Emerging Technology : Innovation + Job News

The University City Science Center is now seeking nominations for their Innovators Walk of Fame. The inaugural members will be revealed during the organization's 50th anniversary celebration in October. In preparation, the Science Center is asking Greater Philadelphia to recommend regional candidates who have made an impact in science, technology, engineering, art or math (STEAM). There is also a category for innovative companies.
 
"We're not doing this prescriptively," says Stephen Tang, president and CEO of the Science Center. "We want to hear from the community."
 
Final selections will be made by a committee comprised of Science Center affiliates and members of the regional innovation and entrepreneurial communities. By opening in conjunction with Philly Tech Week and the Science Festival, the call for nominations is expected to draw on the city's growing enthusiasm for discovery and invention.
 
Not yet officially decided, the location of the walk -- think the musical stars on Avenue of the Arts -- will likely be on the Science Center's campus. The monument aims to draw public attention (particularly from local K-12 students) to these individuals and their accomplishments.

With leaders like Buckminster Fuller, biotech pioneer Hubert Schoemaker and radar technologist Britton Chance, Philadelphia has a powerful history to pull from. Tang is looking forward to nominations that reach beyond traditional science hubs.
 
"Innovation is kind of an ethereal concept," he says. "I think we will surprise people because they'll recognize that we've had geniuses in our midst for some time." 
 
Nominations can be submitted here through June 15.

The University City Science Center has partnered with Flying Kite to showcase innovation in Greater Philadelphia through the "Inventing the Future" series.
 
Source: Stephen Tang, The University City Science Center
Writer: Dana Henry

Cramming the development of a smart, thoughtful minimum viable product into a grueling 52-hour session requires the passion and stamina often associated with athletic competition. Fittingly, the team behind Slopes, a performance app for snowboarders and skiers, took a come-from-behind victory in the fifth Philly Startup Weekend, held April 26-28 at Workbridge Associates in Center City.
 
Curtis Herbert, developer and founder of Consumed by Code, had been discussing the concept with fellow snowboarders since January. "When you're on the slopes, you want to track your stats," he explains. "How fast were you going? Were you going faster than your friend?"
 
Yet Slopes faced an uphill battle at the competition. During Friday's round -- when 50 presented and 110 participated – the concept did not receive enough votes to make it to the next round. After the setback, Herbert joined Tim Li, Jiate Zhang and Liwen Mao in a different team. The new collaboration eventually dropped their original pitch and chose to design Slopes instead. Their winning product is akin to Nike+, using GPS-capacity to track individual stats including speed, distance and calories burned.

During Startup Weekend, the team established user needs, the back-end GPS-processing, and identified runs and ski lifts that affected the data. Their user interface garnered an impromptu award for "best design."
 
In second place was Adventures of Bob, a game that encourages kids to eat well by featuring a super hero who grows stronger through smart dietary decisions. DesignSync, the third place winner, helps graphic and user interface designers transfer work created with proprietary software (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) to clients and teammates who don’t have those programs using Dropbox.
 
Organizers Chris Baglieri and Melissa Morris Ivone -- who have been with Philly Startup Weekend since the beginning -- said this event was marked by a growing comradery. When they needed to reconfigure the wifi, a sponsor picked up the tab; when they ran out of beer, an organizer made an emergency trip. In the final hours, when most participants were operating on red bull, beer and sheer will, teams tweeted messages of support for one another.
 
"You see some of the turmoil a team goes through," says Baglieri. "Then you see them present, and you’re like, ‘Oh, you guys are all over this,’ but 12 hours ago, they were freaking out."
 
Source: Curtis Herbert, Team Slopes; Chris Baglieri and Melissa Morris Ivone, Philly Startup Weekend
Writer: Dana Henry

Justin Shi, a computer science professor at Temple University, wants to create up to 300 farming jobs in two years. If that weren’t ambitious enough, he plans to do so on Philadelphia's 40,000 vacant lots.

According to Shi, many university students have the will and passion for urban farming, but not the resources and information. GrowShare.net, an online resource he created with four Temple students, helps build the local urban farming economy by providing the essential data.
 
The project was funded by the Knight Foundation and earned runner-up status in Google's international Place API Developer Challenge in Feburary. The site recently launched in alpha and the team plans to incorporate as a nonprofit this summer.
 
