The National Innovation Council (NInC) has asked all State Governments to set up State Innovation Councils to drive innovations in their respective states.

An official press release said there had been a positive response from several State Governments in this regard.

Similarly, the NInC has also urged Central Ministries to set up autonomous sectoral innovation councils to drive innovaions and competitive advantage in multiple sectors.

These councils will co-opt domain experts and other stakeholders to prepare a roadmap for innovations for the next decade for identified sectors, the release said.

At universities, we are used to the traditional metrics we continually apply to ourselves, including number of graduates per year, number of published papers, number of research contracts and so on. One thing we tend not to do is view ourselves from the outside and ask the people we serve how they judge us.

While academic reputation is of interest to many, of more interest are measurable standards such as the number of students getting a job upon graduation, the number of them who create new businesses in our state, the number who become local and business leaders, and the beneficial impact of our research programs on the state and the nation.

As promised, Netflix has published its rankings of the fastest Internet service providers in the United States, based on the average video streaming speeds its users have been able to obtain.

Cable companies are the clear winners, including Charter on top and Comcast next. Verizon, notably, is in the middle of the pack. So is AT&T. That's NOT because FiOS and U-Verse aren't fast, but because both telcos still sell slower DSL to millions of people in areas without FiOS or U-Verse.

Clearwire, a wireless company, comes in last. No surprise there.

The European Union is considering an ambitious plan to help business start-ups find financing, EurActiv has learned. Within two years, the EU wants to ensure that venture capital funds established in any member state can function and invest freely throughout the bloc by adopting a new legislative regime.

Policymakers also want to test the feasibility of an online platform for matching offers and requests for venture capital within the Enterprise Europe Network, according to a draft of the Small Business Act review, obtained by EurActiv.

Building on the foundation of the well-known BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- a new set of up-and-coming emerging markets is gaining attention. The so-called "CIVETS" countries -- Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa -- are now touted as hot markets because they have diverse economies, fast-growing populations, relatively stable political environments and the potential to produce outsized returns in the future.

Far-flung geographically and shaped by vastly different cultural, religious and political structures, the CIVETS show the potential to develop rapidly and reward those willing to take on emerging market risk beyond the more-established BRIC countries, experts say.

We thought we'd kick off the year with a look at some of the trends currently shaping the movement. What follows is the culmination of a series of interviews with a diverse group of experts. Each trend also links to a longer Q&A with the expert, where you can read more about their thoughts for this year in social entrepreneurship. Here is what to look for in the field in 2011:

1. More Creative Funding Solutions for Social Entrepreneurs

It is important to look at creative funding solutions, says Sasha Dichter of Acumen Fund. Social enterprises are getting more resourceful in the way that they are going after funding, and some of the most successful enterprises are those that are utilizing a combination of different sources of capital – from seed funding and impact investments, to government grants and fundraising from corporate donors. Social enterprises cannot expect to be carried by one source of funding anymore, and need to look at different ways of blending capital to create the largest social impact.

Entrepreneur may be a French word, but Quebec is no leader when it comes to starting new businesses.

This province’s rate of entrepreneurship is well below the Canadian average, and slipping, figures from Quebec’s economic development ministry show. The rate of entrepreneurship in the province is 2.9 per cent, down from 3.4 per cent in 1987. The rate is also well below the Canadian average; only 6.9 per cent of those surveyed recently plan to start a business during their lifetime, compared with the Canadian average of 11.2 per cent.

The provincial government will outline a new policy to promote entrepreneurship in the coming months. Alain Paquet, the MNA for Laval-des-Rapides, is the co-president of a National Assembly committee working on the new policy. He said it’s crucial to stem the tide because within the next seven years, 30 per cent of all entrepreneurs will probably retire, which is double the rate of new entrepreneurs entering the marketplace.

Philadelphia-based startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures recently announced plans to open an office in New York City. Now it’s revealed who’s going to be running it — entrepreneur and investor Mark Wachen.

Managing partner Kerry Rupp said that DreamIt’s four Philadelphia partners will all be involved in choosing the NYC companies and hope to be in New York at least once a week, but they also knew they needed a full-time presence in the city. Wachen, meanwhile, is a successful entrepreneur (he sold his startup Optimost to Interwoven in 2007 for $52 million), an early-stage investor through Upstage Ventures (he invested in DreamIt alumnus SeatGeek), and a lifelong New Yorker (he said the only time he moved out of the city was to go to college and graduate school).

Now more than ever, North Carolina’s future depends on our ability to create and adopt new products, services and business models that yield value.

That’s “innovation,” and our state’s private and public leaders, our people and organizations, must commit to making it happen here each and every day.

