In its race to provide future growth, the speed at which China is adopting new technologies is breathtaking.

Take one example: high speed rail.

Five years ago, there was not a single kilometre of high speed track in China. Today, it has more than Europe and by 2012, it will have more than the rest of the world put together.

A vast, spotless factory in the port city of Qingdao is in the front line of this new industrial revolution.

The Obama Administration's promise to launch innovation hubs to catalyze business innovation in economically hard-hit areas of the country has been cash-strapped and slow to materialize -- but don't count the program out just yet, says Marc Berejka, a former Microsoft lobbyist and now a top policy advisor in President Obama's U.S. Commerce Department. I caught up with Berejka at the Supernova 2010 conference Friday at The Wharton School in Philadelphia. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation:

MS: You said during one of the Supernova panels today that President Obama still wants to see what the government can do to help kick-start business innovation clusters in areas of the country that have been hit hard by the economic downturn. What's the status of this initiative?

MB: There's been a pretty common understanding in the commercial and policy space that there are parts of the country that have thrived on new innovations and new technologies. Silicon Valley, of course, is one such area, where a lot of tech geeks and business people have been combining their ideas, resulting in phenomenal successes. And those clusters exist elsewhere -- along Route 128 near Boston, in Triangle Park in North Carolina, and in Seattle, around Microsoft and Boeing. And so the question is, if these clusters arise organically and create all sorts of new jobs and opportunities, is there something in that which can be emulated elsewhere around the country? How can policy levers be used to foster that type of economic clustering elsewhere, where job prospects might not be as good as they are in these innovation hotbeds?

China may overtake Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy this year. On its heels is India, and countries such as Brazil and Russia are not far behind. What does this mean for entrepreneurs? That, increasingly, the big opportunities lie outside the U.S.  Most people aren’t aware of another advantage in e

merging markets: you can freely leverage the wealth of proven intellectual property that has already been created in developed economies. Most countries outside the U.S. and Europe lie in a Patent-Free Zone—where companies have not filed patents because they believe there is no market for their goods. So this intellectual property is available to anyone in those nations who can find a use for it.

Take the iPhone as an example: it has over 1000 patents; yet Apple does not apply for patent protection in countries like Peru, Ghana, or Ecuador, or, for that matter, in most of the developing world. So entrepreneurs could use these patent filings to gain information to make an iPhone-like device that solves the unique problems of these countries. Apple has so far received 3287 U.S.-issued patents and has 1767 applications pending: a total of 5054 (for all of its products). Yet it has filed for only about 300 patents in China and has been issued 19. In India, it has filed only 38 patent applications and has received four patents. In Mexico it has filed for 109 and received 59 patents. So even India, China, and Mexico are wide-open fields.

A new report recommends that economic development functions be carved out from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce and be centralized in a new agency in order to help turn around the state's sluggish economy.

The report shows that the state lags in per-capita income and employment, and consistently ranks in the bottom half of states in terms of business environment.

While the impacts of the national recession, globalization and other economic forces have contributed to the state's economic woes, other states have found opportunities for growth and the report criticizes the state's economic development efforts as “a scattered broadcast of ideas and hopes instead of a well-rooted strategy for change.”

In order to reinvigorate the state's economy, the study's authors recommend the state form a new, quasi-public economic development organization, Accelerate Wisconsin, to create and implement a statewide economic development strategy.

While stripping the Department of Commerce of its economic development functions would represent a major shift, it “can position the state in a more effective leadership role. ”

In New York City, it often seems like everyone has an idea for the next “must-have” piece of technology or software. Many startups, however, fizzle and are forgotten—victims of the short attention span that often trails a lack of funds.

To help more of them make it to prime time, NYC SeedStart, a joint project of five venture capital operations, has helped five teams of entrepreneurs get money and advice from industry experts this summer. Each team, chosen from among 200 entrants earlier thi

s year, received $20,000 to help get its idea off the ground. In exchange, the organizing partners—Contour Venture Partners, IA Ventures, NYC Seed, RRE Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners—will share a 5% equity stake in each.

