It’s not unusual for hospitals to have innovation centers these days, but the folks at New York Presbyterian Hospital have chosen an interesting satellite office for theirs: in the offices that house health IT accelerator Blueprint Health. It’s a remarkable development for an industry in which hospitals have tended to hold startups at arm’s length.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

“There’s no marketplace for ideas,” Trevor Owens, entrepreneur and founder of the popular customer validation board Javelin says. So until your product is out there, you’ll never know its real worth. Luckily, with the help of some effective tools, product validation today is made super easy today. This means you can refine your business model or new product, or pivot, by decreasing risk and increasing reward. Without actually creating a product, spending too much money or energy, you can test the waters before taking the plunge.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Sean Murray, one of the creators of the computer game No Man’s Sky, can’t guarantee that the virtual universe he is building is infinite, but he’s certain that, if it isn’t, nobody will ever find out. “If you were to visit one virtual planet every second,” he says, “then our own sun will have died before you’d have seen them all.”

CTNext, Connecticut's innovation ecosystem managed by Connecticut Innovations, which equips startups and entrepreneurs with resources, guidance and networks to accelerate growth and success, today announced the winners of the latest round of Entrepreneur Innovation Awards (EIA), which was held on Thursday, July 17, at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.

Connecticut-based companies and entrepreneurs received $10,000 awards for their project ideas. They included:

There is clearly something wrong with pharmaceutical innovation.

Antibiotic-resistant infections sicken more than two million Americans every year and kill at least 23,000. The World Health Organization has warned that a “post-antibiotic era” may be upon us, when “common infections and minor injuries can kill.” Even the world’s tycoons consider the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria one of the crucial global risks of our times, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum.

Image: Tatiana Travis, a microbiologist, determining a bacterium’s resistance to an antibiotic at a lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Development of broadly useful drugs is lagging. Credit David Goldman/Associated Press 

The name of the company was 2gnōME.

2gnōME is pronounced “to know me,” according to the company’s website (although in my head it sounds more like a vinyl recording of some actual word playing in reverse). It is a pun on the word “gnōme,” which means “thought” in Greek. There’s a “2” in the mix as well because we live in The Future now.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for small businesses. And it seems easy enough – create content, send to your email list. But there are actually more things to consider if you want to get the most out of your email marketing efforts. One of the things you can do is send out emails at a time that is optimized for your target audience. To do this, you need to first decide who your target audience is. And then you need to figure out when those people are most likely to read their emails.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When it comes to collaborating on something new, secrecy and tension can ruin a beautiful partnership.

In an era of increasingly complex and expensive technological development and shortened innovation cycles, Procter and Gamble’s Connect + Develop open innovation programme, is an excellent example of how external knowledge can advance innovation. Since its launch in 2001 the programme has formed more than 2,000 partnerships and been responsible for dozens of innovative products and new processes to increase the firm’s productivity.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Entrepreneurs are a naturally curious bunch. So much so that a 2012 Gallup survey found that 71 percent of entrepreneurs polled said they learned or did something new "yesterday." Some of that can be attributed to curiosity, and another part of it is just a function of building and running a business.

As an entrepreneur, you never know what challenges will await you when you wake up in the morning, and more likely than not, you’ll regularly be put in situations that you’ve never been in before. 

Image: Bill Erickson/Flickr

I recently turned 26, and, to celebrate, I took a weekend trip to Sequoia National Park with my mom. We both work a lot—she as a doctor in rural Vermont, and I as the CEO of a startup—so it’d been a few years since we’d spent any time together one-­on-­one, and we were looking forward to the trip. Plus, as she only half-joked, if she was visiting she could make sure I took the weekend off.

It was a five hour drive from San Francisco to the park, and we spent most of it talking about my company, Twice. Twice is a marketplace for upscale women’s fashion, and we’d raised our Series B from Andreessen Horowitz about six months before. Now, though, we were waist deep in all the usual—so I’m told—challenges that come with scaling your organization and customer base at breakneck pace. Still, as I talked through all the different projects we had underway, it started to sound like a lot, even to me.

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

Pressed to describe the stereotypical entrepreneur, which words would you use? Passionate? Dedicated? Optimistic? Sure, those apply. But insecure and troublemaker are more accurate, according to 'treps who know a success when they see one. Do the following traits, characteristics and quirks describe you? Well then, you might be an entrepreneur (at heart, if not yet in practice).

