We all know that investment in innovation could massively boost jobs in the UK and drive sustainable growth. We know that to be successful in the 21st century, the UK will have to take the lead in new waves of technology – particularly in areas such as the low-carbon economy, renewable energy, life sciences and health economics – just as it was for the technological revolutions of the 19th century in manufacturing, railways and electricity.

We know that, unleashed, business innovation can spur real growth through remaking industries, markets and business models, and kick-start productivity.

Lately, we’ve read a lot about the end of the computer age. In reality, it isn’t over. The computer is simply hiding in the clouds behind commonplace devices. As it should — and should have long ago, had we been able to figure how sooner.

For the last couple decades, we’ve studiously siloed computing devices (desktops then laptops) from communication devices (phones) from media devices (iPods then e-book readers).

A CANADIAN entrepreneur has relocated his start-up company to Dublin to take part in the LaunchPad accelerator programme which started at the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) this week.

Terence Hong, founder of Adjuno, said he was aware of LaunchPad from his own research but he became more interested this summer when the popular TechCrunch blog reported it was one of the top 10 accelerator programmes for start-ups in Europe.

Technology incubator managers expect a sharp fall in the rate of investment by venture capital funds in start-ups graduating from incubators, according to a joint survey by the Israel Technological Incubators Forum and the Fahn Kanne Grant Thornton Israel accounting firm.

Over the past decade, links in the feeder chain for early stage technology companies are weakening, and the raising of funds for early stage companies has become almost impossible.

Over the last two decades, VC funds have been the first place start-ups graduating from incubators looked for seed funding. Entrepreneurs would nurture an idea and the company in the incubator until an initial product was ready for market, and then the VC funds would open up their pockets and invest. The survey, however, found that there has been a substantial change in this process.

Rhetoric about the "post-PC age" has ramped up considerably since Apple first launched the iPad in the beginning of 2010, adding a hot-selling tablet device to the smartphone-fueled wireless Internet revolution already underway.

PC sales have already started to wane, but it won't be until 2015 that they'll really take a hit. That's the year that mobile Internet users will outnumber people accessing the Internet from PCs and other wireline devices, according to new information from International Data Corporation (IDC).

If you build it they will come. Famous words in another context but it works for idea management systems as well. Companies who want to embrace innovation worry when they realize they need a collaborative tool for the front end of innovation that their people won’t use it. “How will we get folks engaged? What if they just submit crazy stuff, lose their focus on work and just waste time?” If you build it, your teams will show up, collaborate and produce great things. Here are the top reasons why….

Business models are developed by visualizing all of the "working parts" that make up a business. A traditional business plan, on the other hand, is most often a formal, written document that provides details about how an entrepreneur intends the business to operate.

Learning to develop a sound business model helps ensure that everything that is critical to the success of the business is in place and working in harmony.

Developing the business model depends fundamentally on engaging real customers very early in the creation of the business so we have a better chance of offering what the market really wants.

There is an old parable about commitment when it comes to breakfast. The story goes that when looking at a plate of ham and eggs, it's obvious that the chicken is an interested party, but the pig is truly committed.

Lately I've been thinking about the parable of the pig and the chicken in the context of characteristics that make a great entrepreneur -- and the kind of entrepreneur that we VCs in general, and my firm in particular, like to back. In short, we like to back pigs: Entrepreneurs who are truly and completely committed to the outcome of their venture, have a lot of stake, and no fallback.

It's one of the most iconic photos in American business.

A ragtag group of bearded weirdos assembled for a family portrait in Albuquerque.

Usually, there's a question above the photo: "Would you have invested?"

AMID ALL the talk of Washington gridlock, burgeoning debt, and the rise of China and India, one American establishment looks like a beacon of hope: the university. It remains the engine of American innovation, and the envy of our competitors around the globe. But questions have begun to emerge about the quality of American college graduates, the shifts of foreign students to European and Asian universities, and the slippage in the global rankings of American schools.

There are many reasons for this. But to a surprising degree, US universities today are falling short because of a transformation within the nation’s academic community itself. Today’s great universities were built by members of the faculty who - contrary to the myth of the impractical professor - often turned out to be excellent entrepreneurs and managers. Yet, over the last half-century, America’s universities have slowly been taken over by a burgeoning class of administrators and staffers who are less interested in training future entrepreneurs and thinkers as they are in turning institutions of learning into cash cows for a growing academic bureaucracy. The character of higher education in the United States has changed - and not for the better.

Economic experts fear a 50 percent chance of a new recession, but some parts of the country still have it going on. From business development to sustainability, livability to transportation and infrastructure, Newsweek offers a glimpse not just of how our nation’s 200 largest cities are performing across these categories, but how they’re progressing.

