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Week of January 28 - February 3, 2008 |
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New Tools to Measure Innovation
In late 2006, Secretary of Commerce Carlos
Gutierrez announced the creation of a blue ribbon Advisory Committee on
Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy. The panel was chaired
by Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation, and was composed of leading business executives and experts
from academia. It was asked to review how the US government tracks and
measures innovation and to provide recommendations for how measurement
systems can do a better job of tracking new forms of innovative
activity. The panel released its findings earlier this month, and its
report should be considered a “must-read” for anyone with an interest in
the innovation economy. |
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2008 Index of Economic Freedom Earlier this month,
the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal released the latest
edition of their annual global index of economic freedom. The Index
assesses how 162 countries perform on ten different measures of economic
freedom. These measures track areas such freedom from corruption, the
ability of entrepreneurs to start new firms, open trade regimes, strong
property rights, and equitable tax rates. The Index finds that nations
with high levels of economic freedom also have higher levels of
prosperity (measured in GDP per capita) and higher growth rates.
However, very few countries can be classified as “free” economies. In
fact, only seven countries are included in this category. The vast
majority of nations operate with “moderately free” or “mostly unfree”
economies. The top performers in the 2008 Index are (in rank order):
Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Australia, the US, New Zealand, and
Canada. Access the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom, from the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. |
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Many of the world’s movers and shakers
converged in Davos, Switzerland last week for the annual meeting of the
World Economic Forum. This year’s theme is “The Power of Collaborative
Innovation.” Big name presenters at this year’s meetings include former
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, James Dimon
of JP Morgan Chase, Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, and News Corporation’s
Rupert Murdoch. The World Economic Forum also releases a number of
interesting publications to coincide with the annual meeting. For
example, the Global Risks 2008 survey of business leaders finds the
highest levels of political and economic uncertainty in over a decade.
Meanwhile, a report from the Young Global Leaders of the World Economic
Forum maps out expectations for what the world will look like in 2030.
Key findings identified include: |
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Network Formed to Advance University Innovation
Inspired by positive results from a joint
study with the Max Planck Institute of Economics, the Kauffman
Foundation has formed a network that will bring ‘proof of concept’
centers together to move university innovations into the marketplace.
These centers provide seed funding to university-based early stage
research as well as a host of advisory services and educational
initiatives to assist students and faculty with market research,
mentoring, development and testing of innovations, preparation of
business plans and connections to the commercial market. The two centers
examined in the report, the Deshpande Center at MIT and the von Liebing
Center at the University of California San Diego, will be founding
members of the new network. According to researchers, since the two
centers’ creation in 2002, they have collectively awarded nearly $10
million in seed grants and launched 26 seed-stage companies that have
accumulated more than $159 million in private capital. |
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The Last Word on 2007 Venture Capital Numbers The final figures
for venture capital (VC) investing in 2007 were released last week. As
reported in last week’s edition of NDE-news, 2007 was a decent, but not
spectacular, year in terms of fundraising and venture-backed exit
activity. It was a somewhat better year in terms of investment activity.
VC firms invested $29.3 billion in 3,813 deals in 2007. For 2007,
invested dollars were up 10.8 percent from 2006, and deal volume grew by
five percent. Hot sectors included clean technology, life sciences, and
internet-specific companies. Continuing recent trends, VC investing in
early stage deals remained steady. Meanwhile, dollars invested in later
stage companies continued to climb. |
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The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is 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 entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online. |
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National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
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stories © 2008 The Public Forum Institute
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