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Focusing on information technology, healthcare and other high growth companies in Delaware and the Mid-Atlantic Region

NEWARK, Del.-- (July 22, 2014) -- Leading Edge Ventures I, L.P., announced today the formation of an early stage venture fund. Headquartered in Newark, Delaware, the Fund will make investments in promising early stage companies in Delaware and the Mid-Atlantic region. It will also maintain an office in Bethlehem, PA. Leading Edge Ventures will target companies that provide productivity benefits to businesses and consumers in the areas of information technology, healthcare, and other high growth markets.

First State Innovation, an organization whose mission is to accelerate entrepreneurial activity in Delaware and the surrounding region, initiated the concept and has supported the Fund's formation. Ernie Dianastasis, Chairman of First State Innovation said, "The launch of Leading Edge Ventures is a significant development for the entrepreneurial community and will provide great benefits to the region."

Jack Markell, Governor of Delaware, commented, "Funding early stage companies creates new jobs for our local economy. We're proud to have backed the creation of Leading Edge Ventures as part of our state's commitment to supporting entrepreneurs so they can turn great ideas into thriving businesses."

Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Thune, Members of the Committee, distinguished panelists and guests, I am honored and pleased to have this opportunity to participate in a hearing on a topic about which I am passionate and committed: basic research. There is no substitute for deep understanding of natural and artificial phenomena, especially when our national and global wellbeing depend on our ability to model and make predictions regarding them. It would be hard to overstate the benefits that have been realized from investment by the US Government and American industry in research.

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com 

Products are sold because they solve a problem or fill a need. Understanding problems and needs involves understanding customers and what makes them tick.

Smart entrepreneurs know they must get out of the building to discover every detail about their customers, especially how they experience a particular problem and why (and how much) it matters to them.

When your product solves a problem that costs customers sleep, revenue or profits, things are definitely looking up.

Industry after industry is being transformed by IT-enabled disruptive innovation. These include not only information-based industries, such as banking, media, real estate, and education, but also "atom-based" industries like transportation, agriculture, and health care.    

At this event, speakers will assess why these transformations are occurring, how they will impact consumers and businesses, and the public policies required to spur even more disruptive innovation. Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring will discuss their book Code Halos: How the Digital Lives of People, Things, and Organizations are Changing the Rules of Business, which describes how new technologies, such as social media, mobile, data analytics, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, are sparking new commercial models that can dramatically flip market dominance from industry stalwarts to challengers. In addition, Larry Downes will discuss his new book Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation, which provides strategy for companies keeping pace with disruptive game changers. Finally, leading IT analyst David Moschella will discuss why some technologies disrupt the marketplace while others are still only a dream. 

I recently turned 26, and, to celebrate, I took a weekend trip to Sequoia National Park with my mom. We both work a lot—she as a doctor in rural Vermont, and I as the CEO of a startup—so it’d been a few years since we’d spent any time together one­on­one, and we were looking forward to the trip. Plus, as she only half­joked, if she was visiting she could make sure I took the weekend off.

It is a rare day that small and medium business owners view news from the IRS and Treasury as a good thing.  Today is different – different in a big way.  Today – Treasury announced regulations (TD 9666) that will allow companies to take the Research and Development Alternative Simplified Credit (ASC) on amended returns.   This seemingly arcane change will mean many more dollars in the wallets of innovative small and medium businesses – money that will be used to create new jobs, expand businesses and keep doors open.

In today’s installation of the Techstars Mentor Manifesto, we deconstruct #3: Be Authentic – Practice What You Preach.

Authenticity has once again become a trendy word. When I started blogging in 2004, it was all about transparency. Fred Wilson led the way and I happily followed. And if you want to really understand transparency, look at Rand Fishkin’s epic post on Moz’s $18 Million Venture Financing in 2012. Now that’s transparency.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

I was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, to parents whose aspiration of overcoming poverty and giving their children a better opportunity led them to New York. Our version of the American dream began in the projects of the South Bronx during one of the most dangerous times in the borough’s history. Violence, drugs, poverty, and pollution were everywhere.

Image: Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle