Overcoming the Gender Gap: Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers

Examines the gender gap in the number of successful start-ups, its implications for job creation, and misconceptions about and factors behind barriers to women's entrepreneurship. Recommends steps to cultivate high-growth start-ups among women

Immigrants and Billion Dollar Startups

Immigrants play a key role in creating new, fast-growing companies, as evidenced by the prevalence of foreignborn founders and key personnel in the nation's leading privately-held companies. Immigrants have started more than half (44 of 87) of America's startup companies valued at $1 billion dollars or more and are key members of management or product development teams in over 70 percent (62 of 87) of these companies. The research finds that among the billion dollar startup companies, immigrant founders have created an average of approximately 760 jobs per company in the United States. The collective value of the 44 immigrant-founded companies is$168 billion, which is close to half the value of the stock markets of Russia or Mexico.The research involved conducting interviews and gathering information on the 87 U.S. startup companies valued at over $1 billion (as of January 1, 2016) that have yet to become publicly traded on the U.S. stock market and are tracked by The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones VentureSource. The companies, all privately-held and with the potential to become publicly traded on the stock market, are today each valued at$1 billion or more and have received venture capital (equity) financing

Non-competes, business dynamism, and concentration: Evidence from a Florida case study

Most research on non-competes has focused on employees; here we study how non-competes affect firm location choice, growth, and consequent regional concentration, using Florida's 1996 legislative change that eased restrictions on their enforcement. Difference-in-differences models show that following the change, establishments of large firms were more likely to enter Florida; they also created a greater proportion of jobs and increased their share of employment in the state. Entrepreneurs or establishments of small firms, in contrast, were less likely to enter Florida following the law change; they also created a smaller proportion of new jobs and decreased their share of employment. Consistent with these location and job creation dynamics, regional business concentration increased following the law change in Florida. Nationwide cross-sections demonstrate consistent correlations between state-level non-compete enforcement and the location, employment, and concentration dynamics illustrated in Florida

From Lab Bench to Innovation: Critical Challenges to Nascent Academic Entrepreneurs

University research laboratories are important sources of the inventions and discoveries that become significant innovations with broad economic and societal impact. Invention alone is not innovation; innovation is the long, hard work of taking new technologies and bringing them to commercialization.There are many pathways for the dissemination of new knowledge that arises from basic research at universities, ranging from traditional methods such as publication and training students to licensing technology to established firms or new ventures.One way to transform new knowledge into valuable innovations is for university researchers to undertake the creation of new firms based on their discoveries through academic entrepreneurship. The problem is that university scientists and inventors with a discovery made at a laboratory bench face challenges beyond those experienced by traditional high-technology venture founders: they must finish creating the technology before they can begin using it.Academics typically start with inventions so immature that their commercial success cannot be predicted Academic entrepreneurship is an emerging and developing phenomenon, and there is a growing body of literature about new ventures based on university academic. However, limited research has been directed toward nascent academic entrepreneurs (NAEs) to understand the key challenges of bringing innovations to market. The majority of this work has focused on the institutional experience rather than the academic entrepreneurs and their individual experiences . Within the broader fields of entrepreneurship and innovation, it has been argued that high-potential startups such as academic ventures should receive particular attention from scholarsThe following research addressed this gap.Nascent academic entrepreneurship involves more than transforming an invention into a commercialized innovation. It is about the genesis of ideas and the emergence of opportunities, the birth of new organizations, their evolution into new companies, and the transformation of scientists into leaders. It also is about providing the foundation for future innovation by others. Though nascent academic entrepreneurship is increasing in frequency, it is not well understood. The dissertation examines this important topic

Chasing Sustainability on the Net : International research on 69 journalistic pure players and their business models

This report outlines how online-based journalistic startups have created their economical locker in the evolving media ecology. The research introduces the ways that startups have found sustainability in the markets of ten countries. The work is based on 69 case studies from Europe, USA and Japan. The case analysis shows that business models can be divided into two groups. The storytelling-oriented business models are still prevalent in our findings. These are the online journalistic outlets that produce original content – news and stories for audiences. But the other group, service-oriented business models, seems to be growing. This group consists of sites that don’t try to monetize the journalistic content as such but rather focus on carving out new functionality. The project was able to identify several revenue sources: advertising, paying for content, affiliate marketing, donations, selling data or services, organizing events, freelancing and training or selling merchandise. Where it was hard to evidence entirely new revenue sources, it was however possible to find new ways in which revenue sources have been combined or reconfigured. The report also offers practical advice for those who are planning to start their own journalistic site

Vector Fall 2016

Vector is the student engineering magazine on campus. Published by the Student Engineering Council, Vector is completely written, managed, and designed by students for students. With issues dating back to 1971, the magazine has a long-standing tradition of serving as the voice for engineering students at The University of Texas at Austin. The Vector staff publishes two issues per semester. For more information regarding the Vector magazine, please contact us at vector@ sec.engr.utexas.edu.Cockrell School of EngineeringCockrell School of Engineerin

Career Transitions and Trajectories: A Case Study in Computing

From artificial intelligence to network security to hardware design, it is well-known that computing research drives many important technological and societal advancements. However, less is known about the long-term career paths of the people behind these innovations. What do their careers reveal about the evolution of computing research? Which institutions were and are the most important in this field, and for what reasons? Can insights into computing career trajectories help predict employer retention? In this paper we analyze several decades of post-PhD computing careers using a large new dataset rich with professional information, and propose a versatile career network model, R^3, that captures temporal career dynamics. With R^3 we track important organizations in computing research history, analyze career movement between industry, academia, and government, and build a powerful predictive model for individual career transitions. Our study, the first of its kind, is a starting point for understanding computing research careers, and may inform employer recruitment and retention mechanisms at a time when the demand for specialized computational expertise far exceeds supply.Comment: To appear in KDD 201

Examining the Connections within the Startup Ecosystem: A Case Study of St. Louis

This paper documents the resurgence of entrepreneurial activity in St. Louis by reporting on the collaboration and local learning within the startup community. This activity is happening both between entrepreneurs and between organizations that provide support, such as mentoring and funding, to entrepreneurs. As these connections deepen, the strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem grows. Another finding from the research is that activity-based events, where entrepreneurs have the chance to use and practice the skills needed to grow their businesses, are most useful. St. Louis provides a multitude of these activities, such as Startup Weekend, 1 Million Cups, Code Until Dawn, StartLouis, and GlobalHack. Some of these are St. Louis specific, but others have nationwide or global operations, providing important implications for other cities

The Future of Work In Cities

The latest report in our City of the Future series examines societal shifts and advancements in technology that are impacting the rapidly changing American workforce. The report outlines solutions to help city leaders plan for the fast-approaching future, while forecasting the economic viability of two distinct sectors – retail and office administration – in which a quarter of Americans are currently employed