By logging onto Growshare.net, users can locate urban farming projects in Google Maps, view crime statistics and assess resources in the surrounding area. They can also log into an auction platform and bid on gardening supplies, equipment and plants from other local farmers.
 
"What can public data do to help solve a problem?" asks Shi. "The Growshare project puts private and public data together in one place."
 
Assets like volunteer labor and knowledge -- which Shi calls "intangible resources" -- are advertised and claimed on the site. He expects to launch a separate currency called "Universal Resource Exchange" to facilitate the trade of volunteer hours.
 
"Those intangible resources have no place for trade," he says. "Growshare allows those intangible resources to be fairly traded on a platform that includes tangible resources."
 
GrowShare was developed through Temple's Computer and Information Systems Department (Shi is associate chair), and received support from the City, The National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates and Code for America of Philadelphia.
 
 "If we quantify the volunteer work and use social networking power and people's goodwill, those vacant lots will be much more effectively utilized," says Shi.
 
Source: Justin Shi, Temple University
Writer: Dana Henry

At one point, Philadelphia wasn't a city but a cluster of municipalities and townships. When Joan Decker, commissioner of Philadelphia's Department of Records, started working on PhillyHistory.org -- a location-based search engine for over 100,000 archival photos -- locating historical addresses was a problem.

Azavea, a local company that specializes in the creation of geographic web and mobile software, helped out with the project and quickly realized that this issue -- constantly changing addresses -- is a problem not only in Philly, but in cities around the world.
 
To make historical records more accessible to archives, museums and libraries, Azavea is creating GIS-enabled tools that will solve the address issue. The Temporal Geocoder project will use an open-source platform to collect historical addresses and develop prototype software to geographically tag them. Azavea's proof-of-concept phase -- which will be developed for Philadelphia -- recently received a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation. As the project develops, Azavea plans to hire public history specialists to help with the archives.
 
“We've become accustom to the idea that you can type an address into Google Maps, or some other map based application, and find the location," says Robert Cheetham, founder and president of Azavea. "That's not the case for anything going back more than a few decades. Addresses and intersections have all been changing over the course of the city's history."
 
Cheetham says the Temporal Geocoder could assist with matters related to property, epidemiology and family history. In the grander scheme, the project represents a new frontier for digital searches.
 
"This is a real opportunity to explore what some people call 'old knowledge,'" he says. "We've grown accustomed to Googling something and accepting that that's the sum of human knowledge. In many cases, it's really just a tiny snapshot. There’s an enormously rich trove of experiences and knowledge in the archives all over the world."
 
Source: Robert Cheetham, Azavea
Writer: Dana Henry

Michael Kiley, a local composer and sound installation artist, has seen far too many people moving through the city glued to their mobile devices. In response, Kiley (through his public music project The Mural and The Mint) has teamed up with South Philly web design firm P’unk Ave to develop an app that integrates a sense of place.
 
"I actually think [social media] separates us more," says Kiley. "I was interested in using technology in a way where you don't actually interface with your phone."

The Empty Air: A Rittenhouse Square Sound Walk -- debuting April 5 with an opening party at the Philadelphia Art Alliance -- is a GPS-enabled musical composition that shifts depending on your position within the park. Kiley developed the project using binaural microphones; they're tiny recording devices that fit inside your ear. He used the park's native sounds -- traffic, birds and chatter – as a backbone for the piece. The work was done in collaboration with Miner Street Studios in Fishtown.
 
The Empty Air received grants from The Independence Foundation, Philadelphia Cultural Aliance, and the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum.

This is only the beginning for the project. The Mural and The Mint -- named as a homage to Philly and its signature public art tradtition -- will develop a series of sound walks to attract attention to the city's underserved spaces. Philly’s long-neglected waterfront is next.
 
"It’s kind of a tour," he says. "But unlike other tours in Philly, it's not didactic. My hope is that it changes the way you see a place you know really well."

Source: Michael Kiley, The Mural and The Mint
Writer: Dana Henry

Last Tuesday, local university research in healthcare technology got a big boost. As a third component in the StartUp PHL portfolio, the University City Science Center's QED Proof-of-Concept program -- which invests exclusively in medical research from Greater Philadelphia’s academic sector -- was awarded a $500,000 loan from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PICD) Penn Venture Fund program.
 
