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I nternational leaders face an era of unprecedented change. The recession and  financial crisis that ended in 2009 caused a seismic shift that has reshaped  the global business landscape. The world economy is now characterized  by sluggish growth in the West, a shift in power to the East, and value-driven  customers and rising risks everywhere. At the same time, the downturn has  hastened the adoption of key technologies-mobility, cloud computing, business  intelligence and social media-that are transforming businesses and sparking a  new wave of wealth creation, particularly in the emerging world. Economic growth and technology are inextricably linked. Current economic  conditions are fostering investment in technology as emerging markets ramp up  their demand for technology to fuel growth, and advanced markets seek new  ways to cut costs and drive innovation. This becomes a virtuous circle as digital  technologies drive consumer income and demand, education and training, and  efficient use of capital and resources-leading to increased economic growth,  particularly in emerging markets. 

The slow decline of industrial manufacturing in developed nations and recent failures of financial capitalism across the globe have sent us searching for a new model of economic growth. I see the two movements of Technology Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship beginning to converge into a promising solution. An increasing number of entrepreneurs are awakening to the possibility of combining the scalable tools and methodology of Technology Entrepreneurship with the world-centric value system of Social Entrepreneurship. Together they create a new type of entrepreneurship that could become our primary source of socioeconomic value creation. What do we call this movement? I propose we call it "Transformational Entrepreneurship."*

L'accélérateur technologique montréalais FounderFuel, qui prend la forme d'une compétition entre entrepreneurs désireux de percer le secteur des technologies mobiles et de l'internet, vient de décrocher 6 millions de dollars de la part de la Banque de développement du Canada (BDC).

Change is here. It is happening everywhere. I have been fortunate in the last few months to speak and also do a tremendous amount of listening and asking pertinent questions of minister level officials in 5 national capitals, on 4 continents. The pace of change in government use and implementation of social media, gov 2.0, open gov, egov and various other monikers is extremely rapid, in some countries it is breakneck.

La lecture de la semaine est un post de blog hébergé sur le site de Forbes, blog tenu par un certain Eric Jackson (@ericjackson), fondateur de la société de capital-risque IronFire. Le post est intitulé "Voici pourquoi Facebook et Google devraient avoir complètement disparu d'ici 5 ans". Ce qui est intéressant, c'est que ce post a été écrit fin avril, bien avant donc les déboires qui accompagnent l'introduction de Facebook au Nasdaq en début de semaine. Mais il donne des pistes pour comprendre à quel point Facebook a été survalorisé.

"It's examples like this that the Mayo Clinic hopes to foster as it rolls out a new strategy -- affiliating with hospitals and health systems across the country -- as a response to the chaotic healthcare environment. Capitalizing on its reputation for superlative medical care, Mayo previously relied primarily on patients traveling to its main campus in Rochester, MN, as well as satellite campuses in Jacksonville, FL, and Phoenix and Scottsdale, AZ, and a regional health system in ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. "Our model has been that the patients come to us," said Dr. John Noseworthy, Mayo's president and chief executive officer, at a February press conference. "Increasingly, going forward... we also wish to extend the reach of the Mayo Clinic, taking our knowledge, taking our experience, and sharing it with others.""

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is working to connect rural households to broadband through the Connect America Fund. The Fund provides capital to private sector companies in order to help shoulder the cost of building out broadband networks to those homes. However, two of the largest service providers have opted out of the the free money saying that they would prefer to focus their attention elsewhere. One provider, Frontier Communications is stepping up to the plate citing significant business value in bringing these households online, a view which raises more questions about whether AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are creating artificial network scarcity in order to provide a better picture for shareholders at the expense of American competitiveness."

"Le Colloque international présentera en primeur les résultats de la première enquête sur l'innovation par les TIC. Menée auprès de 2500 entreprises et organismes du Québec et du Canada, cette enquête examine de façon inédite les liens entre les TIC et l'innovation en vue de mesurer le capital numérique des organisations."

"Maintenant que des investisseurs informels peuvent participer au financement commun du capital des startup, ce nouveau modèle pourrait constituer un moyen très efficace d'encourager une partie de l'économie qui pèse lourdement sur l'emploi et le PIB."

Observers are once again questioning the reliability of high-volume trading technology -- and the people who run it. This time, Knight Capital suffered an expensive glitch Wednesday when its systems issued "erroneous orders" to the market, distorting results and forcing Knight to make good on many false trades. Knight could lose $440 million from its bad morning yesterday.

