Toward a process theory of entrepreneurship: revisiting opportunity identification and entrepreneurial actions

This dissertation studies the early development of new ventures and small business and the entrepreneurship process from initial ideas to viable ventures. I unpack the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial actions and new ventures’ investor communications through quality signals to finance their growth path. This dissertation includes two qualitative papers and one quantitative study. The qualitative papers employ an inductive multiple-case approach and include seven medical equipment manufacturers (new ventures) in a nascent market context (the mobile health industry) across six U.S. states and a secondary data analysis to understand the emergence of opportunities and the early development of new ventures. The quantitative research chapter includes 770 IPOs in the manufacturing industries in the U.S. and investigates the legitimation strategies of young ventures to gain resources from targeted resource-holders.Open Acces

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Daily Stress Recognition from Mobile Phone Data, Weather Conditions and Individual Traits

Research has proven that stress reduces quality of life and causes many diseases. For this reason, several researchers devised stress detection systems based on physiological parameters. However, these systems require that obtrusive sensors are continuously carried by the user. In our paper, we propose an alternative approach providing evidence that daily stress can be reliably recognized based on behavioral metrics, derived from the user's mobile phone activity and from additional indicators, such as the weather conditions (data pertaining to transitory properties of the environment) and the personality traits (data concerning permanent dispositions of individuals). Our multifactorial statistical model, which is person-independent, obtains the accuracy score of 72.28% for a 2-class daily stress recognition problem. The model is efficient to implement for most of multimedia applications due to highly reduced low-dimensional feature space (32d). Moreover, we identify and discuss the indicators which have strong predictive power.Comment: ACM Multimedia 2014, November 3-7, 2014, Orlando, Florida, US

Internet of things: why we are not there yet

Twenty-one years past since Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) has been written, and it is yet to be fully fulfilled despite of almost all the needed technologies already available. Still, the widespread interest in UbiComp and the results in some of its fields pose a question: why we are not there yet? It seems we miss the ‘octopus’ head. In this paper, we will try to depict the reasons why we are not there yet, from three different points of view: interaction media, device integration and applications

How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution

Automatic Detection of User Abilities through the SmartAbility Framework

This paper presents a proposed smartphone application for the unique SmartAbility Framework that supports interaction with technology for people with reduced physical ability, through focusing on the actions that they can perform independently. The Framework is a culmination of knowledge obtained through previously conducted technology feasibility trials and controlled usability evaluations involving the user community. The Framework is an example of ability-based design that focuses on the abilities of users instead of their disabilities. The paper includes a summary of Versions 1 and 2 of the Framework, including the results of a two-phased validation approach, conducted at the UK Mobility Roadshow and via a focus group of domain experts. A holistic model developed by adapting the House of Quality (HoQ) matrix of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach is also described. A systematic literature review of sensor technologies built into smart devices establishes the capabilities of sensors in the Android and iOS operating systems. The review defines a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as search terms used to elicit literature from online repositories. The key contribution is the mapping of ability-based sensor technologies onto the Framework, to enable the future implementation of a smartphone application. Through the exploitation of the SmartAbility application, the Framework will increase technology amongst people with reduced physical ability and provide a promotional tool for assistive technology manufacturers

New media practices in India: bridging past and future, markets and development

This article provides a review of the academic and popular literature on new media practices in India, focusing on the country’s youth's use of mobile phones and the Internet, as well as new media prosumption. One particular feature of the Indian case is the confluence of commercial exploitation of new media technologies and their application for development purposes in initiatives that aim to bring these technologies to marginalized segments of the Indian population. Technology usage in turn is shaped by the socioeconomic location of the user, especially in regards to gender and caste. The potential of new media technologies to subvert such social stratifications and associated norms has inspired much public debate, which is often carried out on the Internet, giving rise to an online public sphere. In all of the writings reviewed here, the tension surrounding new media technologies as a meeting place of the old and the new in India is paramount