QED -- the abbreviated Latin phrase Quod Erat Demonstrandum (proven as demonstrated) -- provides grant money and private sector guidance to help promising studies establish early stage proof-of-concept for commercial application, a cumbersome phase of the research-to-product process. Since 2009, the program has awarded $600,000 annually, divided into $200,000 grants for life science projects and $100,000 grants for research in digital healthcare, a growing field where life science meets information technology. 

According to Stephen Tang, President and CEO of the Science Center, university settings are ideal spaces for developing broad-scope medical science, thanks to their insulation from commercial interests. A diagnostic company, for example, might build a device to detect Alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, a university has the freedom to research the molecular identity of the disease which can inform a range of diagnostics and treatments.
 
"The theory on innovation is you have to have very divergent thinking before you have convergent thinking," says Tang. "It's that very divergent thinking that [the Science Center] is trying to tap into and help to converge on commercial opportunities."
  
Past QED participants -- representing 22 regional institutions including Penn, Drexel and the Wistar Institute -- have gone on to launch promising companies. Vascular Magnetics, producers of a drug delivery apparatus created by Dr. Robert Levy, a professor of pediatric cardiology from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and his QED business advisor Richard Woodward, recently raised $7 million in their first round of financing. UE LifeSciences Inc., a medical device company that commercialized research in breast cancer detection by  Dr. Wan Shih of Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, eventually received a $878,422 grant from the Pennsylvania Department Of Health's Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement (CURE) program.
 
While the "Eds and Meds" capital has long been hailed for life science achievements, Tang sees digital healthcare as the next frontier. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, massive amounts of medical records have to be digitized. Furthermore, the bourgeoning field of Genomics -- the science of transcribing an individual's genome to detect genetic disease -- will require terabyte-sized data transfer and manipulation. 
 
Accordingly, the 2012 QED program made awards to mobile healthcare apps developed at Rutgers University. The $500,000 PICD loan -- which is repaid via licensing royalties and revenue from successful projects -- will expand QED within city limits, boosting Philly's role in the health IT industry. 
 
"[Philadelphia] has one of the largest concentrations of healthcare facilities, hospitals and doctors, as well as academic research," says Tang. "We're betting big that that domain will distinguish Philadelphia from other metropolitan areas in the world."

The University City Science Center has partnered with Flying Kite to showcase innovation in Greater Philadelphia through the "Inventing the Future" series.

Source: Stephen Tang, University City Science Center
Writer: Dana Henry

With a rapidly growing senior population, increasingly varied insurance offerings and new regulations, the health insurance business has gotten pretty complicated. To address this, Eddystone-based Inspro Technologies offers administrative enterprise software that helps navigate those muddy waters.

"Some of these carriers could be paying 30,000 claims in a day, or more," explains Bob Oakes, CEO of Inspro. "They need to be able to handle those efficiently and quickly so that they’re not using human resources."

A new policy option for nursing care, for example, has to have a built-in structure for paying additional potential claims. The Inspro platform reduces the timeline for integrating these variations from months to weeks. Additionally, they manage applications, coordinate billing and agent commissions, and pay over 99 percent of claims. 

Inspro is currently launching a feature for managing annuities -- a situation where the insured leverages one policy, like life insurance, to pay into another, like long-term care. 

The company recently earned $2.5 million from private investors, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and was included in Deloitte’s "Fast 500" list for 2012. They’ve grown from 75 employees to 115 in the past year and expect to hire 40 more workers in 2013, including project managers, business analysts and Java development experts.

The company's rapid growth has attracted the attention of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, who recently visited their offices to study the organizational and management structure that enables the company to grow so quickly.

Source: Bob Oakes, Inspro Technologies
Writer: Dana Henry

With the recent success of companies like Flyclops, Final Form and Cipher Prime, mobile game-making is carving a niche in the city's creative economy. Now the community needs a home-base -- enter Nathan Solomon, founder of Philadelphia Game Lab, a combination co-working space and incubator.
 
"Over the past ten years, with alternative distribution channels, the industry as a whole is much more interested in actual creative stuff," says Solomon. "Philadelphia's not in a really great position to pull together teams of over a hundred people, but we are in a really good position to pull together people who have technical expertise and creative drive, and want to make their own games."