I was asked not too long ago in an interview what advice I would give to an incoming UK government on how to increase innovation in our economy. Here is what I would recommend:

1. Make it as easy as possible to start a new business. Most radical innovations come from start-ups and we need a lot more of them. It is already reasonably easy to start a new business in the UK. However, we could further reduce administration and tax on new businesses e.g. no corporation tax for the first two years trading.

2. Increase the availability of loans for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). At the moment many smaller enterprises cannot raise the finance they need to expand. We need to encourage venture capital funds, business angels and banks to invest in or lend to start-ups and smaller enterprises. This is risky so the government can help lay-off some of the risk.

As Oscar Wilde once said, “youth is wasted on the young”, but why not learn from younger gen­er­a­tion.

Fol­low­ing are XX lessons I’ve relearned by observ­ing how kids interact.

Investment: New Brunswick should set up venture and community funds, as Nova Scotia has, to increase amount of money that flows to emerging businesses in province, executive says

HALIFAX - New Brunswick should follow Nova Scotia's lead in eyeing the creation of a $50-million venture capital fund, says the head of Dieppe-based Azura Ventures Ltd.

Denis Lanteigne says New Brunswick should set up a similar venture fund - and also copy Nova Scotia's Community Economic Development Investment Fund program - to increase the amount of money that flows to emerging businesses in the province.

"It is a critical issue that government has the ability to address," said the CEO of Azura, which in only a short time has pooled close to $750,000 in investor money. "It's proven that jurisdictions with access to venture and risk capital develop faster than regions without."

On Thursday, a report from Moncton scholar Donald Savoie concluded that Nova Scotia should boost its economic development efforts, in part, by setting up a $50-million venture capital fund.

Tony Stark, the entrepreneur-turned-superhero from the Iron Man movies and comics may be fictional, but the Tony Stark Innovation Challenge, an award for young entrepreneurs, is quite real. Earlier this month, MIT graduate student Nathan Linder flew off with the $15,000 top prize for his invention of a digital bulb to project Web content onto any surface. The prize was furnished by Audi of America.

The Stark Challenge is only the latest (and most opportunistic) of a booming trend in innovation and entrepreneurship competitions that is helping to bring new ideas to the attention of investors, customers and a public hungry for some good economic news. In the U.S., where entrepreneurial culture and infrastructure are already well-developed, this is an incremental increase in opportunities for the mad scientists and dreamers among us. But in the rest of the world, it's a revolution that's kicking up a new wave of business creation with the potential to uplift billions.

I came across this interesting article on BBC on how to change the world. I know everyone wants to leave a mark on the world and this article tries to summarise the key qualities required for a human being to change the world. These don’t apply to me as I’m a post robot. This piece after the cut is not written by me, I’m simply sharing it for you to read. All credit to Stephen Sackur, excerpts from the article after the cut.

I haven’t posted the full article here but I fully suggest you click here and read it all. I think I fit into one of these categories. *big headed*

Transforming society is a feat that only a select few of us will ever accomplish. In the second of a series of articles about innovation, Stephen Sackur looks for common qualities that unite the genuine revolutionaries he has encountered.

Most people think today’s most urgent challenge is to create millions of new jobs. But we face more threatening challenges: global warming, aging populations, pandemic disease, bankrupt governments, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation to name just a few. During this decade, we must face up to a slew of survival questions. For example: How can we

• Expand without exhausting resources or intensifying global warming?
• Provide enough food and clean water for 10 billion people?
• Afford to deliver quality health care to an aging population?
• Educate our children to thrive in an increasingly competitive world?
• Build an efficient infrastructure that is safe from cyber attack? 

At first glance, these seem like social questions – and they are.  But look more closely and you’ll also see huge business opportunities that will generate new jobs.

