Modular farming, which is growing crops in self-contained, movable units so they can thrive in difficult climates, is becoming more than just a sustainability goal for social impact organizations. It is also becoming a big business that’s increasingly being backed by venture capitalists and private equity firms. New startups in this market are sometimes models for not only how to make profits while contributing to the social good, but also how such profits can lead to innovation that goes on to create additional social good.

Image: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

In the business of creating new high-growth companies, “trade-off” is the name of the game. From idea to IPO, from survival mode to success, entrepreneurship calls for constant prioritizing and re-prioritizing.

With limited capital — financial and human — for the first few years of a startup’s life, it’s a perpetual challenge of either/or. Another engineer or an expanded website? A new server or a booth at a key industry trade show? Market development or a sales professional?

Geoff Garrett, dean of Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the spats between the U.S. and China, and the prospects for Huawei Technologies Co.. He speaks on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia." (Source: Bloomberg)

Artificial intelligence is widely acknowledged as a crucial aspect of what is broadly referred to as Industry 4.0. While no one knows yet how artificial intelligence will be incorporated into the next phase of the Industrial Revolution, most agree that it will allow greater connectivity between people, machines, and information technology, allowing manufacturers to better optimize processes and predict problems. 

The U.S. Senate is finally getting serious about declining startup rates.

Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) announced on Wednesday the creation of the first-ever bipartisan entrepreneurship caucus to diagnose why the rate of new business creation has declined over the past three decades and create policy to reverse that slump.

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Peter Voogd outlines some of the activities he uses to get his mind back to his goals.

The first activity Voogd uses is looking at his past accomplishments to see which he take the most pride in. Another activity is looking at what he is grateful for -- Voogd says that if he can't find anything to be grateful for, this may be a sign he is too focused on himself. 

Scientists say they've found a mysterious type of killer whale that they've been searching for for years. It lives in parts of the ocean near Antarctica — and it could be the largest animal to have remained unidentified by biologists.

The notion that there might be some unusual kind of killer whale emerged in 1955. Photos from New Zealand showed a bunch of whales stranded on a beach. "This was a very different-looking group of killer whales," says Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Image: A rare photo of "type D" killer whales off South Georgia island, located between South America and Antarctica, shows the whales' blunt heads and tiny white eye patches. Courtesy of J.P. Sylvestre

I recently gave a speech about innovation at the urging of the founder of City Summit, Ryan Long, about what constitutes market-making innovation, and what we should be investing in--not only with our money but with our time. We have oversaturated markets, we have Amazon with page after page after page of drop-shipped products and duplicates, we have more entrepreneurs now than ever before, and we have low barriers to entry. All of these shifts have encouraged this massive wave of spirited business lovers to try and find their place in this seemingly never-ending ecosystem.

About half of the global population—3.5 billion people—are impacted by malnutrition around the world. This is just one of the harsh realities in today’s food systems. At the same time, there is enormous untapped potential for tech-enabled companies to address such challenges. Investments in this area have lagged significantly behind sectors such as health, but innovation is beginning to flourish and business accelerators are multiplying, signaling a new era for ag and food tech.

Youngme Moon, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Mihir Desai discuss why so many high-profile companies (Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Airbnb, Slack, Postmates, Casper, Peloton, etc.) are planning to go public this year. They also debate whether it’s acceptable for bosses to throw temper tantrums at work.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has named Dr. Mark Roche as the agency’s first chief healthcare informatics officer where he will be helping to lead the government’s interoperability strategy.

Roche is a former Northwestern University professor and NIH researcher focused on medical informatics and healthcare interoperability. He also served a physician advisor for ONC and HHS where his portfolio included digitization of data using clinical terminologies and technologies like machine learning and natural language processing.

Technology is transforming the healthcare, finance and legal sectors. This transformation is driven by such demands as transaction efficiency, automation, consumerization and improving patient outcomes.

Although healthcare providers are notoriously cautious when it comes to the adoption of new technology and for the legal world transformative technology is a relatively new concept, both industries have seen a jump in tech companies attracting investment – particularly those that automate mundane, labor-intensive tasks.

After using a new straw, you can compost it in your backyard, or even eat it. The straw, made with seaweed, looks and acts like plastic while someone is drinking, but if it ends up in the ocean, it quickly biodegrades.

Unlike some paper straws–an alternative that companies like Starbucks have been reluctant to adopt because of negative feedback from customers–the new straw, made by a startup called Loliware, doesn’t have an off-putting taste or issues with durability when it gets wet.

If you are just plain tired of working so hard, or your startup is not getting the traction you expected, should you shut down cleanly, or just file for bankruptcy and walk away? For those who think that bankruptcy is the easy way out, think again. Bankruptcy should always be the absolutely last resort.

The “advantage” of filing for bankruptcy, of course, is that it gets creditors permanently off your back, with no continuing lawsuits, based on funds derived from selling all assets. You can hand the stressful job of liquidating assets and negotiating with creditors over to the court.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

COLUMBIA, Md. (March 6, 2019)— The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced today the findings of an independent economic impact study detailing the economic development contributions of TEDCO’s five core programs to the state of Maryland. 

Image: https://www.tedcomd.com

In every sector you can name, digital innovation, particularly the potential of artificial intelligence, is driving dramatic change.

A recent report from RBC estimates that 25 per cent of current Canadian jobs will be heavily impacted by technology — and yet, even in the midst of all this potential displacement, the Canadian economy will need to add 2.4 million new jobs over the next four years, all of them requiring a new combination of skills.

At a time when everyone is focused on the field of cyber, a massive venture capital firm is forming – the largest in Israel, and one of the largest in the world – and it’s focused on health care. The fund, named aMoon2, is being led by Marius Nacht and Dr. Yair Schindel, with $660 million to invest, making it Israel’s single largest fund. The fund intends to make late-stage investments in health tech and life sciences companies, in fields including medicine development and medical equipment.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs issued its FY 2019 Phase II Release 2 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) with approximately $100 million in available funding. 

“Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “Providing small businesses with greater opportunities to enhance science and technology research and development strengthens the economic security for our entire country.”

The stereotypical midlife years used to inspire visions of buying flashy sports cars or maybe splurging on that dream vacation. What used to be considered a time to experience a midlife crisis has slowly turned into an opportunity to explore midlife entrepreneurship. The number of midlife entrepreneurs is surging in the U.S. According to a new research report by benefit outsourcing supplier Paychex, entrepreneurs over age 50 increased by 50% since 2007. Duke University scholar Vivek Wadhwa says,

LONDON (Reuters) - An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor, his doctors said.

Almost three years after receiving bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection — and more than 18 months after coming off antiretroviral drugs — highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man's previous HIV infection.

Image: Romeo Ranoco/Reuters - https://www.businessinsider.com