emerging technology : Innovation + Job News

Imagine conducting an instantly accurate test for Lyme disease or Syphilis -- or potentially hundreds of other illnesses -- right in your doctor’s office with a single drop of blood. Mike Patterson, a Wharton MBA alum and CEO of the University City Science Center-based Graphene Frontiers, says it’ll happen within a few years.

The company was founded by Dr. Charlie Johnson, Dr. Zhengtang Luo and Patterson in 2010 out of the University of Pennsylvania’s UPstart program. Recently recognized as one of 18 Pennsylvania Companies to Watch in 2015, Graphene Frontiers just landed their first Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) state tax credit.

But what is graphene, and why do we need it?

Put on your science hats.

Researchers at the University of Manchester first isolated this material in 2004, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.

"Graphene is simply a single atomic layer of carbon," explains Patterson.

If you’re feeling fancy, call it an allotrope of carbon, like graphite or a diamond. It’s incredibly strong: proportionally 100 times stronger than steel, yet flexible, transparent, and the best conductor of heat and electricity mankind has ever discovered. It has myriad applications, from solar cells to touch screens to desalinization. 

Take your pencil’s core. Imagine cutting it so thin you have a slice of graphite only one atom thick. Bingo: graphene.
But it’s not so easy.

Graphene manufacturers don’t shave carbon down. Instead, they use a carbon-containing gas like methane and a process called chemical vapor deposition to build the graphene literally atom by atom.

What Dr. Luo discovered and patented in a physics lab at Penn was a way to do this at normal atmospheric pressure, instead of in an expensive, unwieldy vacuum chamber, like everyone else has been doing until now.

With the help of a two-step National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grant totaling almost $900,000, Graphene Frontiers entered the global market.

Forget little strips of graphene. The company is pioneering a way to grow it in massive rolls on copper foil, and then remove it from that copper with hydrolysis (an electric current that separates the hydrogen and oxygen in an electrolyte/water solution) rather than using what Patterson calls "a really nasty bath of chemicals" to dissolve the copper and collect the graphene.  

"We can just bubble off the graphene and re-use the copper," he says. "[It's] very important for cost and environmental concerns."

Right now the company is focused on graphene in biosensor applications, and hopes to partner with a major diagnostics firm. Patterson says the future of point-of-care diagnostics will be the graphene field-effect transistor (GFET). In short, a strip of graphene ten microns wide (one-tenth the width of a human hair, for us mortals). A specific antibody attached to it will, with the help of an electric current, be able to instantly detect bacteria or proteins in a tiny blood sample (instead of testing multiple vials of blood for an immune response).  

In other words, no lab technicians with pipettes and goggles.

So what will Graphene Frontiers do with the new tax credit? It’s not just about physics and chemistry. The money will help the company hire a new production engineer and lab technician to produce more GFET applications and tests.

"It’s all about the people," insists Patterson.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source. Mike Patterson, Graphene Frontiers
 

Harrisburg University of Science & Technology, Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and Drexel University in Philadelphia are establishing the PA Interactive Media Consortium, with the goal of growing the high-tech sector of digital entertainment and video gaming. 

The consortium is funded by a $750,000 Discovered in PA – Developed in PA state grant to Harrisburg University.

All three schools are known for their interactive media and gaming programs. Harrisburg has its Center for Advanced Entertainment and Learning Technologies (CAELT), Drexel its Entrepreneurial Game Studio, and Carnegie Mellon its Integrative Design, Arts & Technology Network.  

The consortium will unite various stakeholders around a strategic marketing and recruitment campaign promoting Pennsylvania to interactive media companies and potential entrepreneurs. It will also enable the universities to expand education, applied research and entrepreneurship programs. Each school will employ unique strategies including awarding of micro-grants to startups, employing a gamer in residence and improving startup mentoring.

According to Charles Palmer, Harrisburg’s CAELT director, the consortium’s mission "is to build a community of higher education partners and interactive development firms which will focus on the cultural, scientific and economic importance of digital media across the Commonwealth. By creating robust mentoring networks we will assist in the incubation of new companies grown from Pennsylvania’s rich pool of talented innovators."

At Drexel in Philadelphia, "this grant will help the Entrepreneurial Game Studio fulfill its mission of being a place where students can take risks as game developers and as entrepreneurs,” adds Professor Frank Lee.

