PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Hat tip to the fantastic Brainpicker website which has found a rare video of a 1986 PBS documentary known as The Entrepreneurs. It offers "a rare glimpse of Jobs’ original vision with NeXT, from his aspirations for higher education and simulated learning environments to his decision-making process on price point and product features to his approach to company culture and motivational morale". Watch and marvel.

Last week, Sir Terry Matthews announced the establishment of the Welsh version of his bootcamp for technology entrepreneurs via the Alacrity Foundation. Based in Newport, the scheme will take on ten graduates to develop products in information technology, eventually creating companies in Wales by the end of the year in which the recruits will have a 25 per cent stake. Such a scheme is long overdue and may finally begin to address the innovation deficit that has plagued Wales for too long when compared to other parts of the UK. In fact, the challenge in developing a growing knowledge-based economy were demonstrated by a report released this month on one of the great success stories when it comes to maximising regional innovation potential. The city of Cambridge in East Anglia has long been seen as one of the major innovation hotspots not only in the UK but in the World. The development of this success was first documented by the seminal 1980s publication, “The Cambridge Phenomen...

Arrived in Singapore yesterday afternoon for a four day jetlagged visit. Given the fact that the island economy is still seen as one of the growth regions of the World, it is always revealing to examine what has been going on in recent months. Certainly, growth has been outstripping that of the UK, with the Straits Times reporting that Singapore's economy is expected to grow by around 5 per cent in 2011. Despite this good news, the expansion of the economy is not expected to last and is expected to slow down next year - growth is estimated at  anywhere between 1 and 3 per cent. The last time Singapore experienced such weak growth was in 2008 when the economy expanded by just 1.5 per cent (although it contracted by 0.8 per cent in 2009). However, in calculating the state of the economy in 2012, the Ministry for Trade and Industry has not factored in downside risks to growth, such as that of a worsening debt situation leading to a full-blown financial crisis in...

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin talk about the influence of Stanford University as a catalyst for university-industry interaction.

For a man who is not shy in courting publicity, it is not surprising to see Sir Richard Branson in the business press again this week. Yet his audacious purchase of Northern Rock, soon to be merged with Virgin Money , may have overshadowed another more important development namely the publication of a report sponsored by Virgin Media entitled “Control Shift: the Rise of Young Entrepreneurs”. Through the Control Shift campaign , hundreds of young entrepreneurs have been consulted by Branson’s team on what can be done to develop and encourage a new generation of businesspeople in this country. By challenging current thinking, they have developed a set of proposals that are a wake-up call to all politicians and policymakers who want to reinvigorate the economy. For too long, entrepreneurship has been seen as a last resort policy by many to economic development and unemployment. Yet there is overwhelming evidence that start-ups are the job creators of the economy and whilst entrepreneu...

If you thought the impact of social media couldn't get more pervasive, it is worth having a look at this presentation.

The First Minister of Wales recently visited China to sign an agreement with Chongqing, a major city in the west of the country. This commits Wales to furthering economic development links and continuing to work together with this municipality in the fields of science, technology, culture, health, education, agriculture, forestry management, environment, governance and tourism. Whilst a visit by the First Minister to China to develop further links is to be welcomed, this is hardly groundbreaking progress. In fact, this latest relationship merely builds on an earlier memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Chongqing Municipal Government and the Welsh Assembly Government, signed by Rhodri Morgan in 2006 in which they agreed to collaborate and co-operate in a number of areas. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am an avid supporter of Wales going out to the World  to not only trade with different nations, but to form important relationships that can help change ...