The National Institutes of Health has awarded $20 million to fund five additional hubs designed to speed up the translation of biomedical discoveries into commercially viable diagnostics, devices, therapeutics, and tools to improve patient care and enhance health. The newly selected Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) expand a national network of proof-of-concept centers that links 34 academic institutions developing best practices to translate biomedical innovations into public benefit. 

Each hub has also secured non-federal matching funds and developed partnerships with regional life science and economic development organizations to enhance the scope and impact of NIH’s investment.

Gloria Lin has gone on a lot of dates in the past year. No, not that kind. We’re talking about co-founder dating.

As the first head of product at Flipboard and the first PM hire at Stripe, Lin’s seen founding teams in action — and knew what she was looking for as she set out to build a company of her own. “I always wanted to team up with someone. My experiences as a product leader were strongest when I was partnering closely with an engineering leader,” says Lin. “When I left to start a company, there were a few spaces I was interested in, but I didn’t have a specific startup idea so I set my sights on finding a strong co-founder to work with.”

In September 2012, when National Institutes of Health (NIH) neurologist Chris Austin took charge of a new translational science center, he faced a host of skeptics. In launching the new center, NIH Director Francis Collins said he wanted to re-engineer drug development to speed new treatments to the clinic. But some accused NIH of wanting to become a drug company or solve the pharmaceutical industry's challenges—a notion one former CEO likened to believing in fairies. It fell to Austin to prove that the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences wasn't going to compete with industry, but could give it new tools. After 7 years, the jury is still out.

In recent times, the Asia Pacific region has been touted as the fastest growing economy in the world, with investment opportunities across public and private sectors. Labelled "emerging economy", the region has seen an inflow of not only foreign funds, but also domestic, as Asians become more financially prudent.

Whether you have a goal to reach $1 million or $10 million, you have to start somewhere.

Thomas C. Corley, a certified public accountant and certified financial planner, spent five years studying millionaires and gathered his insights in multiple books, including "Change Your Habits, Change Your Life."

Corley interviewed 233 peopl

This morning (30 September), UK entrepreneur network Tech Nation revealed new figures relating to the Belfast tech sector at its Bright Tech Future roundtable event.

The roundtable, which brings together local high-growth tech companies, universities, policy makers, venture capitalists and investors, aims to solve the talent challenges faced by tech companies through collaboration and skill sharing.

Luisa Kloep is a 26 year-old newly minted graduate with a masters degree in fashion and sales management. Like many of her peers, she is bright, talented, and enthusiastic about her new career. She’s also unemployed and feeling dejected about the job search she started five months ago.

Just how long will it take to achieve gender equality around the world? While the World Economic Forum predicts the United States won’t reach this mark for more than two centuries, other countries are further along — and several could reach equality within our (or our children’s) lifetime. But in most nations, and on many key metrics, equality is still a long way away. Looking at the data reveals exactly where women are furthest behind — largely on measures of power and influence — which can help us tackle those specific areas.

Image: https://hbr.org

“Dark silicon” sounds like a magical artifact out of a fantasy novel. In reality, it’s one branch of a three-headed beast that foretells the end of advances in computation.

Ok—that might be too dramatic. But the looming problems in silicon-based computer chips are very real. Although computational power has exploded exponentially in the past five decades, we’ve begun hitting some intractable limits in further growth, both in terms of physics and economics.

A common request I get while mentoring entrepreneurs is for a copy of the startup checklist they need to follow, in order to build a successful new business. I wish it was that easy. The challenge is that every new business needs to be innovative and different, in order to rise above the crowd, bring real change to the world, and give you the satisfaction you seek.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

For investors, fighting climate change or disease will not have the immediate link to profitability that let’s say, urbanization had. When Western nations needed to alleviate rural poverty, urbanization was a solution, and private capital was readily available to finance the industrial revolution. The free market was in this instance, pareto efficient. Society had a problem, and privateers profited from fixing it.

The US labor market looks markedly different today than it did two decades ago. It has been reshaped by dramatic events like the Great Recession but also by a quieter ongoing evolution in the mix and location of jobs. In the decade ahead, the next wave of automation technologies may accelerate the pace of change. Millions of jobs could be phased out even as new ones are created. More broadly, the day-to-day nature of work could change for nearly everyone as intelligent machines become fixtures in the American workplace.

