FRANKFORT, Ky. — An elite $4 million grant received by the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, Commonwealth Commercialization Center (C3) and the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development demonstrates the power of partnership while paving the way to bring dozens of new med-tech and health-related companies to life across the state in the coming years.

While living in one of America's major cities like New York, Los Angeles, or Miami may sound glamorous, it's no secret that the lifestyle in those places can be difficult. Long work hours, tedious commutes, and a high cost of living can take a toll on residents.

Some of the best places to live in the US are actually places you might not expect, according to data from personal finance website MagnifyMoney.

Founded approximately eight years ago, GoFundMe is among the leading crowdfunding options for individuals looking to raise money for themselves or others for everything from life events to challenging circumstances. Other websites, such as Kickstarter, are more popular among those looking to raise funds for a business. GoFundMe is available to individuals and smaller entities who do not necessarily have access to large donors. A fundraiser might be for someone who is undergoing a medical procedure or treatment and cannot afford the cost, to help cover the cost of a birthday party for an underprivileged child, or to contribute to the funeral costs for a sudden and unexpected death. People can turn to family and friends, and even strangers, to raise much-needed funds. This is quite a valiant effort, one often met with tremendous success given the social media platforms available today, including FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube and others.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Flu season is here, and while most people try to avoid getting sick, some have volunteered to get paid to get the virus.

A number of participants are taking part in a nationwide study happening at four research units, including the University of Maryland.

For just over $3,000, 80 participants will be infected with the virus and have their symptoms monitored.

Scientists are trying to better understand how the flu virus works and how to control it.

The Quebec Immigrant Investor Program, which allows investors to obtain Canadian permanent residence with a $1.2 million investment, has been suspended until July 1, 2020. 

The suspension takes effect Friday, November 1, 2019.

Quebec’s Immigration Minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, attributed the suspension to the fact nearly 20,000 applications for permanent residence through the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program have yet to be processed.

Album VC, a Lehi, Utah-based early-stage venture firm that’s been known until now as Peak Ventures, just gathered up $75 million in capital commitments for its third early-stage fund.

The development shows investor confidence in Album’s young team, which came together in 2014 after the founder of Zinch — a site connecting colleges and students that sold to the ed-tech company Chegg in 2011 — decided to try his hand at investing in other startups.

Image: https://techcrunch.com

A new age of education

From the events handed down to us by history, we learn that the tension for education grows as phenomena that upset the routine come to light. In times marked by one or more innovations that transform the economic and social landscape, new schools are opening up: those that the Bohemian John Amos Comenius, visionary reformer of education, had in mind in the thirties of the seventeenth century. Professor David Smith, researcher and teacher trainer, argues that Comenius believed that learning should resemble gardening and proposed that joy, piety and harmony were central to the education of children.

Medtech is revolutionising healthcare, and the deep-rooted supports buried beneath Ireland’s west coast are keeping it ahead of the curve.

Medtech is widely recognised as the logical next step in healthcare, promising to enable better lifestyles and outcomes for patients through harnessing data and technology innovation.

Ireland is the largest employer of medtech professionals worldwide with 350 companies employing more than 38,000 people here, according to the Irish Medtech Association. We export more than €12.6bn in the industry annually. Per capita, Ireland also employs the highest number of medtech personnel in Europe.

CORTLAND, Ohio (WYTV) – It was a night of jazz music and friendly competition at the first-ever Pizza War in Cortland!

The Lakeview High School Entrepreneurship Class hosted the event on Tuesday.

All of Cortland’s pizza shops we’re invited to participate.

“Celebrity” judges included Cortland Mayor James Woofter, teachers and students, who taste-tested the pies and voted for their favorite.

All proceeds benefit the class, which teaches students how to run a business from the ground up.

I recently participated in a workshop by Steven Rogelberg, author of “The Surprising Science of Meetings,” and found his insights eye-opening and actionable. The most significant were that as a leader you are likely to host rather than just attend meetings, so you need to remember that you are the steward of other people’s time. This means you have to commit to become an intentional leader, set the tone and be open to feedback on the way you lead meetings.