BT Wi-Fi is the exclusive hot-spot provider for the London 2012 Olympics, and a promise made in 2011 to have some 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the capital has been met. The celebration for meeting this target was to deploy new wi-fi hotspots along 27 miles of the River Thames. The hotspots are a mixture of commercial deployments, and BT Total/Infinity customers offering access via the partner Fon. Though while the number of Fon sites is increasing, oddly in the TV advertising for BT Infinity it is neglected for the risky prospect of sharing a private Wi-Fi key with pretty people you don't know very well.

The Northern Ireland capital plans to make itself one of the most connected cities in Europe with widespread Wi-Fi to cover Belfast by 2015. Guaranteed funding of £6 million is already available through Westminster's plans to create Super Connected Cities. Further funding is possible through the scheme, and the Belfast City Council will be putting forward a bid which it hopes will more than double this funding.

Investigating the financial fraud and misguided power plays that brought down the telecom industry Once the foundation of the Dow and NASDAQ, the telecom industry has eaten up more capital than any other industry in recent history and has nothing to show for it. Today, it is by far the worst culprit in the spate of financial dirty dealings that have been splashed across the business pages, and yet the rewards reaped by top executives at many of these failed or failing companies have been inversely proportionate to their decline. Broadbandits takes readers behind the scenes to get the story they won't get in the media. Investigative reporter Om Malik follows the money trail and deciphers the actions and motivations of a generation of new economy "barbarians" that brought down this once lucrative industry. This intriguing book offers an inside look into the telecom bubble, with tales and anecdotes about mavericks who turned simple light and glass fibers into veins of gold, financiers who got greedy and fleeced unsuspecting millions, clueless venture capitalists who thought they'd tapped into the mother lode, hapless entrepreneurs who believed that they were changing the world, and self-proclaimed pundits who were cheering it all on from the sidelines. Broadbandits is a compelling account of the downfall of telecom giants such as WorldCom and Global Crossing, and will show readers how many telecom upstarts and veterans alike became victims of what one chief executive aptly described as "high-yield heroin." Om Malik (New York, NY) is a Senior Writer for Red Herring who focuses on the telecommunications sector. Prior to joining Red Herring in July 2000, he was senior editor at Forbes.com. His work has also been published in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, Brandweek, and Crain's New York Business. For a very brief while, he was a venture capitalist.

After trials, Wi-Fi in the London Underground has gone live in two stations (Warren Street and King's Cross), with plans to fit 80 stations out before the Olympics, which are now only a few weeks away. From the article: '"Our new Wi-Fi service is a fantastic deal for Londoners, with live travel updates, entertainment and news freely available to everyone while they are on the move across the capital," said Gareth Powell, London Underground's director of strategy and service development. "Wi-Fi at Tube stations will help us improve the journeys of the millions of people that use the Underground everyday at no cost to fare or tax payers.

"Pourtant, l'inventivité d'Apple ne doit pas être considérée comme une anomalie", estime Anthony Scott. "Elle indique un changement spectaculaire dans le monde de l'innovation. La révolution initiée par les start-ups et les sociétés de capital-risque a créé les conditions pour que les grandes entreprises aujourd'hui se mettent à libérer l'innovation qu'elles contiennent." Trois tendances sont à l'origine de ce changement, estime Anthony Scott. Tout d'abord, l'augmentation des coûts et la diminution de la facilité de l'innovation signifient que les start-ups sont maintenant confrontés aux mêmes pressions à court terme que celles qui ont freiné l'innovation dans les grandes entreprises. C'est-à-dire que dès qu'un jeune entrepreneur connait un peu de succès, il doit se battre contre des dizaines d'imitateurs. Ensuite, les grandes entreprises ont intégré à leurs stratégies les notions d'innovation ouverte, des processus de gestion moins hiérarchisée et ont intégré les comportements entrepreneuriaux à leurs savoir-faire. Enfin, bien que l'innovation a toujours été produite et axée sur le service, il s'agit de plus en plus de créer des modèles d'affaires qui exploitent avant tout les forces uniques de grandes entreprises.

La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec injecte 150 millions de dollars de plus dans son enveloppe consacrée aux investissements dans les entreprises québécoises de petite capitalisation cotées en Bourse.L'enveloppe passe donc de 50 à 200 millions de dollars. La Caisse de dépôt modifie également ses critères d'investissement. L'an dernier, au moment de créer l'enveloppe, les sociétés devaient avoir une capitalisation boursière inférieure à 250 millions de dollars pour espérer recevoir un investissement. Cette limite est haussée à 400 millions de dollars.

We have 3.1 million jobs available today and 24 million people unemployed or underemployed. In the absence of a massive government job-creation program, this disparity will require a wave of entrepreneurial activity to create jobs.

Depuis 30 ans maintenant, la société Novacap a procédé à une soixantaine d'investissements directs dans des entreprises québécoises et financé pas moins de 120 acquisitions qu'ont réalisées ces sociétés par la suite.