The times are changing, and crowdfunding is proof that every great idea now has the opportunity to be financed and advance towards enormous business success. On July 30-31, 2012 entrepreneurs will congregate in New York City at the Hilton for the eLuminate Pitch CrowdFunding Conference.

More than just a first-of-its-kind conference, the eLuminate Pitch CrowdFunding Conference is a convergence point for entrepreneurs to find ways to remove the barriers they encounter when attempting to scale their businesses and launch new products and services.

If you are the inventor of a great product or service, ideally you would want the invention to sell itself. Sadly in most cases, that is not how things work out. In an increasingly noisy consumer-driven world, the more innovative the invention is, the more it has to be promoted in order to grab the attention of people who can use or benefit from it.

Article Contributed by Dr. Soloman Nabatiyan Co-Founder & COO of Techmoola

In this situation, approaching a bank or funding organization such as venture capitalists can be tedious and unfruitful. Even if one does manage to get a loan which is less and less likely these days, you will end up worrying about the collateral holding and the rate of interest among many other factors. Paying back the loan on set terms is another hassle altogether.

AliveCor, which develops a low-budget, mobile electrocardiogram (ECG) recorder for iOS and Android devices, has raised $10.5 million in Series B funding in a round led by new investor Khosla Ventures and prior backer Burrill & Company.

Qualcomm Ventures and the Oklahoma Life Sciences Fund, both of which participated in the mHealth company’s $3 million Series A round back in August 2011, also joined this second round.

Mobile technology's role in healthcare is piquing interest across the globe for its potential to address long-standing issues in healthcare provision.

Emerging mHealth: Paths for growth is a PwC-commissioned report of the Economist Intelligence Unit report that looks at the development of mHealth in ten countries, five developed and five emerging, and the role that various stakeholders — from healthcare payers to physicians and patients — can play in its development. These insights will help us understand its evolution and how it will transform healthcare as we know it today.

I love Miami! I’m a native, left to attend college and grad school and to work, and moved back 31/2 years ago. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been heavily involved with various young professionals groups, civic groups and the business community, and one thing has echoed loudly: Miami is missing something.

As a serial entrepreneur (one who starts more than one business), I, too, have concluded that Miami (and South Florida) lacks a strong start-up culture. We’re not nurturing enough to young entrepreneurs, and that’s coming from someone who moved from Atlanta and thrived thanks to that city’s nurturing of young entrepreneurs.

I recently came across Dan Misener’s article ”Kickstarter hides failure,” where he talked about how crowdfunding site Kickstarter makes it difficult for you to see/find failed projects. They intentionally prevent failed campaigns from being indexed by the search engines (through “noindex” robot meta tags).

Dan’s article got quite a bit of attention. And in his follow-up post, he posed some interesting questions that led me to do some investigations of my own. Questions like:

• What is the percentage of successful vs. failed projects? 
• Of all the money pledged, how much actually went to successful projects? 
• Which categories have a higher percentage of success?

It’s happened to everyone who sells for a living: You meet with a prospective client to show them the goods. Then you meet with them again. And again. But they still won’t pull the trigger on the sale. Chances are, if they’ve asked for several meetings, they’re not going to pull that trigger any time soon.

Why does this happen? What’s missing? There’s one thing that all prospects need to feel before they put their money down: Trust. If they don’t trust that you or your company will deliver on promises — and on time — there’s no way they’ll sign.

So how can you establish trust so immediately that you save both sides of the table the time and trouble of multiple meetings?

If you recognize this man, it's likely from the TV show Shark Tank, on which he analyzes and invests in companies alongside real-estate agency entrepreneur Barbara Corcoran, HDNet owner Mark Cuban, and branding expert Daymond John. But Robert Herjavec isn't just an on-air personality; he's also a serial entrepreneur who founded and runs the fastest-growing technology company in Canada. Herjavec—whose family arrived in Halifax after escaping the former Yugoslavia when he was 8—is a master of exits. He sold his first venture to AT&T; his second was purchased by Nokia for $225 million. And to think: He didn't even want to be an entrepreneur. Inc.'s Christine Lagorio spoke with Herjavec about his unique entrepreneurial path, his investment strategy, and his recent cameo on a celebrity gossip show. 

How did you get your start in entrepreneurship? I got fired! I was one of those guys who never wanted to start their own business. I never saw myself as a leader. I saw myself as a great No. 2. I just wanted to do a good job and make a little more money every year. That was around 1990. You know, today there are entire Harvard courses in entrepreneurship, but back then, you only started a company if you had to.

The creative genius among the young is perhaps one of the least-tapped resources in many economies, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. If given the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship as a career path and a business-friendly environment, young people can unleash their potential—creating gains for all in terms of quality of life, employment and wealth generation. This Friday, I will get a first-hand look at some of that potential as I moderate part of the African Innovation Summit—sponsored by the U.S. Department of State in coordination with Meridian International Center—that will welcome more than 60 young African entrepreneurs to Washington, DC. And later this year, thanks to a new partnership, we will see some of the continent’s most promising entrepreneurs compete during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Whether you're being interviewed to be an intern or a CEO, you're going to run into a few notoriously tricky questions--here's a road map of what you'll be asked, and how to craft impressive answers to even the toughest questions.

No two situations are ever exactly the same, but as a general guide, these are the types of questions that could come up in a typical interview.

1. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?

