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Brendan Iribe dropped out of the University of Maryland here, but before he did he amassed 227 parking tickets. And he managed to meet two business partners who would help him build the virtual-reality company Oculus VR, which Facebook bought this year for about $2-billion.

One of those parking tickets remains unpaid, but the university is likely to forgive it after Friday, when he gave $31-million to erect a computer-science building. That makes Mr. Iribe, who is 35 years old, the institution’s most generous donor ever.

The Southern Maryland Innovation and Technology (SMIT) initiative has awarded Smartronix and Coherent Technical Services, two locally headquartered technology firms, Pro Memberships to CoFounders Lab. 

CoFounders Lab, a OneVest Company, is an online partnering platform of more than 40,000 founders, advisers and interns available to help launch and grow businesses. A Pro Membership provides access to entrepreneurs nation-wide to help individuals connect with the right partner, investment or resource needed to take a business to the next level. SMIT will award 40 Pro Memberships to individuals and companies to encourage technical innovation and commercialization in St. Mary’s County.  

Harpoon Medical, Inc., a medical device company focused on the development and commercialization of a minimally invasive, beating heart mitral valve repair technology, announced today that the company has successfully raised $3.2M of new capital and expects to complete the round over the coming weeks.  The Series A financing was led by Epidarex Capital in order to advance Harpoon’s innovative technology into the clinic and expand the company’s research and development efforts. 

“We are very pleased with the results of our Series A financing because it gives Harpoon Medical the resources necessary to advance the technology from an innovative concept into the clinic,” said, Bill Niland, CEO of Harpoon Medical, Inc. and serial healthcare entrepreneur.  The round was increased to accommodate strong demand from investors that include the Maryland Venture Fund, the Abell Foundation, medical device executives, doctors and successful business executives in the Maryland area.  “When you have the opportunity to put together a high caliber syndicate of investors who can help you with more than just capital you find a way to accommodate the demand.” 

Today, the University announces the receipt of its largest gift ever by a single donor. It will catapult our top-15 computer science program to even greater national and international pre-eminence.  It will spark innovation and entrepreneurship across the campus and catalyze new economic development in the state.  

The gift began after a tragedy and will end in a living memorial.  It demonstrates the impact of friendship, teamwork, and family—qualities that ultimately benefit our students and faculty.

When we go grocery shopping, most of us don’t buy a pallet of one product and survive on that for the rest of our lives. We get our food more regularly, so it’s fresher and more in tune with our tastes of the moment. So why wouldn’t education in the fast-changing STEM fields, look like that too?

That was how Andrew Coy, the executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, put it during an informal tech leaders roundtable discussion at City Hall Thursday morning.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)

Rockville, Maryland

In February 2013, The Sunshine Act was included as the Transparency Reports and Reporting of Physician Ownership or Investment Interests section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Sunshine Act requires manufacturers of drugs, medical devices, and biologicals that participate in U.S. federal healthcare programs to report certain payments and items of value (typically $10 or more and totaling $100 annually or greater) given to physicians and teaching hospitals. Failure to stay in compliance may result in fines ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000 annually. Whether you are a practicing physician or your startup has a medical device, drug, or related product, you are impacted by the ACA’s Physician Payments Sunshine Act. In July, CMS proposed removing the reporting exemption for any payments or transfers of value made to physicians who participate in accredited CME programs. We’ll talk with experts in compliance and policy who will share their experiences in implementing these new policies and how you can understand the implications of the law, dispute inaccuracies, and stay in compliance!

The CEO and co-founder of Oculus VR is giving the University of Maryland $31 million – the largest gift in university history – to construct a computer science building.

University officials said late Thursday that alumnus Brendan Iribe’s gift will help build the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation. Most of the gift will go toward the building, which will be designed for work in virtual reality, augmented reality, computer vision and robotics, and $1 million will establish the Brendan Iribe Scholarship in Computer Science.

Over the course of three days at the Mayo Clinic‘s annual Transform conference, featuring scores of healthcare’s top names, several themes stood out. Here’s what I gather were the main points.

1. Economic factors and barriers are just as important in determining health outcomes for the population as a whole. It stands to reason – people with fewer financial resources are often forced to choose between paying for a costly lab test or doctor visit or putting food on the table, among countless other instances and examples.

My last post, How Successful People Stay Calm, really struck a nerve (it’s already approaching 1.5 million reads here on LinkedIn). The trick is that managing your emotions is as much about what you won’t do as it is about what you will do.

TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that the upper echelons of top performance are filled with people who are high in emotional intelligence (90% of top performers, to be exact). So, I went back to the data to uncover the kinds of things that emotionally intelligent people are careful to avoid in order to keep themselves calm, content, and in control. They consciously avoid these behaviors because they are tempting and easy to fall into if one isn’t careful.