The Colonial Room of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco was filled beyond capacity Monday afternoon, and the offices of digital-health seed fund Rock Health were buzzing with hundreds of partygoers just a couple of hours later.

Both events were connected to the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, but neither was geared toward pharmaceutical or medical-device executives looking to make deals, as has traditionally been the focus at the vaunted, 33-year-old conference.

Image: Software and other digital technology is becoming an increasingly important part of the delivery of health care. Associated Press

Lockheed Martin Corp. is normally known for big things – tanks, planes, ships, those kinds of projects. But a new partnership the defense giant has formed with a San Diego company has Lockheed looking at something very, very small.

In a laboratory first, Duke researchers have grown human skeletal muscle that contracts and responds just like native tissue to external stimuli such as electrical pulses, biochemical signals and pharmaceuticals.

The lab-grown tissue should soon allow researchers to test new drugs and study diseases in functioning human muscle outside of the human body.

The great challenge facing higher education is to prepare students to navigate a world of accelerating uncertainty and faster churn. Training students to re-invent themselves every few years, as is already required in the world today, is an objective that legacy approaches to higher education is not optimized for. I’m convinced, however, that the University of Colorado-Boulder is piloting the right solution. Now we have to scale it.

Image: Brad Bernthal

There is a lot of lip service given fixing Silicon Valley's diversity problem. But Intel CEO Brian Krzanich promised a bold move last week when he announced that his company was pledging $300 million to be used over the next three years to help eradicate the lack of diversity in the tech space.

Image: BRIAN KRZANICH, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF INTEL CORP., SPEAKS DURING THE 2015 CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW (CES) IN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, U.S. - http://www.fastcompany.com

New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the largest venture capital firms around, is raising its 15th fund.

NEA is raising $2.5 billion for its new fund, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing lists NEA partners Peter Barris, Forest Baskett, Anthony Florence, Krishna Kolluri, David Mott, Jon Sakoda, Scott Sandell, Peter Sonsini, Ravi Viswanathan, and Harry Weller as the fund’s managers.

Do you work for someone that never seems to stop thinking about the next big thing that needs to be implemented? You know the type? Rushing into the office and stealing productive time to call a meeting about some new idea he thought up on the toilet that morning, implementing untested ideas, and blaming the staff when they backfire? Or are you that person? Do you live in constant fear that the competition is getting one up on you? Are you convinced that your ideas are the best and should be implemented immediately without discussion? Has it occurred to you that you may be doing more harm than good?

When West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media wanted to incorporate innovative professionals in its curriculum, Dean Maryanne Reed decided to test a virtual approach. Each semester, a visiting professional leads a class focused on emerging skills but comes to campus only a handful of times. Working with a faculty member who serves students in person and a series of digital resources, these Innovators in Residence take what they’re learning in the newsroom straight to students in the classroom. I talked with Reed about the program and her hopes for improving journalism education.

Over the past couple of years, it’s been all doom and gloom for the PC market. Quarter after quarter, it experienced the kind of decline that is usually only seen in terminal cancer patients. People no longer felt compelled to upgrade as frequently we were told, especially as smartphones and tablets started to dominate their attention spans. Indeed, the boldest predictions asserted, those self-same mobile devices were rendering the PC a lumbering dinosaur, unnecessary in the modern world. Just as the shovels were getting ready to bury it once and for all however, the PC market’s started knocking softly from inside its coffin.

The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) is important, not least because it’s the first car show of the year. Get the tone right in the home of American motoring and you could set yourself up for a brilliant year. Get it wrong and you could find yourself playing catch-up for the rest of the year.

Image: http://motorburn.com

Pitching an idea to potential investors can be a tricky game. You need to find a way to showcase your idea and its potential for profit in the best light possible. But you also need to give enough accurate information to make investors feel comfortable investing in your idea. There are a few common mistakes that entrepreneurs make during these pitches that can scare investors away. Alex Melnick recently explained some of these pitfalls in a post for TECH Cocktail.

Temple University wants to bring more of its researchers' technologies to the marketplace. In fact, it wants to double its annual startup activity. Thanks to a new partnership with Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, the North Philadelphia university is one step closer to making that goal a reality.

Double Time may not mean what you think it means. Most people think of double time to mean do things twice as fast. Which is what it means if you are in the military. However, in this case it’s a way for you to increase the likelihood of a successful outcomes — double whatever amount of time you think it will take to do something.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Elevate Ventures, an Indianapolis-based venture development organization, reported record investment activity, program launches and partnerships in 2014.

"We had a very busy and productive year, and really took steps to understand communities' needs and create win-win solutions to stimulate and support entrepreneurial infrastructure-building activities," said Ting Gootee, Elevate Ventures' Chief Investment Officer. "It's a multi-pronged and customizable approach. With enough sparks in our networks, our belief is that combustion will happen sooner rather than later."

Aaron Patzer had come to a crossroads. He knew he was onto something with Mint — but he realized he couldn’t be a successful CEO and also run product for the company. “He's one of the very few founders I've seen who knew it was time to let go and hand things to someone new,” says First Round Partner Rob Hayes, who worked closely with Mint. “He wound up hiring this great guy Aaron Forth, and it helped move the company to the next level. That moment when a CEO gives up their core competency to someone else so they can focus on running the company is the moment they become a great leader.” 

Image: http://firstround.com

A University of Central Florida economic development program is gaining notoriety. It seeks to produce jobs by growing companies with fewer than 100 employees and revenue between $1 million and $50 million. Florida TaxWatch says it could be the source of an additional 25,000 jobs over 10 years.

Instead of using monetary incentives to lure companies to invest in a community GrowFL assists second-stage companies already rooted in the community to grow.

Image: http://www.saintpetersblog.com

People often use the words “invention” and “innovation” interchangeably. This is not only incorrect, but misses a few key subtleties in meaning that can change a conversation. Invention is about creating something new, while innovation introduces the concept of “use” of an idea or method. While this difference is subtle, and these words are listed in every thesaurus that I checked as synonyms of each other, they are definitely not 100% interchangeable. An invention is usually a “thing”, while an innovation is usually an invention that causes change in behavior or interactions.

There has been a proliferation of accelerators as of late, especially in the healthcare realm, but some are better than others, and entrepreneurs have differing takes on why they did or didn’t join them. Meanwhile, in the wider industry, we’ve been hearing quite a bit of debate about whether or not accelerators are even “worth it” for statups.

A Hong Kong man attempted to cross the Chinese border with 94 iPhones strapped all over his body — and the customs check went just as you might expect.

The phones were strapped to his torso, legs and groin, according to a Chinese news report. The pictures show that he was stocked with iPhone 6 models.

Image: http://mashable.com

Every January, companies gather at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to reveal the best gadgets of the year. And every year in recent memory, fitness gadgets have dominated. This year is no exception, but aside from all the wonderful new trackers, we saw plenty of unique devices to help you reach a healthier self. Ahead, check out this year's best offerings, many of which won a CES Innovation Award and all of which are impressive.

Image: http://readwrite.com