Source: PA Department of Community & Economic Development; Drexel University
Writer: Elise Vider

On November 12 at Philadelphia's Innovation Lab, PIDC, First Round Capital and the City of Philadelphia announced the launch of the Startup PHL Angel Fund.

Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Alan Greenberger, who spoke at the event, said that many people have asked him whether investments like this are a risk the City should be taking.

"The answer is simple," he said, speaking to a large crowd of local startup leaders, packed with aspiring millennial entrepreneurs. To continue transforming Philadelphia into a notable draw for the country’s best ideas, "we cannot afford to do nothing."

Two years ago, the City of Philadelphia, PIDC and First Round Capital teamed up to launch the Startup PHL Seed Fund, and at this event, leaders announced the Seed Fund’s latest investment: $400,000 for Velano Vascular, a medical device company based in Philadelphia and San Francisco, that has pioneered a way to draw blood without needles.

Startup PHL has many other facets, including its Call For Ideas grant program and Startup PHL Funds, the latter of which has given a combined $1 million in seed or angel investments to six companies over the past year.

Mayor Michael Nutter, First Round Capital founder Josh Kopelman and PIDC president John Grady were all on hand to help announce the latest addition to the Startup PHL initiative: the Startup PHL Angel Fund, which will dole out investments of $25,000 to $100,000 dollars to "very early-stage companies."

The inaugural Angel Fund recipients briefly took the microphone. Jason Rappaport's Squareknot is a new app that applies the principle of Google Maps -- where users can see and compare different travel routes -- to the creation of crowd-sourced step-by-step guides for other tasks.

Locating in Philly was "a very deliberate bet" that it was right atmosphere for his startup, said Rappaport, who also considered Silicon Valley, New York City and Boston.

This year's other Angel Fund recipients are Tesorio, a service that helps companies self-finance their daily operations, and VeryApt, a new app that combines user reviews with "big data analytics" to streamline and personalize the apartment-hunting process.

"If we’re going to ask the private sector to do something, 99 times out of a 100, the public sector’s going to have to jump in too," said Mayor Nutter. "If you're an entrepreneur, Philadelphia is the place for you…and we want you right here."

The evening also included an announcement from the Commerce Department -- the third round of Startup PHL’s Call for Ideas grants is now open; over $200,000 has already been invested in ten different initiatives and organizations.

Greenberger urged attendees to apply with their most robust ideas. The deadline for applications is Friday, January 2, 2015.

 Writer: Alaina Mabaso

Bringing a new concept from pitch to actual business is intense enough, but how about attempting it all in one weekend? That’s the idea behind Philly's ninth annual Startup Weekend, coming up November 14 through16. That’s fifty-four hours, to be exact, for participants to muscle their entrepeneurial ideas "from concept to launch."
 
The Startup Weekend, a Seattle-based nonprofit, got its start in Boulder in 2007. Thanks to a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, Startup Weekend is now an international name that has reached almost 30,000 aspiring entrepreneurs at over 325 events. This November, Philly is far from the only spot hosting a Startup Weekend. Cities such as Accra, Ghana, and Auckland, New Zealand, will join in, along with many U.S. cities.
 
In an exciting twist, this is the first year local winners will go on to compete for a shot in the 2014 Global Startup Battle, which is welcoming 30,0000 participants to events in 100 countries.
 
Philly Startup Weekend spokesperson Alisha Hettinger says this year’s incarnation, taking place at Drexel’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law (3320 Market Street), is expected to kick off with "anywhere between 100 to 150 pitches."
 
Attendees will listen to the one-minute pitches and then vote on which ideas they like most. The most popular concepts will get an instant team of advisers, designers and developers for two fast-paced days of work. (In past years, web and mobile applications have gotten the most play.)
 
On Sunday evening, the teams will make a five-minute pitch to a panel of three judges, including Drexel University’s Charles Sacco. The top three teams will win access to a host of business services and move on to compete in regional Global Startup Battle events, which offer a range of major support services as prizes.
  
For more information or tickets to the pitching event or the Sunday night presentations, click here.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Alisha Hettinger, Philadelphia Startup Weekend
 

Malvern native Matt Madonna is getting only four hours of sleep a night -- when he’s lucky. That’s what happens when you start medical school at the same time your groundbreaking fitness app is preparing to launch.