So, you’ve launched a startup and now you want to raise millions from a venture capitalist or angel investor. Hang on a second, do you really want funding?

Taken at the wrong time it can put a lot of pressure on your startup. But should you decide to do it, how much of your startup are you willing to give up? Which investor is right for you?

Image: https://ventureburn.com

New Enterprise Associates Partner, Sara Nayeem, M.D., Joins Host Rich Bendis to Discuss Her Career, Venture Capital, and BioPharma

Sara Nayeem, M.D., is a Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Sara joined NEA's healthcare team in 2009 and focuses on investments in biopharmaceutical companies. She serves on the boards of Centrexion, Complexa, Cydan, Imara, and Tiburio. She previously served on the boards of Vtesse (acquired by Sucampo), Mersana (MRSN) and Therachon and as a board observer for Loxo Oncology (LOXO, acquired by Lilly), Tesaro (TSRO, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Clementia (CMTA, acquired by Ipsen), Nightstar (NITE, acquired by Biogen), Ziarco (acquired by Novartis), Omthera (OMTH, acquired by AstraZeneca), Epizyme (EPZM), Millendo (MLND) and Zyngenia. She has also been involved in other NEA investments such as Prosensa (RNA, acquired by BioMarin), Metacrine, and 3-V Biosciences. She also serves on th board of BioHealth Innovation Management. Prior to joining NEA, Sara was an Associate with Merrill Lynch’s Global Healthcare Group, where she advised biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies on numerous mergers, acquisitions and financing transactions. Previously, she worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley. She has conducted basic science research in mammalian cardiac development and clinical research in age-related macular degeneration. Sara concurrently earned her MD (cum laude) and MBA from Yale University, where she was a Yale MBA Scholar. She received her AB (magna cum laude) in Biology from Harvard University.

5 years ago, Stanford's Tom Byers and Tina Seelig set up a fellowship program for master's students at Stanford's engineering school aimed at teaching the ethics of entrepreneurship. They enlisted veteran venture capitalist Heidi Roizen, then a partner at DFJ, to help it get off the ground.

Image: A group of recent Stanford Threshold Venture Fellows. Photo: Heidi Roizen

More than 20,000 entrepreneurs and investors came together last week at Denver Startup Week to attend the world’s largest free entrepreneurial event. One of the most informative sessions I attended was presented by Anna Mason, Partner at Rise of The Rest Seed Fund. According to Anna, 75% of venture capital dollars are funneled into just three markets (Silicon Valley, NYC and Boston). Here’s a summary of Anna’s top ten tips for increasing your shot at securing elusive venture capital investment in the rest of the country:

Venture investing in the U.S. hit a record high of $130.9 billion in 2018. And stories of twentysomethings raising millions of dollars from growth-hungry VCs continue to flood our feeds. This distorts the much more nuanced and elusive process of raising venture dollars. So it’s no surprise that ambitious founders continue to seek out funding for their nascent startups. Yet .05% of all entrepreneurs and even fewer founders of color actually secure venture capital.

There’s a lot of talk about gender bias, racial bias, and culture bias at work, and each are important for many reasons. But perhaps one of the biggest and most problematic types of bias we face is the bias of age: we often evaluate people based on their age, and this is now becoming a major challenge in the workplace.

Partners HealthCare is a global leader in healthcare research and development, with an immense capacity for innovation.

Partners HealthCare Innovation is the system's business development arm that commercializes the insights and discoveries of researchers and clinicians at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and McLean Hospital, all of which are Harvard Medical School affiliates. The 125-member team was responsible for $154 million in commercial and investment income last year and at any given time is working on 2,000-plus active agreements.

Higher- and business-education specialists QS Quacquarelli Symonds has released its 2020 Global MBA Ranking, evaluating more than 240 of the best business schools in the world.

QS ranked programs on employability for graduates, entrepreneurship and alumni outcomes, students' return on investment as measured by post-graduation increases in salary, academic thought leadership, and class and faculty diversity.