Our economic development and quality of life, which are intertwined with dynamic global forces, depend on it.

Recognizing that North Carolina must stay on the cutting edge of innovation in order to remain globally competitive, in November 2009 Governor Beverly Perdue formed, via Executive Order number 29 the North Carolina Innovation Council.

Failure sucks. Nobody wants to fail.

But in the startup world, most people are doing just that. I’m not sure I’ve read much about “how” to fail, since failure is so depressing and negative.

But I’m here to tell you that there is a good way to fail and that there are steps for positively managing the aftermath. I’ve seen it done well, I’ve seen it done poorly and I’ve done it myself, so I certainly have some well-formed views on the topic.

Even with unemployment lingering at 9%, there are industries that are rapidly increasing their hiring rates. Online training company, Mindflash.com compiled data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sources, to compile a list of industries hiring in 2011.

And not surprisingly, almost all of them relate to technology.

So if you're unemployed, or need a career change, look to one of these industries in 2011.

TOKYO — Kenichi Horie was a promising auto engineer, exactly the sort of youthful talent Japan needs to maintain its edge over hungry Korean and Chinese rivals. As a worker in his early 30s at a major carmaker, Mr. Horie won praise for his design work on advanced biofuel systems.

But like many young Japanese, he was a so-called irregular worker, kept on a temporary staff contract with little of the job security and half the salary of the “regular” employees, most of them workers in their late 40s or older. After more than a decade of trying to gain regular status, Mr. Horie finally quit — not just the temporary jobs, but Japan altogether.

As if one needed another affirmation of how awesome it is to work for Google.

Its new London offices, a 40,000-square-foot space designed by Scott Brownrigg Interior Design, features a gym, massage room, and Asian-fusion restaurant. (And, like the offices of Twitter, Eames chairs!)

Officially decorated in a "London-Brighton" theme, this is clearly a place that embraces the comingling of work and play.

Even when you're the number one company in the world, you can never relax. Businesses need to market themselves constantly and reinvent themselves every few years. This keeps them fresh and helps them maintain their great stature.

We checked out the evolution of some of today's most prominent brands to see how they've revamped over the years. Some of the original logos aren't even recognizable.

They call it New Space, a commercial effort to send people into space as tourists. Entrepreneurs are creating startups that are flying tourists into space, for a fee. One of the companies doing so is Virgin Galactic, a startup funded by billionaire Richard Branson of the Virgin Group.

We caught up with George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, at the recent Digital Life Design conference in Munich. He thinks that as early as next year he can send you up into space and experience weightlessness and see the Earth from a unique point of view.

Venture Capitalists are increasingly optimistic about the immediate future of investing in Silicon Valley. Their confidence registered 3.75 on a 5 point scale, with 5 indicating high confidence and 1 indicating low confidence, according to the quarterly Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index released today.

The index polled 35 San Francisco Bay Area venture capitalists in December 2010 about how they viewed the high-growth venture entrepreneurial environment in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next 6-18 months.

It found that confidence had ticked up slightly to 3.75 from 3.70 a quarter earlier, as VCs continue to see promise in an improving exit environment and steadily rising public capital markets.

It was 1956, and Joseph Mancuso had a plan. He purchased a large, abandoned manufacturing building and decided to try something different. What he created became the first business incubator.

Tenants received office space, and they had other professionals to bounce ideas off of. The place offered a unique atmosphere that helped promote startup and growth. He referred to the Batavia Industrial Center as an “incubator” because he saw some newly hatched chicks running around the place one day.

According to The New York Times, the number of “incubators” available to startups has grown tremendously over the years, reaching approximately 1,200.

More and more companies are engaging interns as an efficient and economical resource for expanding their bandwidth, injecting enthusiasm, and as a way of “giving back” to their community.

However, it seems many employers – in the eyes of the intern, anyway – aren’t making the cut when it comes to providing a rewarding internship experience; the intern leaves unfulfilled. In today’s “everybody knows everyone” world of social media, this often comes back to haunt these employers.

As our partners at Intern Bridge state, 94% of interns will vocalize their experiences through friends and social networking. So, it may be worth a little time to evaluate your internship program – and figure out if your company sucks.

The medical device industry is touting a study it says debunks the Food & Drug Administration’s claims that there’s a safety benefit from the slower, more rigorous regulatory process in the U.S.

The conclusions are based on a new study, paid for by the Advanced Medical Technology Assn., that compares four years of recall data from U.S. and EU regulatory bodies.

The study, “EU Medical Device Approval Safety Assessment,” conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, matched four years of medical device recall data for the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland and compared it with similar U.S. data. The report’s authors conclude that there is no material difference between the regulatory regimes in the U.S. and Europe, from a safety perspective.