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Les différents ingrédients nécessaire à la création un écosystème propice à l'innovation et surtout à l'entrepreneuriat.ont été abordés plusieurs fois dans nos productions précédentes. Le modèle de la Silicon Valley, que certaines régions tentent de dupliquer (voir BE N°287), s'appuie sur plusieurs composantes fortes : universités et centres de recherche d'excellence, fonds d'investissements prêts à prendre des risques , structures d'accompagnement ou encore cabinets d'avocats [1]. Mais d'où vient ce nombre impressionnant de startup et qui sont leurs créateurs ?

"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."

"Now that informal investors can crowdfund startups for equity, this could be a highly effective way to encourage a part of the economy that greatly affects employment and GDP."

Karpfinger is one of a growing number of hardware startups leveraging crowdfunding, better tools and proliferating expertise to get to market faster and more cheaply than their predecessors. Between Kickstarter, amenable contract manufacturers, and fast-growing platforms like Apple's iOS, hardware ventures are finally, really starting to sprout like software ventures.

Dwolla launches a service that moves money instantly, bypassing how it's been done for 40 years.

"Augmented Reality (AR) has grown in popularity over the last twelve months. Thanks to more and more people owning smartphones and startups like Blipper launching more sophisticated campaigns as a result. There have been a number of campaigns, ideas and projects that have been realised thanks to this new technology. We look at ten of the best from this year."

Over the past several years, I've been writing about how government data is moving into the marketplaces, underpinning ideas, products and services. Open government data and application programming interfaces to distribute it, more commonly known as APIs, increasingly look like fundamental public infrastructure for digital government in the 21st century. What I'm looking for now is more examples of startups and businesses that have been created using open data or that would not be able to continue operations without it. If big data is a strategic resource, it's important to understand how and where organizations are using it for public good, civic utility and economic benefit.

"he influx of investment money is a relatively new and exciting experience for the education sector. Over the past couple years, we've seen millions of dollars poured into the 'hottest' startups in education. From Chegg to Coursera, there's been a renewed interest in shaping the future of education. We explore this idea in the upcoming October issue of Edudemic Magazine but hopefully this useful infographic by Boundless can hold you over until then. It's a great look behind the financial curtain of education. Prepare to either be outraged, excited, or both!"

"Roku founder Anthony Wood runs a startup that, along with companies like Apple and Microsoft, sells hardware that's bringing Web video to home television screens. It's no wonder his nine-year-old daughter prefers to watch her favorite Disney shows on Netflix at her whim, rather than surf Disney's own 24-hour cable channel. This is one example of how traditional TV service providers are losing their hold on America's eyeballs. Internet-connected TVs are becoming the norm on store shelves, and today represent 12 percent of those in people's homes, according to a recent survey by NPD Group. These TVs, and devices like Roku's, make it easier for viewers to cut the cord on their expensive cable bills, and instead simply watch content provided by companies including Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Amazon, and Google on their big home screens."

Automated clicks on ads and other web content drive down value, diminish investments and hurt integrity. And the bot problem only seems to be getting worse as technology advances. This summer, for example, a Long Island startup gained widespread attention after claiming that 80% of the clicks it paid for in Facebook ads came from bots and not humans.

Everyone knows Amazon's cloud is huge. But many want to know exactly how huge it is. The latest to try is Deepfield Networks, a stealthy startup that worked with unnamed "network provider research" partners to figure out how much Internet traffic flows into and out of Amazon's cloud. It found that 1/3 of all Internet users hit Amazon-based services at least once a day and that 1 percent of all web consumer traffic is moving either into or out of Amazon's cloud.

Who drives product innovation? The answer is small, entrepreneurial development teams - better known as "agile teams" in the high-tech industry. These types of teams are obviously essential for startups, but many large companies approach team-building in the same way, especially those that lead the industry in terms of product revenue. This is not to say the corporation doesn't play a crucial role - it most certainly does - but mostly by creating an environment for success, by removing obstacles, setting a clear vision and providing essential tools and training. What are the essential elements - the genetic structure, if you will - of a high-performance team? After poring through 60 years of industry research and talking to dozens of companies, I've identified 10 core innovation strategies of new product leaders.

The debate over whether we are in a technology bubble - and if so, what kind of bubble it might be - flared up again over the weekend, sparked by a piece in the New York Times that said venture-capital investors are encouraging startups to forego revenue so they can fetch higher valuations. Others immediately took issue with this idea, however, saying there is no bubble and repeated attempts to find one are just an attempt to stir up controversy. So which is it? That depends a lot on what you mean by the term "bubble." Does it mean the kind of investment mania that resulted in a public-market bloodbath a decade ago, or just any sign of overvaluation?

Coursera, the brainchild startup of two Stanford professors who found great success with free online classes last year, just secured a $16 million round of funding. Kirsten Winkler and I had a chance to talk with them late last week and their insights on free education, online learning, and the use of data to drive teaching and business are well worth sharing. Check out the interview below:

Once we connect 50 billion devices to the web, as Ericsson's CEO thinks will happen by 2020, what will those devices talk to? Chicago Startup Tempo hopes those sensors will take to its database as a service - depositing their tiny bits of time series data inside its custom database. The company, which was a Structure 2012 Launchpad finalist, has built a specialty database for data that consists of two items, time and a data point.

obin Chase était hier à TED Global pour présenter sa vision de la consommation collaborative, et en particulier le concept de Peers Incorporated. Spécialiste des questions de transport, nommée par le Times parmi les 100 personnes les plus influentes en 2009, Robin Chase à créé Zipcar en 2000 puis Buzzcar en 2011. Zipcar met une flotte de voitures à disposition des automobilistes et Buzzcar, version p2p de Zipcar, permet aux automobilistes de louer directement leur voiture à d'autres automobilistes. Deux startups qui sont donc résolument ancrées dans la consommation collaborative.

David Sacks of Yammer wonders if Silicon Valley - meaning the venture-backed bastion of innovation and wealth creation in the Bay Area - has started to lose it's mojo. His argument - more of a handwave really - is that a/ the economics don't work in a system with such large incumbents (like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc.), b/ partly because todays agile, ramen-fueld startups don't have the cash to effectively compete against the incumbents, and c/ the number of ideas that can be juiced into existence given that context are few.

"Local programmers and homegrown business models are helping to realize the vast promise of using phones to improve health care and save lives."

Code for America helps governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web. Through our Fellowship, Accelerator, and Brigade, we're building a network of cities, citizens, community groups, and startups, all equally committed to reimagining government for the 21st century.