The Lab will open its doors at 22nd and Walnut Streets in late March. It will admit small "teams" (usually two to six people) and skilled individuals seeking teams. In addition to benefiting from the networking and support that comes with a game-centric community, teams can better access capital via partnering funders. Opportunities for mentoring and a Quality Assurance (QA) Lab for beta testing are also in the works.
 
While shrinking startup costs have made the game app industry more accessible, the market is highly competitive. "You don’t need to find that special backer or special publisher anymore," says Solomon. "At the same time, it's really, really hard to make a good game."
 
The Lab will open with four teams and hopes to serve 12 teams total. Solomon says he’s also planning programs with local universities designed to expose students to game making as a vocation.
 
Source: Nathan Solmon, Philadelphia Game Lab
Writer: Dana Henry

Two years after selling to the Dachis Group, Gunter Pfau has reacquired Stuzo, the company he founded in 2005 as a Temple senior. Considered one of Facebook's first Preferred Marketing Developers, Stuzo is countering industry trends: While competitors have been acquired by Google, Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle, Stuzo is going independent.
 
Located in Chinatown, the company creates specialized customer engagement solutions and has worked for a slew of corporate brands, including Proctor and Gamble, Coca-Cola, DreamWorks, Intel and Samsung. They have 40 employees (split between Philadelphia and a European office) and plan to hire for positions in customer engagement, accounting, creativity and product delivery.
 
Pfau says he was one of Facebook’s earliest adopters. Shortly after the social network launched in 2007, Stuzo pivoted from servicing student-to-student textbook sales to brand engagement strategy. 

"With the transformation and democratization of social technologies, you have companies and brands engaged in two way conversations," says Pfau. "If my trusted friends on Facebook tell me how well Swiffer picks up dog hairs off hardwood floors, it's much more impactful."

To date, the company has built over 600 custom social media campaigns that integrate social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. For example, Stuzo doubled the votes cast in the People's Choice Awards (PCA) with an API (Application Programming Interface, software that shares information with multiple websites or applications) that republished the voting activity of PCA's Facebook page to Twitter.

Shortly after iPad was released, Stuzo began focusing their energies on cross-platform mobile solutions, increasing their revenue by 70 percent in 2012. According to a 2012 report by Strategy Analytics, Machine to Machine (M2M) products--where activity is shared across consumer devices without human input -- will increase by over a third this year. Pfau believes that Stuzo's cross platform communications, enabled by APIs, is positioned to meet the demands of the M2M world.

"Mobile is now the key screen that we need to optimize for from a user experience perspective," he says. "Our core technology platform is built to be flexible so that we can integrate new [social] platforms and consumer [devices] with ease. 
 
Source: Gunter Pfau, Stuzo
Writer: Dana Henry

Dating as far back as instant messenger, social tools -- email, Facebook, Twitter -- have a common trajectory: first college campuses, then the public, and then finally the business world. In keeping with this trend, Fort Washington-based Chariot Solutions is launching Haydle, a private Q&A board intended for corporate departments. It’s Yahoo Answers for the office.

"There’s a movement that takes the best of the social web and brings it internally," says Joel Confino, senior consultant at Chariot Solutions. "Just like there’s a whole slew of social products, there’s a whole slew of enterprise products."

Chariot Solutions, a service provider of custom software since 2002, is forming a not-yet-named product subsidiary; Haydle will be its flagship product. Although Confino says it’s too early say how many new jobs will be created, the company is seeking software architects.

Currently, most large companies use discussion boards or wiki pages, in addition to email, for internal communication. Someone seeking a quick solution will invariably sift through pages of tangents, commentary and bad jokes. What’s unearthed, moreover, might not be credible.

Haydle employs a "question and answer pair" model which assumes that every question has only one answer. The product invites co-workers to rate submissions. Finally, the asker selects the best match.  

"This product is actually not discussion focused," says Confino. "[Askers have] tried those answers and they’re telling you which ones worked, so it’s almost like a personal recommendation."

The company will first approach current clientele -- mostly large IT departments -- who can use Haydle to catalogue programming solutions. They’ve also received interest from customer service and human resources departments, deluged with repeat questions. According to Confino, the most unexpected inquiry came from a pharmaceutical scientist seeking safeguards for drug manufacturing.

