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Week of August 29 - September 2, 2005Welcome to the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving the innovation economy. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online. Links to the day's entrepreneurship stories from across the nation and around the world are posted each weekday on the NDE main page - bookmark it and stay informed about the latest entrepreneurship news. |
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Transforming Technology Transfer
When it comes to effective
technology transfer programs, most colleges and universities fall far
short of the mark. While the US enjoys a world-class higher education
system, American businesses have not been able to effectively tap into
the many new innovations and technologies developed on university
campuses. An upcoming conference, sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation
and the Technology Transfer Society, will examine why this is the case.
Preliminary research from the Kauffman Foundation will set the stage for
the discussions. This work finds that only a handful of American
universities account for the vast majority of invention disclosures,
patents and licensing. Most other schools still struggle with technology
transfer and are locked into a patent-license model that hampers
university-business collaboration and limits commercialization
opportunities. The conference will bring together the world’s leading
authorities on innovation and technology for what promises to be a
fascinating and comprehensive examination of these issues. |
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Economic research into
entrepreneurship presents a fairly consistent picture on one point:
attitudes toward business failure have a strong impact on how
entrepreneurs fare with new ventures. Individuals and communities that
view failure as a learning experience tend to be successful in terms of
generating entrepreneurial ideas and opportunities. Those who avoid
failure at all costs perform less well on these measures. Thus, it’s
clear that recognizing the potential for failure and, if necessary,
learning from the experience, are key attributes of a successful
entrepreneur. A new article in Harvard Business School’s Working
Knowledge e-newsletter, The Hard Work of Failure Analysis,
offers numerous insights for learning from such experiences. The
authors, Amy Edmondson and Mark Cannon, note that few organizations
systematically assess the causes of organizational failures. Most
individuals and groups simply lack the skills and the impartiality
needed to do so. To avoid this “defensive” response, they recommend that
organizations establish regular systems to undertake such failure
analysis. They also suggest that organizations pursue “deliberate
experimentation” so that they can anticipate and minimize the impact of
potential failures, while also enhancing their ability to learn from the
experience. These concepts can then be regularly incorporated into the
organization’s culture and operating practices. |
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Hispanic Business Fastest Growing 100
The latest issue of
Hispanic Business contains its annual list of the 100 fastest
growing Hispanic businesses in the US. This year’s winner is the
Miami-based LatiNode, a wholesale provider of Internet voice
communications between the US and Latin America. The firm was founded in
1999, and has topped this list for the past two years. Its five-year
annual growth rate is astounding: 124,782 percent. The rest of the
Fastest Growing 100 can’t top that number, but, as a group, they still
post an impressive five-year growth rate of 298.7 percent. |
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Connecticut Revamps Innovation Programs
The state of Connecticut is
taking a new approach to stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship.
Late last month, Governor Jody Rell signed a series of measures that
should alter the state’s innovation landscape. The bills create a
statewide innovation network designed to accelerate technology transfer
out of Connecticut’s university system, and to put these new
technologies into the hands of the private sector. Overall, the plan
seeks to stimulate an additional $40 million of new investment each
year, and to expand research into emerging fields like nanotechnology
and molecular manufacturing. The legislative proposals closely follow a
February 2005 report, Accelerating Economic Development through
University Technology Transfer, to Connecticut’s Technology Transfer
and Commercialization Advisory Board. That report noted that
Connecticut’s state-backed universities did a poor job of working with
industry and that a concerted statewide effort was required to remedy
the situation. With the passage of this new legislation, Connecticut has
begun the process. |
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The British Government has announced several initiatives designed to help further support new enterprises in the UK. First, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has launched a 200 million pound (roughly $360 million) program, called Enterprise Capital Funds, which will provide publicly-backed funds as a match to qualified investments by venture and angel capital investors. The funds will be privately managed, and can be employed to support firms seeking an equity investment of up to 2 million pounds (roughly $3.6 million). Meanwhile, Business Link, the DTI’s small business arm, has released a new guide for start-ups. The “No-Nonsense Guide to Government Rules and Regulations for Setting Up Your Business,” offers a handy how-to guide for Britons thinking about the legal and bureaucratic issues surrounding business start-up. |
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