This question, often the interview opener, has a crucial objective: to see how you handle yourself in unstructured situations. The recruiter wants to see how articulate you are, how confident you are, and generally what type of impression you would make on the people with whom you come into contact on the job. The recruiter also wants to learn about the trajectory of your career and to get a sense of what you think is important and what has caused you to perform well.

Last September, our esteemed leaders in Washington passed a law reforming America's patent system called the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. At the time, the promise from every politician in support of the Act was that it would create jobs. They swore that if we just passed patent reform, it would unleash an avalanche of new businesses that would hire more Americans. "Patent reform equals jobs" was the unmistakable guarantee our politicians made to us.

President Obama's re-election website states:

President Obama signed the America Invents Act, historic patent reform legislation that will help American entrepreneurs bring inventions to market sooner, helping to create new businesses and new jobs.

In 2009, during the tumult of the economic downturn, SAS CEO Jim Goodnight decided that, despite the risks, he would not downsize his company.

Goodnight announced that there would be no layoffs at any of SAS’s roughly 400 worldwide offices. The company implemented hiring freezes and cut costs, but Goodnight refused to follow the path of SAS’s competitors. That year, the company reported 2.2 percent revenue growth and increased profits. In January 2012, SAS reported that growth had increased to 12 percent and revenue was a record $2.73 billion.

OLLEGE PARK, Md. - University of Maryland President Wallace Loh is extending his Asia strategy with an innovation tour of Taiwan and South Korea. In his third trip to the region, Loh is laying the groundwork for new research and educational partnerships through sessions with high-level government, industry and academic officials.

Follow Loh's live blog from Asia http://ter.ps/vt

"Science and education transcend borders," Loh says. "A premier innovation and entrepreneurship university needs to operate in a global context today if it is to serve the state and the nation. By building new research collaborations, bringing Asian companies to our international incubator, and fostering intercontinental student exchanges, we keep Maryland plugged into the economic and intellectual currents."

Developing nations are adopting mobile health technology at a faster pace than developed countries like the U.S., according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Healthcare Finance News reports.

About the Report The report -- titled, "Emerging Health: Paths for Growth" -- was based on two surveys conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research and consulting group (Wicklund, Healthcare Finance News, 6/8).

It takes money to make money. Deciding where to find the first funds to get a startup off the ground is one of the most important decisions an entrepreneur has to make. We asked 12 startup founders what  advice they would give an early-stage entrepreneur who’s considering debt vs. equity. (Share your own thoughts in the comments.)

Consider sweat equity first When you take on any type of investment from someone else, you’re forfeiting some of your control of the company by default (even if you don’t do equity, you’re still obligated to your creditor). Because you raise capital, ask yourself if you can do this without the investment, especially if the venture is web-based. Chances are, you can. Investment is overrated anyway — customers matter more.

Is your city an innovation cluster, or does it lag behind? If you are lagging, can you catch up? UC Berkeley economics professor, Enrico Moretti‘s new book, The New Geography of Jobs examines how innovation companies are causing massive shifts in where jobs, people and wealth are distributed across the country.

Moretti sat down with us to share his research.

Despite a strong grasp of social media, many millennials lack real computer skills. Richard contrasts three types of social media users. Klint explains how to find out which programming language is the most popular. Learn about these stories and many more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-Up. After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Millennials: They Aren’t So Tech Savvy After All

Even as millennials (those born and raised around the turn of the century) enter college with far more exposure to computer and mobile technology than their parents ever did, professors are increasingly finding that their students' comfort zone is often limited to social media and Internet apps that don’t do much in the way of productivity. One professor at the University of Notre Dame, for example, reports that many of his students don't even know how to navigate menus in productivity applications. More

You would have to be a hermit not to have noticed one of the fastest growing industries around – the business accelerator.  If you Google “business accelerator,” you’ll get about 16 million results.  16 million!!!  It seems that every city worth its salt is launching an accelerator in hopes of generating new businesses and job growth in their community.  So does it work and should you find an accelerator for your new venture?

Let me first distinguish an accelerator from an incubator.  In general, business incubators are physical facilities that house many early stage companies that share things like conference rooms and equipment.  Some incubators like the LA Business Technology Center also offer mentoring and workshops that help entrepreneurs learn new skills.  By contrast, accelerators are often structured as bootcamps or programs that may last a few months—just enough time to gestate an idea into a prototype and secure some funding. They are frequently started by investors.  Some recent examples of accelerators are TechStars, which is based in Boulder, CO; Dreamit Ventures, based in Philadelphia, PA; and Santa Monica based Launchpad LA.  Accelerators typically invest $25,000 - $50,000 in a venture for a 6 percent ownership stake.  They provide lots of advice and guide the team toward their final pitch for larger amounts of money.

Scanning smartphones, tablets and laptops is as much a part of vacations as slathering on sunscreen, according to a Michigan State University study.

The results, which will appear in the forthcoming issue of Annals of Tourism Research, show that easy online access and ubiquitous personal devices have made the digital divide disappear, even for folks on holiday.

“Not that long ago, travelers would need to find a payphone or send postcards to brag about their vacations. Now they just log on and send photos and text,” said Christine Vogt, MSU professor of community agriculture, recreation and resource studies, who co-authored the study with Kelly MacKay of Ryerson University (Canada). “Our results show clearly how the changing nature of IT behavior in everyday life is spilling over into our vacations.”

Sandia has transferred technology to external partners for more than three decades, and offers partners access to the Labs' science, people and infrastructure. Collaborations with industry, small businesses, universities, and government agencies on emerging technologies support Sandia's primary mission for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration and bring new technologies to the marketplace.