Driven by broad economic and demographic trends, cities around the world are witnessing the emergence of innovation districts.

Greek-Canadian entrepreneur and computer scientist Mike Lazaridis is a restless spirit. In 2013, the Canadian magazine Maclean’s ranked him tenth on the list of the most powerful people in Canada.

Ironically, that was the year Lazaridis left his seat on the board as vice-chairman and director of BlackBerry Limited, a high tech company he co-founded in 1984 as “Research in Motion.”

Image: Computer entrepreneur Michael Lazaridis. Photo: Wikipedia

Former stay-at-home moms Kristen Christian and Lisa Foley started their home-organization business Bee Organized after realizing that the inflexible hours of a corporate job wouldn’t work for their families.

Three years later, the entrepreneurs have turned Bee Organized into a thriving business. They have franchise operations in Dallas, San Francisco and Oklahoma City. The business owners employ 17 part-time employees – many are stay-at-home moms in need of flexible hours – within Kansas City.

Image: http://ithinkbigger.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index™ for the fourth quarter of 2018 registered 3.2 on a 5 point scale (with 5 indicating high confidence and 1 indicating low confidence). This quarter's index measurement fell from the previous quarter's index reading of 3.52 to the lowest point since the end of the financial crisis.

As professionals around the world feel increasingly pressed for time, they’re giving up on things that matter to them. A recent HBR article noted that in surveys, most people “could name several activities, such as pursuing a hobby, that they’d like to have time for.”

In San Francisco, the former site of the Hunters Point shipyard is now being developed with over 10,000 units of housing, 2.6 million square feet of office and R&D space, and about a half million square feet of retail. The project will also include about 75,000 square feet of maker space, or less than 1% of the total building area, most of which will probably go to artisanal firms making food, fashion and furnishing, things like beer, bread and bicycles, sold to the upscale consumers of the region. Meanwhile, in San Leandro, about ten miles almost directly east across the bay, there's something far more significant going on: an under-the-radar renaissance of industrial production, in which companies making state-of-the-art products sold around the world are taking over factories and warehouses.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

PHILADELPHIA—Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (Ben Franklin), a leading seed stage capital provider, has formed a regional venture fund that allows private investors to invest in a broad variety of early-stage technology-focused enterprises located in the Greater Philadelphia region. The Global Opportunity Philadelphia Fund (GO Philly Fund), anchored by lead investor EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE: EPAM) , has raised $15 million in its first close and seeks to provide up to $50 million of capital alongside Ben Franklin’s investments.

When I think about the connection between art and optimism, the first person who comes to mind is Leonardo da Vinci.

I’ve been reading about Leonardo for decades—including Walter Isaacson’s outstanding 2017 biography—and in 1994 I bought one of the notebooks, known as the Codex Leicester, in which Leonardo recorded his thoughts and sketched out ideas.

The Economic Development Administration is now accepting applications for the Regional Innovation Strategies program through April 4. Funding is available through the i6 Challenge, focused on transforming innovations into products and services, and Seed Fund Support, to help expand the availability of investment capital for startups. SSTI will again be hosting an informational webinar with EDA — see details and register below.

Globalization, since the Brexit and Trump shocks of 2016, has been shaped by a tug of war between economic fundamentals and policy threats. But predictions that globalization would collapse under a wave of economic nationalism have proven no more accurate than proclamations of a flat world that dominated the global business discourse a decade ago. The new DHL Global Connectedness Index (which we co-authored with Phillip Bastian) demonstrates that the world ended 2017 more globalized than ever before. While 2018 brought new obstacles — from tariff tiffs to blocked acquisitions — the result was a shifting playing field rather than an end to global business competition.

2018 was the fourth warmest year since records began in 1880, according to studies out today from NASA, the UK Met Office, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

I’ve heard a lot of people question whether there is too much money in venture capital chasing too few great deals. “We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced. “Valuations are out of control” is the mantra of others. Others believe that new business models are emerging that could replace venture capital all together.

Image: https://bothsidesofthetable.com

I was recently in discussion with a fintech about going in on their seed round. Investing at any point in a startup’s lifecycle is challenging, but it is especially nail-biting at the seed stage because so many questions about the startup remain unanswered.

That’s why any sensible investor going into a seed round knows there is a very high chance they will lose their entire investment. It’s an all-or-nothing play.

A college president can often be not just the head but the heart of an institution. Their leadership style, temperament, attitudes, and objectives form a major part of how the school that they represent is perceived. And this list will show you which college presidents have been the most effective, the most influential and have the most admiration.

You may not have considered a college’s president in making your university choice but it’s something that should definitely be looked into! If a college has a president with a strong track record of success, whose beliefs align with your own and whose peers respect them, then that’s a sure sign that it’s a college worth attending.

Traditional business intelligence (and data mining) software does a very good job of showing you where you’ve been. By contrast, predictive analytics uses data patterns to make forward-looking predictions that guide you to where you should go next. This is a whole new world for small businesses seeking enterprise application opportunities, as well social media trend challenges.

Young founders who want to start companies while still in school have an increasing number of resources to tap into that exist just for them. Students that want to learn how to build companies can apply to an increasing number of fast-track programs that allow them to gain valuable early stage operating experience. The energy around student entrepreneurship today is incredible. I’ve been immersed in this community as an investor and adviser for some time now, and to say the least, I’m continually blown away by what the next generation of innovators are dreaming up (from Analytical Space’s global data relay service for satellites to Brooklinen’s reinvention of the luxury bed).

Image: https://techcrunch.com

Tucson, AZ, and College Park, MD, Feb. 7, 2019 – The Association of University Research Parks (AURP), a professional association of university-related research and science parks, announced the appointment of Brian Darmody, Associate Vice President of Corporate Engagement at the University of Maryland (UMD), as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Additionally, the association has opened a new office at the UMD Discovery District in the Washington, DC area, to be known as ‘AURP HQ2.’ Mr. Darmody will immediately assume his new role as CEO at the new location. He will continue his role at UMD and plans to transition out of UMD over time.

Do a Google search on the future of entrepreneurship and 129 million results show up. There seems to be a common theme to many of the articles, and the one by the Kauffman Foundation, seems to be a good summary. In essence, most are doing evolutionary forecasting and extending current trends, which seem to be pointing in three directions.

Finland plans to launch next year a research cluster which the government hopes will put the country at the forefront of developments in autonomous technology.

The RAAS (Research Alliance for Autonomous Systems) ‘innovation ecosystem’ is designed to bring together research organisations and other stakeholders to develop “new, cross-sector solutions”, with an emphasis on those containing a high level of automation.

Healthcare startups raised $2.61 billion in venture capital fundraising last month, according to analysis of deals conducted by VC database Pitchbook for Forbes.

That’s up 37% from the $1.9 billion raised during the same month last year, and it’s the highest amount raised in January on record since Pitchbook began tracking funding in 2008. (The next highest was in January 2015 when startups raised $2.16 billion.)