Haydle is currently launching with an eight-week beta pilot at a Fortune 500 client.
 
Source: Joel Confino and Tracy Welson-Rossman, Chariot Solutions
Writer: Dana Henry

WordPress launched in 1998, creating a world in which even your grandma’s cookie business could maintain a web presence. On February 21, Apprenaissance -- mobile app creators located in Old City -- relaunched as Artisan. Their flagship product is Artisan Optimize, an app builder at the forefront of a WordPress-style revolution in the mobile sphere. 
 
"In the '90s, everyone had to have a website, but they weren't exactly sure why," says Bob Moul, CEO of Artisan. "To some extent we’re seeing that on apps. People are starting to go to the next level and say, 'Hey, this is actually a really cool way I can engage my customers in ways that I couldn’t do with a website.'"
 
Accessibility, however, is still an issue for app writers. Once an app goes to App Store, Apple controls it. A simple change in wording, color or image goes through the builder's IT department, and is then resubmitted to Apple. At least a week goes by before Apple releases the update. The process can often take a month or longer.
 
Artisan Optimize shifts the power dynamic with Mobile Experience Management, a platform that enables point-click style revisions for mobile apps. Artisan’s patent-pending technology allows their cloud to update Apple's system, creating an uninterrupted pathway from app author to the App Store.
 
By eliminating the need for code, Artisan allows non-developers to make changes. A marketing department using Artisan can also observe resulting traffic -- down to the specific actions of individual users -- with Optimize’s Experimental Analytics.
 
The relaunch closed its seed round of fundraising with $3 million from First Mark Capital and angel investors. They are hiring developer, sales and technical writing postions.

Moul said Artisan expected their product to be a hit with mid-level retail corporations but was surprised to find that conglomerates the size of Disney (which owns 600 mobile apps) are expressing interest. Artisan is demonstrating the new product this week at Etail West 2013, a national e-retailers trade show in Palm Springs, California.

Source: Bob Moul, Artisan
Writer: Dana Henry

In his old job, Frank Coates worked with corporate sales, marketing and accounts teams. He was struck by the outdated use of pencil and paper for recording employee and client meetings.

West Chester-based Wheelhouse Analytics, cofounded by Coates and Todd Buck, looks to solve that problem, capturing the critical data that happens off-line. Admiral, the company’s flagship product, is a tablet app that allows firms to translate meetings and events into stored data points. 

"There’s tons of information out there about how we communicate digitally, whether it’s on LinkedIn, use of websites or even cell phones," says Coates. "Companies have tremendous detail about who’s doing what and what people are interested in. But if you ask the sales force, 'How many minutes did you talk in that meeting about a particular product?,' they can’t do it."

Wheelhouse was formed in 2010, three years after Coates and Buck sold their former company, Coates Analytics, to PNC Bank. They have a full-time staff of nine and are looking to hire PHP and web service developers. 
 
Admiral enables users to upload presentation materials, including slides and videos. During a meeting, the app tracks time spent on each presented subject and allows users to record the audience’s immediate response. The platform also creates a record of the meeting’s outcomes. All data links directly to the company’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and is backed up in "The Bridge," Wheelhouse's cloud-based hub.
 
Although Admiral has only been on the market since November, the product is already gaining Fortune 100 financial service clients with sales teams as large as 500 associates. The company plans to launch a customizable phone-based app for task management in the next few months. 
 
"Ultimately it’s about what works and what doesn't," says Coates. "Our hope is to get rid of paper." 

Source: Frank Coates, Wheelhouse Analytics
Writer: Dana Henry

After receiving a final contribution from the University of Pennsylvania, the University City Science Center closed its Open the Doors Campaign. The first fundraiser in the local institution's fifty year history raised over $1 million for Quorum. This "clubhouse for entrepreneurs" has a two-pronged mission: to provide a place where entrepreneurs can meet and present a programming series designed to help those entrepreneurs move forward.
 
Quorum -- equipped with meeting rooms, a lounge and a small auditorium -- is distinguished from traditional coworking spaces through open accessibility. Local entrepreneurs are encouraged to use the space to host meetings or to just drop by to work among their peers. No membership required.
 
"We really want to give people the chance to make informal connections," says Jeanne Mell, VP of marketing and  communications for the Science Center.
 
