LinkedIn Wins Entrepreneur of the Year

LinkedIn execs Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner won Ernst Youngs 25th annual Entrepreneur-of-the-Year award.

Over the next few weeks, NewsOne.com will highlight 3 Black entrepreneurs who are part of the NewMe Accelerator. The NewMe Accelerator is a program for minority led start-ups that will house a handful of visiting start-ups during the summer of 2011 in Silicon Valley. The three entrepreneurs, Pius Uzamere, Tiffani Bell, and Chris Bennett, will reveal the inspiration behind their web ideas, and talk about the opportunity this new program has presented them. The NewMe Accelerator will be featured on CNNs Black in America 4 this fall.

The first NewMe entrepreneur is Pius Uzamere

Im Pius Uzamere and I co-founded BeCouply with my girlfriend Becky Cruze in Washington, DC. BeCouply is the web and mobile app for couples. Specifically, we help couples have epic social lives by making it easy to discover great date spots and ideas, capture special moments, and connect with other couples.

My little secret is that I built the first version of BeCouply to impress Becky. You see, there were three big things we started to notice after we started dating last summer.

First, we quickly found that wed come up with and hear about date ideas all the time, but then forget them when we were actually ready to go out. We love dinner and a movie, but you can only do that so many times a month.

At the same time, Becky and I were both into capturing relationship moments: her with scrapbooking and a digital camera for big dates and events; me with my camera phone and location-based apps like Foursquare for all of the little, everyday moments.

On top of all this, Becky and I found that our social graph was changing as our relationship grew more serious. The thousands of friends on Facebook we had between us became a lot less relevant on a day to day basis and instead we were hanging out with a tighter circle of friends and sharing our moments with other couples more than ever.

So, with all of these forces at work, I built the first version of BeCouply and Becky loved it. After fleshing out the product and hearing great feedback from our friends, we decided to make a business out of it. Becky and I both began working full time on BeCouply in December 2010 and havent looked back!

Being a Black founder with a new early stage company, I knew that we would need to do everything possible to maximize BeCouplys odds of success. After a few months of dealing with the somewhat anemic investor community in DC, it became clear that we should move the company to Silicon Valley. Becky and I were fortunate enough to be selected for the NewME Accelerator and thats what finally pushed us into making the move.

So far weve met lots of fantastic people who are waiting to see the polished product; now its on us to deliver.

Can we do it?

Follow our journey here on InteractiveOne!

For more information about the NewMe Accelerator, go to their official website.

RELATED:

Black startups get big push from NewMe Accelarator

Therese Kuster, a senior public relations major at the University of Northern Iowa, recently won the Young Entrepreneur Council/Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the National CEO Conference.

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The Northern Iowan

Fugitive cop David Britto, who made headlines this week for going on the lam rather than face federal drug charges, was constantly reading self-help books and attending motivational seminars.

He wanted to better himself. To become an entrepreneur. To augment his annual $53,000 salary as a Boynton Beach policeman.

So he turned to viral marketing, setting up websites to pitch dating books, nutritional supplements, and household items, including dandruff shampoo, an electric razor, a food dehydrator and the Swiffer sweeper.

When people think of a typical entrepreneur these days, they probably have the image of a Mark Zuckerberg or a Larry Page – stereotypical 20-something guys who come out of Stanford or Harvard with Internet startups that became worldwide sensations.

Well, that stereotype is partially true, although the majority of entrepreneurs are actually 30-somethings, according to a new study by data scientists at LinkedIn.

The scientists at the professional social networking company sifted through the more than 120 million member profiles to find those who identified themselves as a founder or co-founder of a company created in the United States after 2000. They excluded small law, consulting and real estate firms, but still indexed more than 13,000 entrepreneurs.

What they found, according to chief data scientist Monica Rogati, was that the top entrepreneurial business schools were at Stanford and Harvard, followed by MIT Sloan and UC Berkeleys Haas. (While Google co-founder Page earned a masters in computer science at Stanford, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard after co-founding Facebook.)

