Kleiner Perkins, the investor behind Google and Amazon, and Accel Partners, best known for its investment in Facebook, are putting $18 million into MyFitnessPal, a little-known digital-health startup that has helped its 40 million-plus users shed a collective 100 million pounds.

Despite those accomplishments, this is the first time MyFitnessPal has raised money from professional investors, which raises the question: Do venture capitalists have any idea what they're doing in the networked fitness market?

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The Internet has undoubtedly transformed the way we support great causes. For years, non-profits and individuals alike have flocked to social media to spread awareness, bolstering viral philanthropy through crowdfunding sites such as Indiegogo, Fundly, GoFundMe and others.

A handful of campaigns stand out in recent memory: Funding a vacation that turned into retirement for bullied bus monitor Karen Huff Klein; the collaboration between Humans of New York and Tumblr for Hurricane Sandy relief; and, most recently, support for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing across various platforms.

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Rich Bendis was a member of this panel. -Ed.

The U.S. government spends approximately $140 billion dollars annually on research and development (R&D), which has been critically important to the strength of the American economy. However, only a small portion of the resulting discoveries have been commercialized by the private sector. As our global competitors accelerate investments in R&D and increasingly commercialize products and processes, it is imperative that the U.S. optimize its commercial output from federally-funded research to benefit public health and well-being, create jobs and increase economic value.

Federal research has done exceedingly well at accomplishing its original intent, which is to increase human knowledge, meet mission needs, and undertake high- risk research of long-term importance to the U.S. economy that is beyond the reach of the private sector. But commercialization of resulting discoveries from agency research has largely been an after-thought, despite clear Congressional and Presidential intent expressed through a series of legislative mandates and Executive Orders. While research to meet agency missions is critical, the members of the Panel believe that if the U.S. is to remain globally competitive in the 21st century, it must accelerate the translation of federally-funded R&D into commercial outcomes that create economic and public value, thus maximizing the return on the public dollars invested.

Aggressive overfishing threatens to push some shark species to extinction, and a new study puts annual shark deaths at 100 million.

"Our analysis shows that about one in 15 sharks gets killed by fisheries every year," study leader Boris Worm, a professor of biology at Canada's Dalhousie University, said in a statement. "With an increasing demand for their fins, sharks are more vulnerable today than ever before."

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Nathaniel Comfort believes passionately that biomedicine is one of the most important and powerful cultural forces in the world today. He also believes the industry is plagued by false promises and hypocrisy. Comfort, an associate professor in the history of medicine department at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, tackles this issue with satirical humor on his blog www.genotopia.scienceblog.com. Follow Comfort on Twitter at @nccomfort.

Many of us dream of autonomous cars. Just imagine the relaxation of completely hands-free driving that is both seamless and safe, unlocking new time for us to work, talk, and learn while going from point A to point B.  A recent report from Telefónica Digital found the percentage of cars with built-in connectivity will jump from 10 percent today to 90 percent by 2020.

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If you are just plain tired of working so hard, or your startup is not getting the traction you expected, should you shut down cleanly, or just file for bankruptcy and walk away? For those who think that bankruptcy is the easy way out, think again. Bankruptcy should always be the absolutely last resort.

The “advantage” of filing for bankruptcy, of course, is that it gets creditors permanently off your back, with no continuing lawsuits, based on funds derived from selling all assets. You can hand the stressful job of liquidating assets and negotiating with creditors over to the court.

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If you’re still looking to take on a minor but haven’t decided which one, you now have another option to choose from. Penn State will begin offering an entrepreneurship and innovation minor (ENTI) this fall. The minor is not specific to any academic major, and anyone from journalists to engineers can channel their inner entrepreneurial skills.

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Kids with cancer need a lot of things: access to medical care, supportive families, flip-flops. Flip-flops? Yes--if they're made by Hari Mari.

Entrepreneurial couple Jeremy and Lila Stewart founded the company when they returned to Dallas after living in Indonesia for several years. Their experience overseas broadened their awareness of large populations of people who lack access to good medical care. At the same time, living on a tropical island raised a less serious issue: They didn't want to wear real shoes every day. They decided to combine their wish to help others with their desire for laid-back footwear, and they chose to place their focus on causes related to pediatric cancer.