The roster of investment and advising opportunities includes Coffee and Capital, an educational meeting between an investor and 20 entrepreneurs; Office Hours, where local business experts -- including Jeff Libson from Pepper Hamilton, Jeff Bodle from Morgan Lewis and Allison Deflorio from Exude -- meet individual entrepreneurs to answer pre-submitted questions; Angel Education, which hosts a panel of entrepreneurs to educate angel investors about opportunities in emerging industries;  and How to Talk to Money, a new series by BizClarity's Steve Bowman on approaching investors.  
 
The concept emerged from recommendations made by Select Greater Philadelphia's CEO Council for Growth. Since opening in 2011, the facility has serviced 12,000 individuals and hosted 250 events. The Science Center has also partnered with the Navy Yard's EEB Hub on Satellite Quorum, to offer programing on energy-related ventures.
 
Open the Doors received support from 34 private companies and institutions, including Morgan Lewis, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Energy Plus. Moving forward, the Science Center expects to provide opportunities for ongoing sponsorship.
 
"As the money has rolled in, it's been used to support Quorum's programing," says Mell. "This is really the first step in our fundraising journey."
 
Source: Jeanne Mell, University City Science Center
Writer: Dana Henry

Our partner for the "Inventing the Future" series is the University City Science Center.

In a 911 emergency, paramedics make life-or-death decisions in seconds. They do this without even knowing the patient's name.

This issue inspired Team My In Case of Emergency (mICE), winners of this year’s Startup Weekend Health (SWH). Their app accesses a patient's medical history, including vital information like medications and allergies, and is intended for first responders.

The grueling 54-hour hackathon, held last weekend at VentureF0rth, was largely attended by doctors, nurses and other practitioners. Sponsors included DreamIt Ventures, Safeguard and Drexel’s iSchool.

"[Clinicians] are coming up with ideas based on some of the problems they encounter every day," says Arif Virani, a SWH organizer. "It's great to get a bunch of smart people to think about these big, audacious problems and take on a tiny sliver."

mICE team leader David Bendell, a Penn nursing student and U.K. native, worked with six others, including several Penn students with backgrounds in IT or healthcare. Their winning project provides the patient's photo, identity and self-description by scanning a QR-code stored on the patient's phone. Medical records mined from insurance transactions would appear once the responder was verified by the insurance company's call center.

A total of 90 people participated in SWH, providing 36 pitches. There were 20 front-runners and 13 made it to the final demo round. In second place was Jose Morey, a radiologist at Penn, and his team USmedics, who created a platform that enables remote patients -- particularly those outside the United States -- to have test results read by doctors at top hospitals. Finishing third was KnowMe, an app conceptualized by Penn nursing student, Kerry McLaughlin, that helps nursing home staff maintain daily records of residents' moods, symptoms and habits.

Lon Hect, the winner of last year’s SWH, went on to win the Independence Blue Cross Game Changers Challenge and was awarded $50,000 in seed money. He is currently working on his startup full-time.

Source: Arif Virani, David Bendell, Startup Weekend Health
Writer: Dana Henry

Here's a 21st century riddle: Why, in an age of endless instant media, are coffee shop corkboards and telephone poles still cluttered with printed flyers?

According to HootBoard founder Satyajeet Shahade, the answer is our ever-shrinking attention spans. Everyday, a torrent of Twitter headlines, Pinterest pictures and Facebook updates stand between timely messages and their target audience. HootBoard, which operates out of the University City Science Center’s Quorum, pushes messages to the front of the line with a virtual "flyer" combining social media channels and design elements. The company completed Novotorium’s business launch program and will release the beta version of its product this week.

Back in 2011, Shahade was working on Raspee, a platform for scholarly work. In a broad attempt to reach students and professors, he spent hundreds of dollars and endless hours covering local campuses with pieces of paper. "It was painful," says Shahade. "And worst part was that we didn’t even know if anyone was looking at these flyers."

The flyer needed a 21st century makeover. HootBoard takes advantage of recent advancements in front end web design technology to integrate multiple channels -- including videos, music, maps and meetup invites -- into a fully customizable posting. HootBoard also provides private bulletin boards for communities that share a physical address, school or workplace.  

"Everyone has a need to announce or promote something," says Shahade.

Source: Satyajeet Shahade, HootBoard
Writer: Dana Henry