Brianna Wronko has an engineering degree from an Ivy League school and is the CEO of a health-care diagnostics company. Until this week, she never thought she’d be stuck holding business meetings in a San Francisco hotel bathroom.

But with every restaurant, lobby, public park and cafe within walking distance of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference’s headquarters packed by thousands of attendees, meeting space was at a premium. One hotel restaurant was charging $300 an hour to sit at a bare wooden table. 

Learning how to network effectively is an invaluable skill to have when it comes to discovering job opportunities and making career connections to get ahead. But such socializing doesn’t come easily to everyone. In her new book, former communication executive Karen Wickre offers introverts advice on how they can build long-lasting relationships to enhance their careers. She was an editorial director for Twitter and a senior media liaison at Google, among other jobs. Wickre, who describes herself as an introvert, recently joined the [email protected] radio show on Sirius XM to talk about her book, Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count.

Early-stage life sciences companies in Wisconsin have a high success rate at winning federal grant dollars that fund research and development for their products.

You may think that hiring a business coach is admitting defeat, or implies that you don’t know what you’re doing.

After all, most people usually only turn to a personal trainer if they can’t get into shape on their own.  

Surely your business is doing just fine – you don’t need someone else telling you how to run it.

But seeking a bit of guidance is not a sign of weakness, it’s actually a smart move.  Remember – knowledge is power. It pays not to assume you know everything.

HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With a focus on startups and innovation, Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP) remains a powerful job creation and high-tech economic development engine for Pennsylvania, according to the latest independent economic analysis of the organization. But state funding shortfalls are starting to curtail the partners' ability to fund companies appropriately, creating missed opportunities.

In San Francisco, it took a team of arborists a year to map every street tree in the city–124,795 in total. In New York, a similar tree count with volunteers took nearly two years. A new algorithm, by contrast, uses AI and satellite data to map a city’s tree canopy in just hours.

“You can use either aerial imagery or satellite imagery to do basically the same task, but a lot faster,” says Aidan Swope, a Caltech undergrad who created the algorithm as an intern at the tech startup Descartes Labs.

Image: Baltimore - Image: courtesy Descartes Labs

The Food and Drug Administration plans to create a new office to improve the review of new medicines — one that will develop a standardized approach to using personalized medicine, digital data, and patients’ own reports, according to Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

Gottlieb will outline the plan for the new 52-person group, called the Office of Drug Evaluation Science (ODES), as part of a talk at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Tuesday. Because of the government shutdown, he will deliver the talk via videoconference. “We’re operating with limited staff and I’m needed here,” he said.

If you’re a founder or aspiring entrepreneur, perhaps you’re looking to round out your reading list for 2019 with a few inspiring business reads. We asked entrepreneurs to offer their book recommendations for the new year, including both recent releases and older favorites. A number of CEOs lauded the first book on this list–one you might have already picked up over the holidays–but keep reading for other titles you may have overlooked.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

2018 was a big year for healthtech, with digital health companies securing over $7.5bn in investment across the year. The last 12 months also saw a notable shift in the public and media debates around healthcare.

In fact, I would say that the role of new digital technology is now a fundamental part of any conversation about how we can improve both our physical and mental wellbeing, and the effectiveness of our care systems overall.

Like virtual reality before it, augmented reality is the newest, hyped-up technology ripped straight from science fiction that technology companies worldwide are trying to bring to life. But unlike most fledgling companies in the burgeoning AR space that are still dealing in half-finished prototypes and experimental proof-of-concepts, Chinese startup Nreal has arrived on the scene this week with a surprisingly capable pair of AR glasses scheduled to hit the market later this year.

Image: Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge

Scientists say the world’s oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters.

A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.

Whether you’re trying to start your own business, or you’re trying to pay off a major medical expense, crowdfunding can be an incredible source of income when you’re in desperate need of a large sum. Many people crowdfund instead of getting a loan, since you don’t have to pay the money back. You do still need to hold up your end of the bargain, and that’s the main catch of most crowdfunding sites. Here are the differences between some of the most popular crowdfunding sites out there, to help you decide which one is right for you.