A free workshop focused on best practices for job interviews will be held April 18 as part of the Professional Placement Network Academy’s series of interactive workshops for job seekers.

A group of Triangle communities and universities that want to see a private company build out ultra-high speed Internet infrastructure here has received responses from eight potential providers of the technology.

Earlier this year, the Triangle Council of Governments issued a request for proposals for companies to build out an ultra-high speed network that would offer service with speeds up to 100 times faster than typically available.

The council made the request on the behalf of a regional partnership of cities, towns, universities, hospitals and chambers of commerce that includes Chapel Hill, Durham, Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

InCube, the residential program for student-entrepreneurs at Duke University, will hold a demonstration day today.

In response to a question about how she finds a work-life balance, DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman said she doesn’t believe that balance exists.

“I think the word ‘balance’ is a terrible word,” Kullman said Wednesday at a women’s leadership-focused series of talks at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.  The event was co-organized by the Duke MBA Association of Women in Business and the Committee of 200, a nonprofit group of female entrepreneurs and business leaders.

After Durham-based Quintiles goes public, the company’s founder and other executives at the investment firms that own the majority of the company’s stock are expected to divvy up a one-time fee of $25 million, according to a regulatory statement filed Tuesday.

A Virginia-based start-up behind technology designed to reduce the fuel consumption of electric generators has opened a research and development office in Durham, and is working here to continue to develop the technology.

Earl Energy opened the approximately 4,000-square-foot office in November on Stirrup Creek Drive in Durham. The office employs about 10 people here, said Steven Jones, a company spokesman.

The president of The Nature Conservancy will speak on Duke University’s campus Wednesday to discuss his new book “Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature.”

The Research Triangle Park-based start-up hub First Flight Venture Center opened its doors Monday to showcase companies that have office or lab space at the center, such as one start-up that wants to commercialize environmentally friendly bricks made using bacteria.

The idea for Marc and Teri DeVincent’s online memoir-writing business started in 2006 when the two sat down to write Teri’s father’s life story as a gift for his 90th birthday. It took six or seven months, Marc said, and they produced about a dozen books to give to family members.

An online live music lessons start-up has raised $512,295, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The Durham-based parent company for Mechanics and Farmers Bank reported Friday that the bank continued its long history of profitability last year with earnings of about $104,000.

The company’s net income available to common stockholders was down about 72 percent compared with the prior year. Its total loans, net interest income and total assets were also down year-over-year.

Durham County’s average weekly wage was down 2.9 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of last year to $1,220, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisti

The Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau has two new staff members, according to a news release from the organization.

California-based Cisco Systems Inc., a technology company with operations in the Research Triangle Park, cut about 500 workers in a restructuring this week, according to an email from a company spokeswoman Thursday.

N.C. Mutual Life Insurance Co.’s profits were down about 75 percent to $158,861 last year in its third consecutive year of profitability.

The company saw a decline in life, accident and health insurance contract premiums and annuity revenues, but company President and CEO James H. Speed Jr. said that was offset by an approximately $5.3 million boost to the bottom line drawn from company reserves.

In an interview after the company’s annual policy holders’ meeting on Wednesday, Speed said the decline in premium revenues and the boost from reserves in 2012 were tied to a reinsurance transaction in October.