The Northeastern University graduate majored in health sciences and worked in New York City as a personal trainer with Equinox. But Madonna discovered a big problem: most people couldn’t afford the service. On average, a starting session with a personal trainer can cost $110 to $130.

"It’s crazy," he says. "Who can afford that? There’s got to be a better alternative. The people who needed the training the most weren’t getting it, because they don’t have that [room] in their monthly budget."

Madonna, who rowed crew at Northeastern, began to research fitness and training apps, but couldn’t find anything that was easy-to-use and accessible to a wide range of sports and workout needs. That’s when he got the idea for Athlee, an app he plans to launch in Philadelphia next year.

"We’re like a fusion of Instagram and a really well laid out fitness map," he explains.

Athlee is a one-of-a-kind social network dedicated to fitness, where users (without ads or a monthly fee) can sign up and find other gym mavens or sports players who are sharing training programs. If you like someone’s training methods, goals or results, the app can provide "a standardized library of exercises," demonstrations and tutorials tailored to that workout, all vetted by health professionals.

The app’s platform allows for as much or as little gym-time sharing as you please.

"You can share your program if you want to," says Madonna. "If you don’t want to, it’s completely fine, you can be by yourself."

For those who choose to, the ability to share your progress with other users is a "double motivation," he adds, because you can get inspired by someone else’s workout, and then show your friends you’re doing it.  

An in-app store will let athletes access advice from a specific trainer. Madonna is currently signing up as many as ten trainers per week, each with at least six years professional experience. They’ll help with programs as diverse as weight loss, body-building or figure competitions, or sports from hockey to cross-country.

He designed the whole thing himself, spending countless hours mastering Photoshop on his own to create the platform. Then, something happened.

Seeking funders for his venture in late August, Madonna reached out to the author of rowing magazine story, a former teammate and alum of the University of Pennsylvania. Two days later, they sat down together, and Madonna got the dollars to move ahead with full development of the app -- an initial infusion of $50,000, with $20,000 more pending -- by the following week.   

Athlee will do select beta testing through the end of this year, and Madonna hopes to launch it in January 2015 (prime New Year’s resolution time). The date and location of the launch are TBA, but Madonna thinks Boathouse Row would be the perfect spot.

Writer: Alaina Mabaso
Source: Matt Madonna, Madonna Technologies LLC
 

If you've ever left a doctor's office with an order for lab tests, you’re likely familiar with the inconvenient and stressful experience of waiting days for results that may or may not provide a definitive diagnosis.

Fortunately, thanks to a recent $1.6 million series B seed funding effort led by Trimaran Capital Partners, Science Center-based nanotech startup Graphene Frontiers is poised to put an end to many such experiences by "creating a major paradigm change in medical diagnostics," says CEO Mike Patterson.  

That paradigm change will come from unique biosensor devices that can actually identify antibodies, proteins and other markers of infection and disease.

Graphene has already developed a proprietary and highly efficient process to produce the graphene used in the sensors. The upcoming product will allow testing from a single drop of blood that can be drawn and processed right at your doctor’s office, providing near-immediate results.  

Patterson explains that the company is also working on using its biosensors as a preventative tool -- doctors will be able to monitor changes to a patient’s specific health markers over time. 

While Graphene's early business model relied primarily on providing its namesake material to other researchers, recent seed funding will allow Graphene to "refocus and expand their efforts into more industry changing applications with the [ultra-thin graphene] material," says Patterson.

In addition to job growth and a lab expansion at the Science Center campus, the company plans to pursue opportunities in the consumer electronics industry through a new partnership with the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Mike Patterson, Graphene Frontiers 
 

If you've ever spent any time inside an art or natural history museum, there's a chance you've encountered the ubiquitous hand-held audio wand. Attached to a museum wall alongside an exhibit and stored in a charging station, audio wands share pre-recorded information about adjacent objects and displays.    
 
Now, with a bit of business development assistance from Neville Vakharia of Drexel's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, local tech entrepreneur Cliff Stevens has created a game-changing audio-tour tool that is both less expensive and more convenient than the traditional museum wand solution.
 
Known as CultureSpots, the product exists as a free web-based mobile tool -- not an app -- that users can easily access on smartphones or tablets.
 
