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- Battle Cries of the Inane - The Virginian-Pilot May 20, 2012
- Saturday's high school roundup: HRA takes state boys lacrosse crown - Daily Press May 20, 2012
- Road project funding close to running dry in Virginia - The Virginian-Pilot May 20, 2012
- Economically, tall ships are a tall order - The Virginian-Pilot May 20, 2012
- Peninsula District baseball: Contreras' game-winning single lifts Hampton past ... - Daily Press May 20, 2012
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Category Archive: Innovation
Apr 12
Start Norfolk 2.0
Start Norfolk 2.0 is just around the corner. As the event’s website states, “Start Norfolk is a weekend long event bringing together individuals of different mind and skill sets— entrepreneurs, engineers, developers, designers, and business people—with the goal of building a viable startup over a weekend.”
We’ll see you at the Ted Constant Convocation Center at Old Dominion University on April 27-29!
See StartNorfolk.com for more information.
Apr 02
JOBS Act Set to Help Startups
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a piece of legislation that would allow non-accredited investors to support businesses raising less than $1 
million, could be a gamechanger for new companies. In the past, small businesses have been able to request donations through crowdfunding platforms, but this law would allow startups to sell small stakes of their company, a difference that would undoubtedly incentivise investors to donate.
President Obama is set to sign the JOBS Act in to law this week, according to his Deputy Press Secretary. Venture Beat reported that the JOBS Act, which was strongly supported by President Obama, passed both houses with overwhelming success, 380 to 41 in the House, and 73 to 26 in the Senate.
AForbes article says that the number of entrepreneurs requesting money to fund their ideas are up dramatically, 31,000 projects saught donations in 2011, compared to 12,000 in 2010. The article also said that “crowdfunding has gone from a $32 million market to a $123 million market in the past two years,” citing a report released by The Daily Crowdsource.
Please follow this link to read the entire Venture Beat article.
Please follow this link to read the entire Forbes article.
Mar 30
Who’s Tweeting?
With so many people talking about entrepreneurship, it’s hard to know who warrants a listen. The Next Web, an online publication on Internet technology, business and culture, has compiled a list of the top people on Twitter tweeting about entrepreneurship. The article’s author, Amalia Agathou, teame
d up with PeerIndex to look at Twitter users based on their overall readership as well as their “topic resonance,” meaning how influential they are within the entrepreneur community. Agathou says that, “The conversation around entrepreneurship in the digital world and social media has escaped the walls of Silicon Valley and the community of entrepreneurs has gotten closer than ever. Entrepreneurs support and share their experience with each other and they get inspiration from success stories across the globe. But when interested in making a change with their businesses, who do they turn to for inspiration and guidance? We decided to take a closer look.”
Read the entire The Next Web article here: The 25 Most Influential People Tweeting About Entrepreneurship, and click the following link to be taken to the Twitter The Top 25 Entrepreneurs list.
Mar 28
Entrepreneurs Everywhere
Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs… many of the most profitable entrepreneurs have become household names, but a recent Forbes article argues that innovation is far more widespread than these success stories would suggest. How about Bob, Lisa, Steve or Barbara? Oh, those names aren’t ringing any bells? They’re the innovators sitting right next to you at the office, the people you pass on the street, all deemed “internal entrepreneurs,” by this Forbes article. These entrepreneurs keep established companies growing through internal innovation. The article’s author, Brenna Sniderman, compares companies to sharks, saying that must continually move forward to stay alive. She adds that, to keep momentum, companies
must, “be stocked with enough internal innovators to develop new ideas, new products, new technologies, new processes and new strategies. Even Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs didn’t just come up with the one big idea and then build a company to let that one idea hum—they hired people to work for them to keep innovating, keep pushing that idea forward, to keep building new ideas around it, like branches from a sturdy tree.”
Interested in which qualities to look for when hiring internal entrepreneurs? Read the entire Forbes article: The Entrepreneur in the Next Cubicle.
Mar 26
Teaching Entrepreneurism
An article in The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed if entrepreneurship could be taught or if it must be learned. “Education proponents argue that if you can teach people general skills that are useful in business, you can instill lessons about running their own companies, too. What’s more, the proponents argue, research in the field of entrepreneurship has improved by leaps and bounds in rec
ent years, so educators can do much more to help entrepreneurs avoid common problems.”
Dr. Noam Wasserman, of the Harvard Business School, argues that, much like in law and medicine, many of the base skills can be taught but they must be complimented with real-world work to prepare students for the industry. “Every day,” Wasserman pointed out, “ill-advised, and easily avoidable decisions are killing off great ideas that could help restore entrepreneurial magic to our economy. By educating founders about those kinds of pitfalls, we may be able to increase their success rates—and give the country a boost along the way.”
Dr. Victor Hwang, Managing Director of T2 Venture Capital in Silicon Valley, argues just the opposite, saying that “Entrepreneurship can’t be taught in a regular classroom any more than surfboarding can… For an entrepreneur, there are rarely clear-cut right or wrong decisions day to day. Real life gives entrepreneurs the ability to better make those kinds of judgment calls.”
What do you think?
Read the complete Wall Street Journal article at the following link: Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
Mar 21
Virginia SBDC Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP) for Clean Tech, Modeling & Simulation
An Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP) to assist Virginians who are commercializing innovations in [Clean Technologies/Modeling & Simulation] is being offered by the Virginia Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) Network at George Mason University. ICAP, funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
ICAP will provide participants (Virginia businesses, entrepreneurs, universities or other research centers commercializing Clean Tech or M&S innovations) with a FREE Client Market Assessment on their innovation, developed by subject matter experts in their industry.
The assessment will include:
- A SWOT analysis
- Summary
- Grade
- Recommended next steps
Based on the assessment, selected participants will also receive additional customized counseling and assistance to help them get their innovation to market!
An ICAP Program Description and Client Application package are available at http://bit.ly/A3DouL.
Please complete the Client Application (using Adobe Reader; free from http://www.adobe.com/go/reader) and email the application to shine@virginiasbdc.org. Registration as a client of the Virginia SBDC Network is required for participation in the Program. Applicants that are not already Virginia SBDC Network clients will be directed by the Client Application form to an online SBDC client registration site. The Virginia SBDC Network respects the confidentiality and sensitivity of client information and intellectual property.
If you have any questions, please contact Terry Woodword at twoodworth@shinesandt.com, or call (434) 987-8066.
Jan 25
Start Norfolk 2.0
Start Norfolk is a weekend-long event bringing together individuals of different mind and skill sets— entrepreneurs, engineers, developers, designers and business people—with the goal of building a viable startup over a weekend. Last November, Start Norfolk launched at the Innovation Research Park at ODU and planning is on-going for the second edition in Spring 2012.
Start Norfolk 1.0 attendees left saying:
- “I felt like I was the Woodstock of Technology; it was legendary.”
- “Titanic event, #2 is a must.”
- “I don’t want to go back home to Atlanta.”
And, during the State of the Union address this year, President Obama said, “Most jobs are created by startups.”
With your support, Start Norfolk can continue to grow the entrepreneurial and startup community here in Hampton Roads.
Review Start Norfolk 2.0 information (PDF) and be a part of the future! Official announcement of the event is February 2nd.
For more information, contact Zack Miller at zack.miller@wearetitans.net.
More on Start Norfolk on SmartRegion.org.