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Imagine this scenario: An angel investor hears or reads a pitch from XYZ Software, a local start-up company. He expresses interest in investing in return for a share of the company.

Jane App-head, one of the company's founders, says her team would be happy to talk...but the federal Securities and Exchange Commission first requires a little paperwork. That includes a mix of the following:

A brand new hi-tech co-working space welcomed its first partners on Monday as part of the budding Moscow Technology Incubation Program introduced earlier this year by Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

The space, API Moscow, is housed in the arts, media and technology hub that is the old Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory. Next door are Digital October, another startup incubator, the Strelka Institute and an array of other entrepreneurial outfits making their name on the capital's technology market.

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I’ve dreaded writing this post for a long time.  I normally think the best of everyone.  Yet, in the course of building our business at Constellation Research, I have to say I’ve seen everything that can go wrong with the industry analyst business.  I’m almost embarrassed to reveal the shady tactics on both the vendor and analyst side that perpetuate.  But for the sake of airing it all out so that we may have a better industry, I’d like to start the conversation and then invite those analysts and vendors who agree to come up with a solid code.  Once we have something, let’s take the pledge on cleaning up the profession.

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Because I am a prominent advocate for founders running their own companies, whenever a founder fails to scale or gets replaced by a professional CEO, people send me lots of emails. What happened, Ben? I thought founders were supposed to be better? Are you going to update your “Why We Prefer Founding CEOs” post?

In response to all of these emails: No, I am not going to rewrite that post, but I will write this post. There are three main reasons why founders fail to run the companies they created:

I’m breaking all the rules.

I’m at a silent retreat for the week. No talking!

My wife is two doors down. She said to me before we went silent for the week, “put your computer on airplane mode.”

It’s in a beautiful area. There are paths and trees and birds and flowers and benches to sit on with sprawling landscapes and blah blah blah.

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With the economy on the uptick, the stock market flirting with all-time highs, and companies across multiple sectors aggressively hiring, firms in Silicon Valley and other tech hotspots like New York City are seeing competition for talent reach fever pitch. Startups and large technology companies alike are vying for the best candidates.

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The 2013 University Economic Development Association (UEDA) Awards of Excellence finalists have been chosen and the competition this year is at an all time high. Each year various UEDA member universities around the country submit nominations for their innovative programs involving economic prosperity. The UEDA awards are designed to help accelerate their programs by recognizing cutting edge initiatives and promoting their adoption by other UEDA universities. Program categories include: Community Connected Campuses, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Collaboration, Research and Analysis, Talent Development. Normally the committee chooses three finalists in each category to present their programs for consideration at the Annual Summit; this year there are four nominees in each category. The finalists in each category are as follows:

Contrary to what popular culture may tell us (see: Sharknado), sharks aren't the baddest guys on the block. Though a shark on the New York City Subway is admittedly terrifying, the species tends to get a bad rap.

Less than one person on average per year is killed in shark attacks in the United States, according to the International Shark Attack File. And yet, the thought of a shark circling in the dark waters below is enough to send chills down even the toughest spine.

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Most of us are familiar with Mark Zuckerberg’s story — brilliant Harvard student who dropped out sophomore year to create Facebook, a move that changed the face of social media entirely. What a mouthful, right? However, the dropout entrepreneur archetype didn’t start with Zuckerberg. In fact, many entrepreneurs carry surprisingly limited higher education credentials. Their accomplishments go beyond degrees, and can instead be measured by the global impacts they have made. The visionaries shown in the slideshow are recognized for their million dollar ideas, and had the nerve, talent, and skill, to bring them to life.

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The debate over female entrepreneurs versus male entrepreneurs is long settled--women have proven themselves to be just as talented and capable as their male counterparts when it comes business ownership and entrepreneurship.

But historically, the number of women in entrepreneurial roles has been disproportionate to the number of men who launch and lead small businesses, in the U.S. and around the world. Although the factors behind the lag in female entrepreneurship are complex, in many cases the disparity has boiled down to fewer opportunities for funding or a lack of strong business networks.

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With patent reform getting more and more attention in Congress, and a lot of the focus falling on the problem of patent trolls, there's a real opportunity right now for people to have their voice heard. There's still a lot of discussion and revision that has to happen before we see anything close to finished legislation with a real chance of passing, and that means this is the time to make sure Congress stays clear on the real issues and crafts solutions that actually work.

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