The largest 200 cities in the United States were on the hook for a maximum of 25 points for each category, for a total possible score of 100. Differences in the yearly ranges of data used are due to data availability.

Hundreds of early-career researchers across Europe are set to receive increased financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) as it announces its funding programme for the next five years.

As part of the ERC Starting Grant competition, just over EUR 670 million will be awarded to some 480 researchers, with individual grants worth up to EUR 2 million.

Now in its fourth year, the competition continues to receive high numbers of applications: this year saw a 42 % increase compared to last year. The estimated total budget for the whole programme has also increased by nearly 15 % from last year.

You may have already read the post by Rand Fishkin about his experience with a busted investment deal. In his post, Rand goes into exceptional detail about the experience, including getting into the details of the deal itself. If you haven’t read it, you need to.  Go ahead and read it now… I’ll wait…

What Rand describes is not an unusual event. Venture deals do break up post term sheet (LOI) signature–and they do often. While we at OpenView aim for a 100% close rate, we forecast one in three term sheets not closing. Busted deals are a reality. The key is to figure out how to minimize the probability of it happening… and when it happens, how to minimize the impact on both the company and the VC’s reputation.

As the Senate is poised to vote on the bipartisan Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, U.S. Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank and Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos will celebrate another remarkable milestone tomorrow morning — the issuance of U.S. patent No. 8,000,000.

Patent No. 8 million offers a dramatic technological contrast to the very first US.. patent, signed by President George Washington on July 31, 1790, and issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a new way of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer.  Granted to Second Sight Medical Products, Inc., the new patent is for an apparatus that enhances vision for people who are going blind due to the degeneration of light-detecting cells in their eyes.  It uses a miniature video camera mounted on a pair of glasses to do the work of the eye’s retina, transforming incoming light into electrical stimulation that in turn creates visual images in the brain.

Business success is about more than just money. We need to make the money to stay in the game but ultimately it’s about people and problems. The right team of people solving the right problem can change your business and your bottom line. In “The Most Important Word in Business,” John Mariotti says, “Everything that happens in business starts with the actions of people.”

You and your team ultimately decide and execute the “who,” the “what” and the “how” of your business. And the better you do this, then the better the bottom line. But true to life as we know it, your team doesn’t turn you into an automatic success. However, it does give you a strong foundation to build on.

What are the elements needed to take a creative hub from conception to reality?

In twenty-one days, OpenOttawaLibre will bring together some of Ottawa’s most inspired minds (that’s you!) to tackle these questions and in the process help move Ottawa closer to being a global power house of innovation.

Redundant is almost always hurled as a negative epithet, but repetition can be an effective rhetorical device. Shorn of all redundancy, Shakespeare’s “most unkindest cut of all” would be pretty vanilla, and the ad slogan “Raid Kills Bugs Dead” would become the ho-hum “Raid Kills Bugs.” Meanwhile, Gertrude Stein’s “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” would have to be completely erased because the quotation is nothing but redundancy. (Completely erased is redundant as well—something is either erased or it isn’t. But I felt I needed the emphasis provided by completely.)

Zimbabwe’s Book Cafe, flagship venue of Pamberi Trust, is a laureate of 2011 Prince Claus Awards. It is amongst the most prestigious global awards in culture, presented annually to individuals and organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean for outstanding achievement in culture and the positive effect of their work on the wider cultural or social field. Quality is a sine non qua for an Award.

The award has been described as “a momentous achievement for Zimbabwean performing arts, and for Book Cafe”, which becomes one of the first live performing arts venues of this kind in the world, built on a platform of freedom of expression and focusing across music, poetry and theatre with public discussion, film and multi-disciplinary arts, to win the acclaimed global award. Book Cafe was awarded the prize for its role in “culture and development”.

Even if they don't agree how it should be done, and which political party is best suited to do it, Americans see job creation as their most pressing concern.

A New York Times/CBS News Poll last month showed that Americans believe, by a two-to-one ratio, that creating jobs should take priority over spending cuts. President Barack Obama's address last week to Congress and the nation reinforced the political importance of employment.

Federal policies significantly affect the economy and jobs. But states, counties and cities — as well as local public-private and private organizations — are increasingly involved in economic development efforts.

Lithium-ion batteries could hold up to 10 times as much energy per cell if silicon anodes were used instead of graphite ones. But manufacturers don't use silicon because such anodes degrade quickly as the battery is charged and discharged.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Clemson University think they might have found the ingredient that will make silicon anodes work—a common binding agent and food additive derived from algae and used in many household products. They say this material could not only make lithium-ion batteries more efficient, but also cleaner and cheaper to manufacture.