Today Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the winners of the i6 Challenge, a $12 million innovation competition led by the U.S. Department of Commerce, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

According to the Department of Commerce, i6 Challenge seeks to identify and support the nation’s best ideas for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in six different regions of the country. The team with the best idea from each region will receive $1 million from Commerce to support their project.  The teams may also be eligible for additional awards from NIH and NSF. 

Recently, Fareed Zakaria provided a commentary on CNN about the future of U.S. innovation.  He is very concern and feels that the U.S. is slipping in its innovative ways.  What do you think?  Is the U.S. starting to lag behind other countries with regards to innovation?

You can see his commentary here.

Today, President Obama will launch the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration's goal of moving American students from the middle of the pack to the front in science and math achievement over the next decade. The President will announce a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The webinar will focus on how to protect intellectual assets when both time and money are at a premium, and will discuss early stage agreements that are critical to protecting company knowledge and goodwill.

Scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 19, 2 - 3 p.m. Eastern Time, the webinar will feature Gianna Arnold, principal at Miles & Stockbridge P.C. The webinar's topic is "Navigating the IP landscape: Legal issues entrepreneurs and small business owners need to know."

As a scientist and a law professional, Arnold focuses her legal expertise on helping scientists, entrepreneurs and small/medium business executives learn about the policies, procedures and corresponding agreements needed to protect the intellectual assets of start-up, early stage and mid-sized companies