If that doesnt come as a surprise to you, take a look at the distribution of the founders age at their first startup, Rogati wrote. While young (and serial) entrepreneurs are often in the spotlight, our data shows that 65 percent of entrepreneurs are 30 and older – and only 2 percent are serial entrepreneurs.

Still, 34 percent were between ages 20 and 29 when they founded their startups.

The scientists also looked at college majors, although Rogati notes the value of a formal education for startup founders is a hotly debated subject.

Technical majors (except civil engineering) are over-represented among founders, she said. Nursing and administration are under-represented. While computer engineers find it easier to start companies in their areas of expertise, civil engineers and nurses need more infrastructure support.

And she said certain companies are breeding ground grounds for entrepreneurs, including Adobe Systems, Apple Inc., eBay, Paypal, Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, SGI and Yahoo.

Posted By: Benny Evangelista (Email, Twitter) | September 01 2011 at 01:30 PM

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The solar panel business is all going to China, said Valdis Dunis, a long time entrepreneur and friend.

It was July and we were having coffee in one of Hong Kongs snazzy upscale hotels. I was on my way to Taipei to write about Windows 8 on ARM and fabless IP companies, so I was just storing away his comments to a place somewhere in the far back of my mental filing cabinet.

Yesterday when Silicon Valleys clean tech icon Solyndra publically crashed and burned, Valdis comments flooded back to the forefront of my mind.

As usual, Valdis opinions were well informed. He had been working for some time as the founder of Solar Cities Asia, assembling the business plan for a company that aimed to be a leader in rooftop solar installations in this sun-drenched region.

Much of Valdis time recently had been devoted to pouring over complex financing issues. He was jazzed he had found a way to make the numbers for installing rooftop solar on commercial buildings very compelling, essentially using creative ways a lowered utility bill could be factored into the equation of amortizing the hardware.

I got the impression the solar rooftop business was all about how you ran the numbers, including what government incentives were available. But Valdis is an engineer at heart, so he kept a keen eye on the technology as well.

He had watched China sources of mainstream crystalline solar panels ramp up in volume and down in price over the last year or so. He was very curious about TSMCs plans for solar panels based on CIGS technology. He encouraged me to research how the initiative was going and expressed skepticism even they could master the complex technology behind it.

I didnt make the connection those giant Solyndra fabs along I-880 back in Fremont, Calif., were using similar technology and were in a similarly dicey position. But it didnt take long for market realities to catch up to what Valdis had already concluded.

Word is China has given away tens of billions of dollars to help its local manufacturers step on the gas in mainstream crystalline technology, essentially buying market share in solar. They were following the pattern set by Samsung and LG in DRAMs and LCDs a generation ago.

These days the big US and Japan memory and display makers are consolidating to catch up with Koreas giants. Similarly a solar shakeout seems to be here in the wake of the rising China juggernaut Valdis saw coming months ago.

CIGS, thin-films and other solar technologies still have plenty of promise. Efficiencies of solar cells are abysmally low. A new approach could offer a performance breakthrough to leapfrog China in the market–someday.

But that technology is not here today. The lesson of Solyndra, experts say, is solar alternatives deserve private and public funding at the level of lab research to pave the way for next-generation breakthroughs, but crystalline is the bet to make in mainstream manufacturing. It is edging toward the dollar/Watt sweet spot and its competitors dont seem to be close at the moment.

US investors love to bet on leapfrog technologies that will become the next big thing. But in solar China appears to have a smarter approach at this stage of just out-producing everyone in what the market wants today.

I am headed back to Taipei shortly and thinking maybe this time I really ought to check into TSMCs solar plans. They may be digging in Hsinchu the next big hole in a consolidating solar industry.

