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Participants in the 2012 Wharton Business Plan Competition, which fosters the entrepreneurial spirit and business literacy of University of Pennsylvania students, helping to promote the creation of new ventures, will visit the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City'sTimes Square.

The NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation is a proud sponsor of the Wharton Business Plan Competition.

In honor of the occasion winners of the 2012 Wharton Business Plan Competition, Megan Mitchell, Wharton Entrepreneurship and Eric Heil, RightCare Solutions, will ring the Closing Bell.

Founded in 2011, RightCare Solutions, LLC, is an expert organization specializing in discharge planning and readmission management. Through its proprietary discharge decision support system, D2S2, the company helps hospitals, insurers, and homecare agencies manage the discharge process more effectively in order to help alleviate the costly burden of hospital readmissions to the healthcare system, and improve quality of care for patients.  D2S2 is an evidence-based tool that was developed from many years of academic research by an interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Kathy Bowles, Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bowles is a recognized leading researcher in the field of discharge planning and transitional care.

Earlier this year, Drexel University’s business incubator grew up. The Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship became an Institute. It’s largely a symbolic move, says the Institute‘s Executive Director Mark Loschiavo, to show that the status of the incubator has been elevated. Instead of reporting to the dean of Drexel’s Lebow College of Business, the Institute now answers to the Provost, the university’s chief academic officer. Still, Loschiavo says a tangible difference has yet to be seen.

The way we develop and introduce innovation is changing. While for many years the entrepreneur and the development lab have been recognized as prime locus of innovation, today innovation is seen as something which can happen anywhere by anyone at anytime. Emerging innovation models such as open innovation, user innovation or community innovation illustrate this development stressing that innovation is increasingly perceived as an open, distributed and networked phenomenon. A recently finished European project has investigated trends and pathways for how we will innovate in the future.

While new forms of innovation have been discussed intensively in recent years, there is little systematic exploration about their potential for different sectors and areas and its implications for economy, society, and policy. The Innovation Futures Project (INFU) addresses questions such as whether the increasing involvement of different actors such as customers, citizens, research institutes and public organizations will hold on in the future. The team also is concerned whether the pace of innovation in a global innovation landscape can be maintained in the long run and how this affects people, communities, employees and companies?

By Ruth Hedges (Founder & CEO, CrowdfundingRoadMap & FundingRoadMap)

The passage of the JOBS Act and the legalization of debt and equity based crowdfunding is a very exciting proposition. The community may open their arms and wallets, giving your business the funds you need to thrive and investors a chance to profit.

Unfortunately, what many crowdfunding companies don’t realize is that debt and equity-based crowdfunding is a good deal more complicated then donation-based campaigns. It is not as simple as setting up a deal room on Kickstarter and emailing your network.

There is preparation that needs to be started now in order for you to be eligible to do equity-based crowdfunding come Spring next year.

This infographic makes incredibly clear the multiple benefits of a morning meal: a faster brain and better eating habits throughout the day. 

How are you doing at work today? If you answered: Super productive, then we’re guessing you ate breakfast this morning. Yes, yes, Mom always said it was the most important meal of the day, but there has since been a lot of science to back up the old adage. Eating a good breakfast will make you a better, more efficient thinker during the day. And it’s not just about increasing your brainpower. Eating breakfast makes you healthier.

Having a great idea isn't enough to build a great company, says Kevin O’Connor, co-founder of DoubleClick and CEO of FindTheBest. What it really takes is teams of talented people, organized in ways that truly let them shine.

Businesses exist for one simple reason: to solve a big problem. At the core of every great product or service is an unfulfilled need that reaches a big enough market. But it’s not enough to have a great idea that solves a big problem; behind each successful company stands a flexible team that can efficiently turn a vision into a growing business. The 9 tips below will help you organize your team for success.

Bill Gates, as you've probably heard, wants to reinvent the toilet. The winner of his first Reinvent the Toilet Challenge was a team from the California Institute of Technology that designed a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen and electricity. This isn't just a curiosity. The Gates Foundation sees better toilets as key to fighting disease and improving lives; for business, what they represent is a huge potential market. I have come across many writings about entry strategies and product offerings for emerging markets, but little that addressed the sheer sizes at stake. Toilets help illustrate just how gigantic the opportunities, and challenges, will be.

The largest markets will be seen around the axis of India and China, because both countries have huge populations, with a significant share still living in rural areas. India, for instance, expects to see some 350-400 million people becoming urban residents in the next three decades. That could mean demand for as many as 150 million new toilets.

Initiated by gb.tc (formerly the Greater Baltimore Technology Council) and sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, local tech, nonprofit, business and government leaders are gathering this weekend at a new event called “unWIREd.”

Billed as an “unconference,” unWIREd hopes to pull together and mobilize Baltimore’s resources in a way that addresses the city’s challenges, according to a gb.tc press release.

UnWIREd is hosted by Johns Hopkins University and will take place at Maryland Hall on the Homewood campus, this Friday from 2 p.m. - 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Attendees will plan the conference’s agenda upon arrival, with Friday’s session dedicated to a series of status updates on current efforts to address local problems such as poverty, violence and struggling schools. At Saturday’s session, organized teams will set out to identify demands and resources, and brainstorm potential solutions.

Today’s venture capital deal flow to innovative new companies looks a lot like a fat man trying to squeeze into a slim Italian suit. It just doesn’t fit. The new shape of innvovation is a lot more inclusive of new approaches and sources of startup funding.

