Montnegro's Science Minister Sanja Vlahović took part at the Western Balkans ministerial meeting in Zagreb that adopted the Regional Research and Development (R&D) Strategy for Innovation. The document will serve as a framework for boosting institutional reforms and policy innovation, as well as to promote the region’s interest in fostering innovation, growth, and development. 

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VIVEK WADHWA: A common belief in the Silicon Valley VC community is that if you are over 35 years old, you are too old to innovate. The stereotypical successful entrepreneur is Mark Zuckerberg—the young college dropout who dreamed up a crazy idea while in his dorm room.

As I have explained in previous articles, this stereotype is deeply flawed. The fact is that you are never too old to innovate.  As well, the wunderkinder who are glorified, including Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, only achieved success with the help of old, experienced executives.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times…your environment has a huge impact on your success. Your spouse is a major part of your environment. It’s not easy being married to an entrepreneur. Your better half has to put up with the late nights, crazy ideas, and the constant checking of email.

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A new species of humpback dolphin has been identified off the northern coast of Australia, researchers have announced.

Humpback dolphins — named for the hump below their dorsal fin — swim within river deltas, estuaries and coastal waters throughout the Indian, Pacific and eastern Atlantic oceans. The charismatic mammals can grow to be 8 feet (2.4 meters) long, and sport different combinations of gray, pink and white colorations.

Image: Guido Parra

Nihilist. Religious denier. Reformed romantic.

Inspiration for entrepreneurs?

Turns out, you can learn a lot about running a business from Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher and philologist who turned Romantic thinking on its head. He actually had some ideas that provide a helpful path for entrepreneurs.

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By Tom Still

MADISON – It’s rarely a bad idea to compare-and-contrast when it comes to business development, whether it’s city to city, state to state or region to region.

It can be a really bad idea, however, to get hung up on it.

Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case these days in Wisconsin, where a slow recovery from the Great Recession has sent business, government and economic development leaders scrambling for answers wherever the grass looks greener.

In what might be a first for a British university, a new researcher will have the chance to practice what they preach by crowd-funding their own salary.

The researcher will effectively be among the first to understand how the research landscape might change in the wake of crowd-funding.

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It has been 5 years since the global financial crisis or economic recession has shaken the world and life still goes on. People buy and sell things, make money, spend, save and invest it. But there are many people who prior to that had successful businesses and now are in need of economic boosts from external sources. Some time ago the only option for such people was to get a bank loan. But now there is a better solution - crowdfunding. It is a new and winning way to easily get the funding one may need, which proved to be an excellent alternative to banks.

Gary Fingerhut took over the commercialization arm of the Cleveland Clinic in April when former executive director Chris Coburn stepped down to take a similar position at Partners HealthCare in Boston. And apparently he’s done a good job, as Cleveland Clinic Innovations said today that the “acting” piece of his title will be scratched, making him the official executive director.

In Nebraska, valuations are low, potential revenues are high, and founders are humble to a fault. Entrepreneurs from the region work their tails off to create a business — that’s the Midwest mentality and approach.

From my perspective as an entrepreneur and now venture investor, Nebraska’s relatively unknown ecosystem was a perfect place to launch a first, second and soon-to-be third fund because of these very reasons. I recognize that there’s work to be done to put more of our successes on the radar. Indeed, our quiet approach to building our startup ecosystem presence is a double-edged sword.

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We live in an age of algorithms. Cheap computing and abundant software have brought huge advances in all kinds of fields. Data scientists are accurately making algorithmic predictions about weather, sports, disease, political elections, romantic partners and even box office hits.

Meanwhile, venture capital remains pretty old school. It is more art than science. So why aren’t more VCs using data science to guide their investments? As chief technical officer of Ironstone Group, a data science-based venture investment company, this is a question I’m especially interested in.

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Another massive acquisition by MedImmune and a new fund to uncover the next ARM lit up a vibrant October when deals in the Cambridge UK technology cluster topped $900 million.