Vakharia, who studies the roles technology can play in building stronger and more sustainable arts organizations, helped Stevens develop a business plan for the audio platform, positioning it specifically as a solution for small and mid-size galleries and museums. Institutions, in other words, that can't necessarily afford expensive audio-tour infrastructure.   
 
"I immediately gravitated towards [his] idea," says Vakharia, who first learned about CultureSpots during a chance encounter with Stevens at a Drexel T3 tech event. "I realized that Drexel could bring the resources and expertise to really make this successful, and to really make a change in the museum field."   
 
After piloting a beta version of CultureSpots at 15 local museums and galleries, "we were really pleased to see that people wanted it, and people used it," explains Vakharia. "Overwhelmingly, the feedback was very positive."
 
CultureSpots will be officially launched at Drexel's Leonard Pearlstein Gallery on October 22 from 9 to 11 a.m., during which visitors will have an opportunity to test the platform.   
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Sources: Neville Vakharia, Drexel University and Cliff Stevens, CultureSpots
 

Flying Kite has twice shared the story of Invisible Sentinel, a local life sciences firm that develops low-cost and user-friendly diagnostic tools for the food and beverage industries.
 
The company's most recent breakout success was the result of a partnership with Sonoma County's Jackson Family Wines -- a novel and fast-acting product known as Veriflow BRETT was developed as a way to detect a yeast strain that commonly affects both the taste and aroma of wine.  
 
According to Invisible Sentinel co-founder Ben Pascal, that technology has since been adopted by large sectors of the wine industry.

"We've been so successful in the food safety [sector]," says Pascal. "And so we started asking ourselves, 'What other groups have the same types of problems with these organisms that can affect quality?' And naturally, we came to beer."
 
More specifically, they came to beloved local brewers Victory Brewing Company. The heads of the two companies met during a dinner party, and when Pascal and his business partner Nick Siciliano began talking to Victory's Bill Covaleski about the success of their Veriflow BRETT technology, "I think it got his wheels turning," recalls Pascal.  
 
Following a few months' worth of meetings with Victory's brewers and quality control team, a decision was reached to partner on the development of a new rapid molecular diagnostic tool, Veriflow brewPAL, that will quickly detect two types of bacteria that can spoil the taste of beer, leading to spillage at brewing companies that can't afford to lose inventory.
 
"There isn't any [similar] technology that exists today that's easy to use, and that's accurate and cost-effective," explains Pascal. "And with a partner like Victory behind us, I think this product is really going to be a paradigm shift, and a big game-changer in the industry."
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Ben Pascal, Invisible Sentinel 
 

In a city like Philadelphia, where the startup and technology industries have become so well-established that we now have a boulevard known as NERD Street, there might not seem to be anything unusual about the announcement of yet another hackathon.    
 
But thanks to a partnership between Hackfit, a Boston company that arranges events where entrepreneurs create health and fitness technologies, and Spartan, organizers of extreme obstacle races across the country, a decidedly unusual hackathon will kick off inside Citizens Bank Park on September 19.   
 
Only 60 total spots are available for the event. Teams of developers and designers will be tasked with pitching fitness industry-relevant business ideas, prototyping them, and then demonstrating the results of 24 nonstop hours of work on the idea. (Sign up here.)
 
RFID timing sensors, Sony Smartbands and other wearable technology devices will be made available to hackers, says Hackfit founder Justin Mendelson, who adds that most former participants have focused on building mobile applications.
 
"A few of [the teams] focus on hardware-oriented devices, like wearable trackers," says Mendelson. And during past events, "Other teams have even focused on timing technology, which is very important to the [obstacle race] experience."
 
Philly is one of four locations where Spartan Hackathons are happening this summer. Some of the winning teams will be flown to Spartan headquarters in Boston, where they'll have an opportunity to pitch their business ideas to company executives, perhaps earning a partnership or investment capital.
 
Here in Philly, however, even team members who don't succeed at building the quantified self movement's next big app will still have a chance to celebrate: After the Reebok Spartan Race Stadium Sprint wraps up on Saturday, hackers will be allowed to run the obstacle course at their own pace.
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Justin Mendelson, Hackfit 
 

Morgan Berman was living in West Philadelphia when she experienced what she calls her "first burst of sustainability consciousness," and began attempting to live a life that was aligned with her newfound values.

She joined a neighborhood food co-op, took a job as Grid magazine's director for community engagement, and slowly became more involved in the local sustainability scene.
 
