Universities-driven venture development model can target to create innovation districts around their campuses and attract capital, industry, small businesses, and government participation by thinking global but acting local.

Image: https://www.financialexpress.com

The latest edition of the NATO Innovation Challenge was launched on Monday (19 August 2019), under the theme: “Optimising leader development”. The competition aims to tap into pools of private sector innovators (entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, scientists, coders, etc.) to find new, creative and efficient ways for NATO to respond to security challenges and potential crises.

Image: https://www.nato.int

Despite the explosive growth of institutional venture capital in recent years, independent Angel investors remain vital components of the high risk/reward entrepreneurship ecosystem. Good Angels fill a role – hands on, value added capital in small amounts at the earliest, riskiest stage of the entrepreneurship cycle – that most of today’s larger venture funds, focused as so many of them are on deals (and entrepreneurs) that are ready for bigger chunks of capital sooner rather than later, just don’t have time for.

Bob Kramer joins BioTalk to discuss his history with Emergent, his vision for the company, and Emergent’s commitment to the BioHealth Capital Region.

Mr. Kramer serves as president and CEO and as a member of the Board of Directors. He was appointed as CEO and as director effective April 2019 and has served as president since March 2018. Mr. Kramer also served as chief operating officer from March 2018 to March 2019. Prior to this, Mr. Kramer served as executive vice president and chief financial officer from September 2012. Mr. Kramer first joined Emergent in 1999 as its CFO. From 1999 until his retirement in 2010, he held various executive positions with the last being president of Emergent Biodefense Operations Lansing. Mr. Kramer returned to the company in 2011 as the interim head of the biosciences division, and then as interim executive vice president, corporate services division. Prior to joining Emergent in 1999, Mr. Kramer held various financial management positions at Pharmacia Corporation, which subsequently merged with the Upjohn Company in 1995 and eventually became part of Pfizer Inc. Mr. Kramer serves on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Kramer received an M.B.A. from Western Kentucky University and a B.S. in industrial management from Clemson University.

Venture capital investment hit a record last year, largely thanks to a new lineage of corporate investors. Exceeding even the high-water mark of the dot-com era, venture investors sank $131 billion into 8,949 deals. 

The most surprising part of Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association’s analysis, though, isn’t the headline number — it’s the size and breadth of corporate venture deals. Last year, private equity groups invested $38.5 billion in almost 800 deals. Over the same time frame, corporations spent nearly twice that, $66.8 billion, across 1,443 investments. The remainder came from individual, nonprofit, and public sources.

Tammy Snyder Murphy said the issue is clear. 

“We know that female entrepreneurs have raised significantly less private capital than their male counterparts,” she said. 

The reason, she added, is not as clear. 

Women-owned businesses account for nearly 40% of new companies, according to American Express. But Golden Seeds, a nationwide angel investor network dedicated to investing in women-led companies, estimates less than 20% of startup capital goes to women-led businesses, despite repeated studies reporting higher financial returns for businesses with women at the helm.

Internships are supposed to have a simple purpose: to provide students with the experience and taste  f what working in a particular industry (and in some cases, a specific role) would be like. The U.S. Department of Labor’s guidelines says an internship is supposed to provide “training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by an educational institution.”

What comes to mind when people think of research scientists?

Studies have explored the idea that stereotypes of scientists – like the less-than-warm image of men in white lab coats – could undermine public trust in them or result in deterring diverse groups from pursuing education and jobs in science.

Image: https://www.pewresearch.org

One thing we all have to learn in business is how to work with and lead people that are not like you, and don’t think like you. In my experience as a business advisor, that’s probably the biggest hurdle to success encountered by every new business owner. Your biggest challenge may be members of your own family, some of your best customers, or a key business partner or investor.

Last November the District of Columbia’s Office of Revenue Analysis (ORA) released its “Review of Economic Development Tax Expenditures,” including an assessment of the city’s incentives for Qualified High Technology Companies (QHTC). By May, the DC Council had approved amendments to the QHTC program, and the administering agency was implementing changes to the data collection and certification process.

Surfers are sticking large eyes on the bottom of their surfboards to deter sharks from attacking them, as more and more sharks are sighted off the coast of the US.

The technique is one of several, listed by the Wall Street Journal, being used by surfers to stay safe from attacks, which are still extremely rare but can be fatal.

Great whites are ambush predators, and researchers believe that they are less likely to attack if they believe they have been seen — hence the eyes.

Image: Two "Shark Eyes" stickers on the underside of a surfboard. The manufacturer says it makes the shark think it has lost the element of surprise. Shark Eyes/Vimeo

A Brookings Institute report found that “chronic underinvestment” in research and development in Pennsylvania has slowed innovation — but state funding and partnerships between government, universities and companies could turn that around.

Increasingly, said the report, Pennsylvania is dealing with a divergence between large metropolitan areas and the rest of the state, similar to what’s happening across the country. More than 98% of the state’s higher education R&D is concentrated in three metro areas: Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and State College, said the report.

Image: Happy Valley LaunchBox, on South Allen Street in State College, supports startups through funding, training and technical assistance. ABBY DREY This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A few weeks ago, I was playing with my daughter, the television was on, somebody was yelling on the street outside, and my phone started ringing. 

So. Much. Noise. 

It’s common to have several sounds competing for your attention — especially as an entrepreneur and new mother. Even before my daughter was born, silence was hard to find as social entrepreneur living in New York City, where there isn’t a horn that lacks for honking. 

Air conditioning, a necessity of modern life, is unique because it perpetuates the very problem it solves. As the planet warms and as it prospers, more people demand air conditioning. Traditional systems consume a lot of energy, which requires burning fossil fuels. That leads to greater carbon dioxide emissions, further warming the planet and intensifying the demand for air conditioning.

Image: Photograph by Richard Geoffrey / EyeEm  

Have you ever wondered how the innovation process benefits from internationalization?

We know that globalization is the main economic phenomenon of the last few centuries. After all, since the late 1980s, multinational companies from Europe and North America have been shifting the production aspect of their business to Asian countries. But what else is there to know?

Image: https://www.eurekalert.org

The United States is continuing to drift in the wrong direction when it comes to federal funding for research and development (R&D). We parsed the numbers last year in a blog post that showed a five-decade-long slide had been accelerating since 2009. Now we have another year’s worth of data, and the picture is getting worse. At this pace, ITIF estimates the United States will fall behind China in R&D investment by 2021.

Image: https://itif.org

Companies know that employee turnover is expensive and disruptive. And they know that retaining their best and brightest employees helps them not only save money but also preserve competitive advantages and protect intellectual capital.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities and 21 other organizations signed a PEN America statement on August 12, in response to reports that the federal government has advised US universities to develop protocols for monitoring students and scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions. 

According to an NPR report on June 28, the FBI urged universities to monitor some Chinese students and scholars in the US. 

Image: Princeton University based in New Jersey, the US Photo: IC

One of the core elements of the American Dream is the idea that anyone can make it to the top, regardless of where one starts out in life.

But, according to a 2018 report on intergenerational educational and economic mobility from the World Bank, that dream is more realistic in most other high-income countries than in the US.

The report and its associated Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility include several metrics of how the economic and educational opportunities of children are related to the situations of their parents.

Image: People in the Netherlands have a better shot at upward social mobility than Americans, by one metric. Reuters

It’s the eternal Catch-22 of the working world: You can’t get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job.

While babysitting, waiting tables, and other part-time jobs have long been the purview of teens looking to pocket some money while waiting to land a “real job,” the skills gained in such positions don’t always equip you for an entry-level gig in a specific profession. This is where internships come in.

Image: Library of Congressf/Wikimedia Commons; Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-G0925-0036-001/ Stöhr/CC-BY-SA 3.0; monkeybusinessimages/iStock