It took the seventh month total in Business Weekly’s Cambridge Cluster Deals Digest to just over $23 billion. While MedImmune splashed the most cash, it was a home-grown innovation that had the Cambridge investment community buzzing. Cambridge University, technology superstars in the cluster and major investors joined forces to form a new company to launch a mega-million pound equity lifeline for innovative businesses.

A friend called me heartbroken, crying. She had spent months looking for investors to fund her fledgling startup and now she had a big problem. Someone was ready to give her the money.

Trouble was, the cash came with a catch. The only investor willing to pony-up the money was someone she didn’t like. She also got the feeling he did not like her much either, and yet, he wanted to invest. “If he was involved, I have the feeling I would quit my company down the road,” she told me over the phone.

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Holding an American and British passport, I enjoy the freedom to move easily among economies which is important given that I am now involved in advancing entrepreneurship in 140 countries.  As APEC gets ready to complete the rollout of its APEC travel card and other regions outside the European Community develop single visa plans, I wonder how easy it is for current and aspiring entrepreneurs and investors to get around.  Is it indeed getting better?

Those who follow me know I’m an optimistic proponent of crowdfund equity and the new sources of early stage funding it brings. The cautions I’ve covered have been primarily to protect investors from fraud and to protect entrepreneurs from missteps within the SEC’s new rules.

But I was intrigued by a recent article from Barry Schuler,  co-founder and Managing Director of later-stage VC firm DFJ Growth and former Chairman/CEO of America Online. I reached out to Schuler directly to hear his concerns. They are good ones. Schuler warns entrepreneurs about the less obvious reasons to approach crowdfund equity with care.

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Companies such as Hallmark, Sprint, DST, Cerner, H&R Block, Garmin and Russell Stover Candies all call Kansas City home. However, a true renaissance in entrepreneurship and a renewed sense of a vibrant startup community has skyrocketed of late. A recent paper from the Kauffman Foundation shows that Kansas City has the third highest increase overall among the largest metropolitan areas in high-tech startup density from 1990-2010 in the United States. Kansas City ranked first for the highest increase among the largest metropolitan areas in high-tech startup density from 1990-2010 in the United States when based only on information and communications technology. This might strike some as surprising since Kansas City is not in Silicon Valley or on the East Coast, however it's less of a surprise to those familiar with the technology ecosystem there. Kansas City's growing tech density and its burgeoning startup activity demonstrates that the city has viability as a technology destination. Now, national technology players are truly taking note of the city and its success.

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Twelve start-ups and small businesses have graduated from Facebook’s accelerator program last week, armed with in-depth knowledge about how to use the platform to promote their businesses.   Facebook announced their accelerator program for start-ups and small businesses in July, and announced 12 finalists in August.   According to the latest Facebook user metrics for Australia, there are almost 10 million daily active users of Facebook, and 12 million monthly active users.

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Sweden is the best country in the EU when it comes to getting new ideas to reach the market, according to a new innovation indicator launched by the European Commission. The new indicator measures innovation output, which creates better jobs and makes Europe more competitive, the Commission said.

The proposed indicator is based on technological innovation as measured by patents, employment in knowledge-intensive activities as a percentage of total employment, competitiveness of knowledge-intensive goods and services, and employment in fast-growing firms operating in innovative sectors.

As daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. this coming Sunday morning (Nov. 3), most Americans will join snoozers across more than 60 other nations in savoring the gift of one extra hour of sleep.

Though the biannual ritual of turning clocks might feel like second nature to us today, it is actually a fairly new phenomenon that has only taken effect on a global scale within the past several decades (though many countries including Venezuela, Kenya and Saudi Arabia still don't partake in it today).

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In fiscal year 2011, Penn made $14 million from its research.

Research at the University has seen a rise in commercialization, meaning that it is monetized through business ventures like startup companies and licensing agreements with corporations. In 2012, the university held 186 commercialization agreements, compared to only 46 agreements in 2008.

John Swartley, deputy executive director of the Center for Technology Transfer, says that research commercialization at Penn is nothing new. “Penn has been pretty actively engaged in technology transfer for a pretty long time now,” he said, pointing out that CTT was formed in the ’80s.

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