"But there wasn't a central hub where I could go and understand what sustainability means," recalls Berman. "It didn't feel like anyone had quite created the tool that people need to answer their quick questions about [sustainable living]."
 
Berman's new app for Android and iOS, MilkCrate, aims to fill that void -- initially here in Philadelphia, and if the app takes off, nationally.
 
Described by its nine-person team as a digital hub for sustainability, MilkCrate currently exists as a database-style listings service -- not unlike Yelp -- with a collection of more than 1,600 Philly-area businesses that operate sustainably and promote economically responsible practices.

"Everything from fashion to food to furniture [to] energy," explains Berman in a video created for the app's current crowdfunding campaign. "Anything you could possibly want that fits into your local, sustainable lifestyle."   
  
At the moment, MilkCrate-approved businesses are organized in both listings and map layouts. But with the infusion of the $20,000 Berman hopes to raise through an Indiegogo campaign (launched on August 25), users will be able to write reviews, add news businesses, and search by keyword and neighborhood.      
 
Perks for campaign funders include MilkCrate T-shirts and tickets to the app's upcoming launch party. Click here to donate. 

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Morgan Berman, MilkCrate

Temple University's summertime app-developing program for underserved and minority students, the Urban Maps and Apps Studios, has been active for three seasons now.

The university-wide initiative kicked off in 2012 as part of the school's bitS (Building Information Technology Skills) program, which aims to "engage high school students to examine the communities where they live," according to its website, and to teach those students technology skills that can be applied to problems in their own neighborhoods.
 
Inside the Urban Apps and Maps Studios, students spend six weeks studying digital design and software application development. The ultimate goal? Design apps that will help tackle community challenges.
 
One team of 11 students involved in the 2014 summer program has created such an application. Known as Gotcha, the mobile crime-watch app allows users to anonymously post the details of petty neighborhood crimes such as shoplifting, without involving authorities.

Thanks to funding from the Knight Foundation, which will bring a portion of the Gotcha team back during the upcoming academic year to continue its work, the app may eventually become available in the iTunes and Google Play stores.

"There's a big gap of content that's related to -- and designed by -- the very youth that [Urban Apps and Maps] engages," says Temple's Michele Masucci. "And so part of what we're trying to do is to take one of the largest blocks of digital content consumers and turn them into digital content producers." 

"[Apps & Maps] is something the kids really love," she adds. "It's a technology they can carry with them into their futures, whether they decide to go to school, or to take more of an entrepreneurial turn. We're trying to address the interest and need that the students have."

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Michele Masucci, Temple University
 

In mid-May, Flying Kite brought you the story of Creative Mornings, a wildly popular breakfast lecture series that had finally launched a Philadelphia chapter. (The most recent event featured a talk by The Heads of State, a local design team.)

Now comes news that Creative Cafe at Replica, a print and design firm/coffee shop in University City, has teamed up with Young Involved Philadelphia (YIP) to offer an early-morning monthly lecture series of its own.

Known as the Creative Cafe Coffee Chats, the events run from 8 - 9 a.m. on the last Monday of each month, and feature five-minute "flash talks" from four presenters. Twenty minutes of intimate conversation follow the talks. And because attendance at each event is capped at just 15 people, the hope is that attendees will walk away with the feeling that they've genuinely learned something new.
 
Not unlike Creative Mornings, each Coffee Chat is organized around a specific theme. June's inaugural event, for instance, took a look at the state of the creative economy in Philadelphia, and featured speakers including CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia founder Thaddeus Squire and Erica Hawthorne of Small But Mighty Arts, a micro-grant program for early-career artists.  
 
According to Mike Kaiser of YIP, an all-volunteer group that works to engage young professionals locally, the emphasis of each lecture will revolve around issues and topics that are relevant to Philadelphians today.
 
"The hope is that this inspires new ideas or a new connection for people," he says. "And that they can leave the event feeling excited as they walk into their day."
 
Tickets for each Creative Cafe Coffee Chat are $6.25; they can be purchased online.
 
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Mike Kaiser, Young Involved Philadelphia

The nominees for the fourth annual Philadelphia Geek Awards have officially been announced -- there are 38 of them, spread across more than a dozen categories.
 
