The world is standing on the very edge of the next big thing—the commercial application of graphene. Even as the super-strong, super-conductive single-atom thick sheet of carbon was first created in 2004, a useful application of this wonder material has remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Think of it as Google Maps, on steroids.
In conjunction with 1776, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Foundation attended a series of roundatables in eight cities to examine the startup economy and civic entrepreneurship.
The value locked up in highly regulated industries grows with very year. Startups are realizing there’s an opportunity in unlocking these markets, and their backers are looking to help.
The tech industry’s “fail fast, fail often” mantra has proven successful in pumping out world-changing innovations in record time. The faster one figures out what doesn’t work, the faster one can get to something that does. Failure is a good thing that is a natural consequence of the innovation process.
Peter Thiel, the legendary co-founder of PayPal, says that the greatest threat to technological growth in America is a culture that embraces conformity. “I worry that the conformity problem is worse today than it was in the ‘50s,” said Thiel at an event hosted by the Mercatus Center.
Edward Luce writes in the Financial Times that “American’s politics is remarkable for its resistance to new ideas.” Luce contrasts this way of thinking to the sort that percolates in the
For about a century, beginning in the early 1800s, the Balkan peninsula (previously ruled as a single land by the Ottomans) was broken into a number of smaller states that did not get along.
Detroit is not dead. Just spend a little time in the area around Greektown and Comerica Park, and you’ll sense that things are coming around. And that’s manifesting itself in an eager community of startups that is not afraid to think outside the box.
