Innovation

Impact investing, a growing niche in finance, seeks to marry strong financial returns with positive social impacts. That can mean investing in companies whose products improve the environment, or it can mean helping a startup find ways to positively contribute to the neighborhood where it’s based. Nancy Pfund ’82, founder and managing partner of DBL Investors, talks about the growth of the sector.

Increasingly, a bank is a virtual entity rather than the imposing edifice downtown. Amy Brady, the chief information officer of Cleveland-based Key Bank, talks about the impact of technology on banking.

The internet has already prompted large shifts in how many of us live our lives. What will happen when all of us are connected to the internet all the time? Eric Schmidt, executive chairman at Google, talks about the company's vision of the future.

In an excerpt from his Policy Modeling class, Prof. Edward Kaplan walks through how statistical models can clarify questions about the best ways to fight terror plots.

Reduced launch costs, an explosion of angel investing, and a proliferation of incubators has created a bumper crop of early-stage startups, but taking the next step and receiving venture funding is a bigger challenge. Daniel Ciporin of Canaan Partners talks about the most promising markets and what it takes to get institutional venture capital excited.

Efforts to improve the U.S. educational system come from all directions, ranging from the president’s Race to the Top program to PTO bake sales. But debate rages about what efforts are genuinely effective. We talked with an expert with first-hand experience building successful schools for one perspective.

Honeywell International has 132,000 employees around the world and dozens of businesses in the aerospace, energy, consumer products, construction, automotive, healthcare, and other industries. How does an organization on that scale stay nimble enough to recognize opportunities and take advantage of them? CEO Dave Cote discusses the company's strategy and his own role.

Esther Duflo, a development economist at MIT and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, explains how our understanding of the economic lives of the poor has grown more complex in recent years. While Duflo doesn't see any silver bullet that will end poverty, she points to progress, in part from the use of randomized control trials to solve specific problems.

Steven Brill, a journalist and serial entrepreneur, lays out his case that fixing the public education system is critical to the future of the U.S. economy. In his view, charter schools demonstrate some successful tactics for education reform, but big questions and big challenges remain if these tactics are going to be brought to scale.

Companies are competing almost as hard as the athletes during the 2012 London Olympic Games. What does it take to be the best in branding?