And at precisely 8 p.m. on the evening of August 16, the show will commence at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. Roughly 400 audience members will be introduced to some of the city's most inspirational and unusual passion projects, many of the extremely geeky sort: comic books, mobile video games, YouTube videos, and odd art and science projects, to name a few.
 
Come evening's end, one of three nominees will be crowned Philadelphia's Geek of the Year, an honor that in 2013 went to Dan Ueda, who ran the robotics program at Central High School .
 
All told, the upcoming 2014 Geek Awards are shaping up to be the ultimate celebration of an obsessive subculture that has grown exponentially.

"It isn't really a subculture anymore," says Drexel's Jill Sybesma, the event's organizer. "It's just culture."
 
The Geek Awards began back in 2011 when Geekadelphia co-founders Eric Smith and Tim Quirino approached Sybesma with the idea to create an award that would match their geeky site. 

"The city really didn't have anything that encompassed all its geeky projects," she recalls.

Indeed, many of this year's nominees are not bold-faced names from the science or tech scenes. The creators of an enormous Rube Goldberg machine, for instance, are up for a 2014 award, as is an artist who creates and installs fake street signs.  
 
"We say that it doesn't matter what you're geeky about," Sybesma explains. "Just that there's more people doing this now."
 
Tickets go on sale August 1 at phillygeekawards.com.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Jill Sybesma, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University

When Conshohocken entrepreneur and former IT consultant Shiva Srinivasan founded the mobile-based technology company Zuppler back in 2009, the practice of ordering food from restaurants online was still in its infancy.
 
Nevertheless, Zuppler's service, which allows restaurants to customize their online ordering menus, was a fast success. It wasn't long, in fact, before the company was servicing some 4,500 restaurants worldwide, and thousands of hotels in the United States began using the Zuppler platform to expedite room service ordering.
 
But in the all-mobile, all-the-time retail environment of 2014, tech-savvy restaurateurs want something more than just a customizable and fully-integrated online ordering solution. They also want a way for their customers to pay online, preferably through a mobile interface.
 
So Zuppler recently joined forces with LevelUp, a Boston-based tech firm. The self-described "largest mobile payment network in the nation" offers extensively trackable marketing campaigns along with its payment-processing system.
 
Now restaurants using the Zuppler interface can access extensive customer reporting analytics, "so it's a way for them to take control of their online business, and to take advantage of it," explains Srinivasan.
 
Zuppler's analytics interface even provides users with a heat map showing exactly where its customer base is grouped. And along with 24-7 customer service and support, Zuppler's beefed-up system can offer coupons and loyalty rewards, which customers can redeem while paying for food on a restaurant's website, all of which are mobile responsive.
 
Together, Zuppler and LevelUp now service "more than 18,000 restaurants and over 2 million customers combined," according to a release.
 
"But the most important fact," says Srinivasan, "is that for restaurants that use our service, they own their customers."

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Shiva Srinivasan, Zuppler 

Here's a little-known fact about Philadelphia's history as an urban innovator: The Percent for Art program, in which developers building on municipally-acquired land are required to spend at least 1 percent of their construction costs on public art, was pioneered by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority back in 1959.
 
In the years since, nearly every major U.S. city has adopted a similar policy.    
 
Philly has become home to roughly 400 public art projects since the program's inception, and one more -- the six-month residency of a Dutch artist duo known as PolakVanBekkum -- is currently underway.

Thanks to the construction of two new University City Science Center structures and a $168,000 grant, PolakVanBekkum will be working throughout the summer and into the fall to create an audio-enhanced Google Earth documentary and an interactive online map, both of which will attempt to explore the spatial and sensory experience of traveling through the city.
 
The project, which may also have a physical component, will be built with data collected from volunteers outfitted with GPS transponders and digital audio devices. Those volunteers -- who are currently being identified by the artists -- will wander for weeks in the urban environment, their every movement and sound simultaneously geo-located in space.

Come November, when the final interactive and online results are unveiled, the artists hope to share an entirely new story -- a mix of anthropology, place-making and technology -- about the various ways in which Philadelphians interact with their surroundings.
 
"I think the artists laid out a very good plan for what they want to do," says David Clayton of the Science Center's STEAM Initiative, which is spearheading the residency. "And we want to have them use the project as a process to engage communities. We liked that this type of thing has never really been done before."
 
To stay up-to-date on the project's evolution, visit 250miles.net.

Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: David Clayton, University City Science Center