Think innovation happens in a vacuum? Think again! The best ideas require out-of-the-box thinking, yes, but sometimes they also take inspiration — or maybe just an encouraging word at a critical moment. If you're a leader in the workplace or anywhere else, look at these eight suggestions for enabling higher levels of innovation from your team.

Let’s be honest – after reading the first part of the headline of this article, you expected something like: “There is no right or wrong age to become an entrepreneur. Anyone – at any age – can become a successful entrepreneur”. Right?

Here’s The Deal: If you’re one of those 20-year olds who is planning to drop out of college and become the next Gates or Zuckerberg, there is bad news for you:

Despite spending $2.5 trillion a year on roads, railways, ports, water, and other public infrastructure projects, countries around the world are still falling far short of what they need to invest, according to one estimate. Thus, it’s no surprise that there is renewed interest in public-private partnership (P3) projects, where businesses supplement public investment in return for reaping rewards such as tolls and fees. The White House, for one, suggests using private investments to fund most of its proposed $1.5 trillion in U.S. infrastructure spending.

As reality in tech-heavy economies blends further into an unending choose-your-own adventure episode of Black Mirror, the biggest, creepiest innovation may be the big data economy built on the back of the black mirror in your hand. It’s not just Google and Facebook and Amazon and the rest of Silicon Valley sucking up our digital exhaust: A vast array of companies are increasingly capturing information about your every move for profit, and in ways that can adversely and quietly impact you.

This time of year marks a familiar tradition here at the Review, one that’s spent compiling a list. It’s not just any list, (in our eyes at least, but hopefully our readers agree). Rather, it’s an attempt to tie a bow on the past year by assembling a time-capsule-like toolkit, full of the best tactical wisdom that seasoned company builders had to offer in the last year. To that end, we parse through every article we published in between the bookends of January and December, on the hunt for the pieces of advice that stood out and swam upstream against the currents of conventional thinking in tech.

Over the past years, the concept of smart cities has been discussed among global leaders, European Institutions and prominent technology providers. Smart cities have now become more than a term; it is a concept has evolved into a multi-billion-euro market, accompanied by a regulatory battlefield. The end result: technology now has an additional, social dimension that fosters the contact between citizens and government.

Our index measures states on their science and technology capabilities that contribute to firm expansion, high-skills job creation, and economic growth.

Image: http://statetechandscience.org/

The first year-end message by Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s new chief executive officer was a somber one, with David Solomon defending the firm’s role in a corruption scandal that’s cast a pall over his first months in charge.

But he did point to one bright spot: progress on the bank’s pledge to fund more female entrepreneurs. Goldman has made more than $100 million in investments in women-led companies, including a Chinese pediatrics company and a New York-based retailer.

Image: Bloomberg News - Sarah Friaris the CEO of Nextdoor.com Inc. and was previously chief financial officer of electronic-payments company Square Inc. 

Passive income is a business strategy that allows you to sell products or services on auto-pilot, so you can essentially earn money without doing extra work. It is understandably becoming increasingly popular with entrepreneurs who want to support a comfortable lifestyle without working seemingly endless hours.

On a recent Hawaiian vacation, Don stayed at a truly luxurious resort. It wasn’t his style. He couldn’t help but notice the contrast with the poorer sections of the island where locals lived and tourists rarely ventured. Is this the planet’s future? Two distinct cultures, one of isolated wealth and excess, the other of poverty? When we discussed this question, Don couldn’t help but mention he’d also found amazing pizza on the island.

Contrary to what you might guess, the highest rate of entrepreneurial growth over the last few years is not Gen-Y upstarts, but Boomers over the age of 50, now called encore entrepreneurs. In fact, according to the latest Index of Startup Activity by the Kauffman Foundation and recent press reports, these Baby Boomers are actually driving a new entrepreneurship boom.

The first Food and Drug Administration approvals for cell and gene therapies are already more than a year out, but 2019 is likely to be a significant year for the field, particularly in areas like international interest, industry consolidation and pricing. That was the theme of a panel discussion Monday morning at Biotech Showcase in San Francisco, which coincides with the 2019 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.

Image: Alliance for Regenerative Medicine CEO Janet Lambert speaks at the 2019 Biotech Showcase - https://medcitynews.com

We often hear employers and business leaders lament the unfortunate gap between what students learn in college and what they are actually expected to know in order to be job-ready. This is particularly alarming in light of the large — and still growing — number of people graduating from university: above 40% in OECD countries, and nearly 50% in America.

As a practicing doctor I would be considered negligent if I did not embrace Evidence-Based Medicine. The rigour of the scientific method has transformed healthcare from the days of blood-letting and trepanning to robotic surgery and genomics and we should be grateful. Life expectancy is higher, small-pox has been eradicated and the invention of anaesthesia means we no longer need restraints or a big bottle of brandy to perform an amputation.

University of Oxford zoologist Cait Newport suspected the archerfish she was studying could recognize her. The tropical fish—known to spit jets of water at insect prey—would take aim at her when she walked into the laboratory. 

Newport and her colleagues showed in 2016 that her fish could indeed remember human visages. She trained them to spew water at a head-on view of a specific computer-rendered face, which they picked out 77 to 89 percent of the time.

It's always convenient when you can "kill two birds with one stone", right? We're taught to "take the bull by the horns" when faced with conflict, and we go to work so that we can "bring home the bacon." But according to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), these common phrases "perpetuate violence toward animals". Hold your eye roll, and here 'em out.

Image: https://www.delish.com - PETA Twitter Feed

Startup visionaries ignore norms and often achieve great success. But, they also blow past laws and incur the wrath of regulators, amass penalties and cripple their businesses. From Tesla’s Elon Musk to Uber’s Travis Kalanick to Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, we see brilliance, innovation and marketing wizardry. Not a rookie among them, but they all screwed up like one.

Cybercrime is in many ways the perfect crime: low risk, scalable, and highly profitable. As more of our lives migrate online, attacks on our cybersecurity by the agile, globalized, and outsourced cybercrime industry show no signs of slowing down.

Billions of people were affected by data breaches and cyber attacks in 2018, including up to 500 million Marriott customers. Incidents of cryptojacking (hijacking servers to mine cryptocurrency) experienced a meteoric rise, but those attacks dropped off towards the end of the year in line with cryptocurrency prices.

Image: Animation: FindingFootage/Pixabay; ElenVD/iStock

It may seem harmless to not be entirely forthcoming with your doctor, but the health consequences could be huge. A recent study conducted by researchers from Middlesex Community College and the University of Utah found the main reason why patients don’t accurately tell doctors about their eating habits and other behaviors is to avoid being judged unfavorably.

How are the start-ups in the twelve Dutch provinces supported, and what characterizes the start-up ecosystem in these different regions? Two weeks ago, we started a project to create a clearer view of this than has been done so far. Hereby, we draw up the balance of this research: what do we hear often, what’s going well – but also: what could go better?

If anything stands out in the Dutch start-up ecosystem, it would be that every province contributes to it. Of course, the majority of the start-up initiatives can be found in the regions around Amsterdam and Eindhoven, but also in relatively underrepresented provinces like Zeeland and Drenthe, there are funds, challenges and incubator programs.

Image: https://innovationorigins.com