting emerging economies.

China's trade practices and strong support for its own businesses are slowing down global innovation and causing harm to technological progress, with North American and European countries being the most affected.

Those are the conclusions of a report published this week by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C. The research is part of a yearlong project that will examine the impact of China's economic rise on global technological innovation.

Samsung has offered a look a few upcoming projects from its incubation program C-Lab, including an AI software that helps you create a virtual keyboard on an empty surface. The Verge shared a video of SelfieType in action.

Image: https://www.businessinsider.com

After a red-hot 2018, private venture capital investment in early-stage biopharma and life-sciences companies cooled off this past year, notwithstanding the still-significant number of headline-grabbing nine-figure financings enjoyed by some companies. Why the decline? Experts have offered varying explanations, including financial markets still recovering from last year’s global equity sell-off, last winter’s U.S. government shutdown, and continuing trade and political tensions.