Rutgers is among five sites around the country designated as a National Institutes of Health’s Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) to speed up the commercialization of biomedical discoveries into viable diagnostics, devices, and therapeutics, improve patient care, enhance health and train the next generation of innovators.

Image: Eileen White (left), Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry with postdoctoral fellow Akshada Sawant at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, one of the centers and institutes that will work to identify innovative health-related technologies for possible commercialization. Photo: Robert Essel

One of the guests at the announcement Wednesday of the University of Michigan Innovation Center in Detroit gushed to me that the U-M project was the biggest thing for Detroit since the assembly line.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But maybe not so far wrong if the U-M project delivers everything that Mayor Mike Duggan and billionaire backers Dan Gilbert and Stephen Ross promise. 

When the initial piece opens in about four years, U-M's Detroit Center for Innovation will create a mini-campus for about 1,000 U-M graduate students working in tech fields like artificial intelligence, mobility, data science and cybersecurity.

Image: Rendering shows the planned University of Michigan Detroit Center for Innovation to rise on the east side of downtown Detroit. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Some call it advancing their careers, others say seeking purpose. A growing number of people across all age groups believe they should change jobs every few years for better pay, promotions or to develop new skills, according to a 2018 survey by Robert Half, a global recruitment firm. And it’s far from a phenomenon dominated by millennials.  Many older workers are leaving established careers to take the leap into new ones; one famous example is Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway, who left behind three decades of journalism to become a teacher at the age of 57.

The second annual Biohealth Capital Region Investment Conference attracted 108 companies and 47 participating investors—both conference records—and has already resulted in an investment deal for Gaithersburg’s MiRecule, an early-stage biotech focused on microRNA-based cancer therapy development.

The conference, which was held at AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg on October 15 and 16, was designed to increase the concentration of venture capital opportunities within the region’s ecosystem. BioHealth Innovation (BHI), J.P. Morgan, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR), Deloitte, AstraZeneca, NIST and The Maryland Department of Commerce all played critical roles in the conference’s success. 

“The economic success of our state is tied to the success of Detroit. It’s our largest city and it plays an important role in Michigan’s economic well-being. This new Detroit Center for Innovation will benefit not just Detroit, and the region – but also the entire state of Michigan.”

~ University of Michigan Regent Chair Ron Weiser, Ann Arbor

“The new Detroit Center for Innovation will help cement the university’s relationship with the city, and I’m excited to see the university continue to grow its presence in Detroit. The city of Detroit’s success is important not just to the state of Michigan, but to the University of Michigan as well.”

Spotting patterns, trends, and formulas make our work (and life) easier. But I never thought I'd see someone unlocking the formula for the hardest job of all — raising super-successful children.

Harvard professor Ronald Ferguson, author of "The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children," recently told the Harvard Gazette he's done exactly that.

As sure as the tides rise and fall, the next recession will spur many companies to cut their prices indiscriminately. During the last recession, producer prices fell by nearly 8% and took nearly two years to recover. Why? Executives often assume that slashing prices and profit margins is the only way to keep their customers and market share. Salespeople, desperate to make their quota, fail to hold the line on discounting, and companies want to maximize their use of assets even when demand softens.

By default, every one of you who owns a business or manages a team has the title of leader, but in my consulting experience, I find that just having the title doesn’t make most of us a leader. I also find that leaders are made, not born, meaning that we all can grow into leadership, if we learn from experience. I find also that if you fail as a leader, your team will likely fail with you.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job in television. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school multiple times, and Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school’s varsity basketball team.

Stories like these fuel motivational mantras about learning from failure and coming out stronger on the other side. But little research has been done to support these anecdotes, and even less has examined the mechanisms as to how failure leads to success.

On paper, state and local governments are well-aligned when offering incentives. Many local programs are enabled by state statute. State incentive programs often require local participation, commonly a city or county contribution to the incentive package. State and local governments both have an interest in supporting good quality investments that benefit their citizens.  

In reality, incentives are often a source of conflict. We are frequently asked how to manage disagreements between state and local government around incentive use.