In 2000, venture capitalists poured a staggering $112.2 billion into startups nationwide, according to an analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California (PDF). Today, venture capital deal flow has slowed to a relative trickle, just $28.4 billion was invested in startups by venture capitalists in 2011.

Researchers have found that only 29% of venture capital investments in Israel during the first half of 2012 involved young start-ups.

Only 29% of venture capital investments in Israel during the first half of 2012 involved early-stage start-ups, researchers have found.

While the percentage of transactions involving younger companies has grown compared to the three previous years, it is still down from 2008, before the global crisis hit, according to research conducted by attorneys Lior Aviram and Limor Peled from the firm Shibolet & Co.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the firm Fenwick & West in California's Silicon Valley.

The life sciences venture capital industry is undergoing rapid change. Although many innovative ideas have been taken from the bench to scientific discovery to treating patients, funding today to develop new products and services is getting more difficult to attain. Getting a product to market involves not only a long scientific process, but a carefully orchestrated financial process. This article attempts to explain how a typical VC fund operates and makes investment decisions.

Although many management teams readily approach us for possible funding, more than a handful are not knowledgeable about the inner workings of a venture capital firm, specifically the process by which we decide whom we will ultimately fund. I believe an understanding of the entire funding mechanism will better help entrepreneurs understand what to expect, the types of information the venture capital fund will request, and how long the process will take.

Fayetteville, AR (August 20, 2012) – EquityNet (www.equitynet.com) announced today that its entrepreneur users have raised more than $104 million in funding, making the 7-year old company the leading equity crowdfunding platform.

Access to private equity investments (i.e., crowdfunding) for non-accredited investors became law in March of 2012 when Congress passed the U.S. JOBS Act.  Prior to this financial deregulation, EquityNet pioneered and patented equity crowdfunding in 2005 and launched in 2007 an equity funding platform for accredited investors that now provides access to over 12,000 individual investors.

Academic institutions have become increasingly central to driving innovation and contributing to economic development. Over the past decade, the transfer and commer- cialization of research (tech transfer) at Illinois universities have intensified: the state ranked among the nation’s leaders in tech transfer and in 2011 saw an unprecedented number of start-ups based on technology developed at Illinois’ universities.1 However, other states’ academic institutions continue to outperform Illinois,’ indicating more must be done to spur innovation.

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I’m “one of those” book authors. The kind that actually wants to make a living from writing books.

Which means, technically speaking, I’m crazy.

At least, that’s what I used to get told a lot, when I told people that’s what I was planning to do with my life.

Entrepreneurship—and a career as a working writer or artist, which is very much like being an entrepreneur—is one of the only callings in which a central requirement of the calling is to be crazy. At least, a little crazy.

This summer, it's Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs' singular genius that seems to be propped open on beach towels, in hammocks, and at every third airplane seat. As fascinating as Jobs' person, career, and legacy are, the intense interest in his insane greatness raises a question: What if we directed that level of focus toward awakening the genius (if slightly less great and hopefully less insane) inside of each and every one of us?

Speaking of America’s founding in “The Fortune of the Republic” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “We began with freedom.”

Indeed. But that freedom didn’t become useful until the Founders converted it into liberty and lasts only as long as the stewards of each generation protect and maintain it.

Freedom is a state of mind anyone can assume. But liberty is a contract we bestow upon and expect from each other. And from that contract, American entrepreneurship was born as the child of liberty.

The video below of two Euro-designers’ so-called “invisible bike helmet” became a bit of a viral hit this week, for good reason: It’s pretty cool (if you don’t want to sit through the overly dramatic video below– you’d swear it was directed by Roman Polanksi the way the drama is stretched out —  here’s the short version: it’s an airbag for your head).

The Invisible Bicycle Helmet | Fredrik Gertten from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

But there’s all kinds of cool bicycle innovation going on out there, perhaps motivated by the same idea the designers in the video express: “Cars are so yesteday. Bikes are the future.” I took at look at some of the wackier ideas in a blog post last year, and here’s a look at some of the newer ideas out there.

When I was a kid, the children in our neighborhood would play in a nearby park every evening. Our undisputed leader was a boy barely a year older than I was, I think. He introduced the new kids to everyone, taught them the rules of games we played, and made sure no one felt left out. We also trusted him blindly because he had our backs whenever we messed up.

None of the leadership lessons that I have learned, unlearned, or relearned ever since have left as indelible an impact as the ones I learnt as a child. Three, in particular, stand out:

Trust: Do your team members trust you? Do they accept that you will, without doubt, stand up for them whatever the situation? Only that kind of trust makes people feel empowered, gives them the courage to innovate, take risks, and to push themselves beyond their comfort zones to find success.

In a stride toward better health in later life, scientists reported today that resveratrol, the so-called “miracle molecule” found in red wine, might help improve mobility and prevent life-threatening falls among older people. The finding, believed to be the first of its kind, was presented today to some 14,000 scientists and others gathered at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

The researchers say this report — based on studies of laboratory mice — could lead to the development of natural products designed to help older Americans live safer and more productive lives.

Accelerators and incubators are sprouting everywhere, which is why entrepreneurs should be even more careful about choosing the right one.

TechStars NYC managing director David Tisch has helped lead some of the most successful investments in the history of Silicon Alley startups. During his tenure, companies in the program have gone on to raise more than $50 million in follow-on capital. So it came as a shock when Tisch announced on Friday that he is stepping away from his day-to-day role at the popular accelerator.