What defines an entrepreneur? Most governments dont know. Thats why Israel is the only country that has engineered a successful entrepreneurship cluster from the ground up

Jimi Heselden, who has left an estate of more than £340m to his family, died in a cliff fall. His Sedgway scooter was found nearby. Photograph: Andy Paraskos/PA

COLUMBUS, Ga., Sept. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
As summer comes to an end and the Labor Day holiday approaches, there is no question that our nation’s focus on the American workforce will continue to take center stage. Even with the current national unemployment rate hovering at just over nine percent, more than one-third (35 percent) of U.S. adults reported that the spirit of the U.S. workforce is broken, according to a new survey released today by Aflac, the No. 1 provider of supplemental and guaranteed-renewable insurance in the United States.

More than three quarters (69 percent) of employed adults reported that their paycheck is the majority of the reason they work. Also, 77 percent of adults employed full/part time, and not currently self-employed, stated they would leave their current position to become an independent entrepreneur. Ability to set one’s own hours, spend more time with friends and family, not have to deal with office politics, and/or not have to endure a daily commute, are just some of the many reasons they would be motivated to make a career change to become an independent entrepreneur.

Driven by increasing market demand for voluntary insurance today and in the future, Aflac is bolstering its nationwide independent sales agent network* in 580 markets, offering U.S. workers the opportunity to be their own boss, make their own schedule, and live what many would call the “American Dream.”

“This survey reaffirms that many Americans lack fulfillment and passion for their jobs, and struggle with work/life balance,” said Tom Giddens, senior vice president, director of U.S. Sales at Aflac. “With more than 72,000 entrepreneurs comprising our sales force, our organization believes strongly in workers’ pursuit of a career that not only supports their livelihood but that also brings joy and satisfaction.”

The online survey was conducted on Aflac’s behalf by Harris Interactive in August 2011, among 2,220 U.S. adults ages 18+, of whom 1,272 were employed, and is part of the 2011 Aflac WorkForces Report.

To learn more about the survey, visit AflacWorkForcesReport.com, or to apply for an opportunity at Aflac, visit joinaflac.com.

About the Aflac WorkForces Report

The Aflac WorkForces Report is an annual study analyzing the forces impacting the trends, attitudes and use of employee benefits. Surveying both American workers and business decision-makers, the Aflac WorkForces Report reconciles the perceptions and realities of benefits in the workplace. The insights aim to help businesses make informed decisions about benefits to better protect employees and their bottom line.

Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Aflac from August 11-15, 2011, among 2,220 adults ages 18 and older, of whom 1,272 were employed. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and, therefore, no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Aflac Media Relations at mediarelations@aflac.com or call 706-243-5543.

About Aflac

When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits fast. For more than 55 years, Aflac insurance policies have helped provide a safety net and have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the number one provider of guaranteed-renewable insurance. In Japan, Aflac is the number one insurance company in terms of individual insurance policies in force. Aflac insurance products provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For five consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere Magazine as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies and by Forbes magazine as one of America’s Best-Managed Companies in the Insurance category. In 2011, Fortune magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for the 13th consecutive year. Also, Fortune magazine has included Aflac on its list of Most Admired Companies 10 times. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac, visit aflac.com or aflacenespanol.com.

*Aflac agents are independent agents and are not employees of Aflac.

Media Contact: Susan Bringas PainePR 213.996.3768 susan.bringas@painepr.com

SOURCE Aflac

Copyright (C) 2011 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Fudge is an entrepreneur in the mining industry and last year was ranked 38th on Forbes list of the top 40 richest people in Australia.

His background is not dissimilar to that of Nathan Tinkler who set up the Patinack Farm racing and breeding operation after making his fortune in mining.

Pride says Fudge, who races Sienna Red under the Waratah Thoroughbred Syndicate banner, is also looking to make his mark in the industry.

He wants to breed horses to race which is quite unique, Pride said.

Hes setting up a great operation in the Southern Highlands and he isnt sparing any expense.

It will be a place where horses can spell and pre-train.