My apologies... this is a long piece (~2500 words). Not for the faint of heart. If you want the short story, read the abstract below & 3 core assertions, then cut to the conclusions at the bottom.

Abstract: VC funds are getting smaller (good), & angel investors are growing (also good), but both need to get smarter & innovate. Startup costs have come down dramatically in the last 5-10 years, and online distribution via Search, Social, Mobile platforms (aka Google, Facebook, Apple) have become mainstream consumer marketing channels. Meanwhile acquisitions are up, but deal sizes are down as mature companies buy startup companies ever earlier in their development cycle.

What does this mean? What opportunities/pitfalls does it present for investors?

Let's start with 2 intial observations about the current market for investors, and for startups.

If you feel like you have your best ideas after a jog or while mountain biking you're not imagining things. Small lengths of exercise produce long lengths of boosted creativity.

Photo by eduardomineo.

Many people who exercise attribute the change in scenery to their creative bursts—which certainly can't hurt!—but the principle cause is the exercise itself. Newsweek magazine, in their overview of current research on creativity, reports the following about exercise-related creativity:

Almost every dimension of cognition improves from 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and creativity is no exception. The type of exercise doesn't matter, and the boost lasts for at least two hours afterward. However, there's a catch: this is the case only for the physically fit. For those who rarely exercise, the fatigue from aerobic activity counteracts the short-term benefits.

Connect, the San Diego nonprofit group for technology and entrepreneurship, said its board has approved a series of initiatives intended to stimulate the long-term formation of technology startups. The initiatives, which will be supervised by Connect CEO Duane Roth, are supposed to attract more early stage investment capital, and influence innovation policies set by the federal government.

The board also promoted Camille Sobrian, Connect’s chief operating officer, to president. She will continue to oversee the 26 programs that provide training and related support for San Diego entrepreneurs, as well as the 360 technology and life sciences events that Connect helps to coordinate every year.

“I’m thinking about the big picture, about the things that can help the community in the long term, rather than just the programs and events, and so forth,

” Roth says. He plans to continue to lead Connect’s economic development initiatives, as well as Connect’s efforts to shape federal policy and advocacy in Washington, D.C.

The benefits of scalability and flexibility touted by cloud computing are rapidly pushing its adoption forward. And while there are still hesitations in some sectors about the emerging technologies - questions about security, control, and interoperability - the majority of tech experts see moving to the cloud as inevitable.

Nevertheless, it's still fairly common to hear the argument that the public cloud isn't quite ready or quite right for the enterprise. But a recent Forrester report contends that enterprise might not be ready for the private cloud either. Pointing to a survey that found only about 5% of IT shops have the experience internally to make the move to the cloud, the report, authored by James Staten with Christian Kane, Robert Whiteley, contends that many companies simply aren't ready.

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Microsoft's new search engine Bing has been making waves in the search market, adding new features and slowly chipping away at Google's established search dominance. But smaller search engines have an uphill battle when it comes to toppling Google in search.

As Ask.com's Barry Diller pointed out today, innovation in search often works toward Google's advantage. Regardless of whether Google does the innovating.

Ask.com made headlines this week with some userface changes that reverted the site back to its earlier question and answer format. Furthermore, the site beat analyst expectations, growing 18% to $197.2 million. But IAC head Barry Diller had some candid words about Ask's prospects during the company's second quarter earnings call. According to PaidContent, he said:

“One thing I want to make clear to investors is that Ask itself is not a large segment of the company. I had hoped it would become one, but I was wrong about that. I was wrong about the competitive landscape with Google."

To mark an increase in allowable running time for non-partner videos, YouTube says it will promote a handful of video makers.

If it seems like YouTube videos are getting longer, you may be watching a particularly dull bit of filmmaking. Or it may be that the video actually is longer.

YouTube on Thursday said that it is now allowing content creators to upload videos with running times in excess of 10 minutes.