Emerging Technology : Innovation + Job News

In 2011, Michele McKeone, a teacher and University of the Arts alum, entered the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at the University of the Arts intending to market her specialized curriculum. One year later she launched the beta version of Autism Expressed, an interactive web-platform that helps autistic students develop digital skills. McKeone and three other 2011 Corzo Center/Wells Fargo Fellows will share trials, mistakes, successes and plans from their creative ventures during What’s Cooking at Corzo on Tuesday, Nov. 13.

Like many artistic entrepreneurs, McKeone, a former media design student, struggled to turn her passions into something marketable. Many creative startups also have difficulty appealing to traditional funding sources.

“When the politicians talk about ‘job creators,’ they are not talking about the small businesses created in the creative economy,” says Neil Kleinman, Senior Fellow for the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy. “As we know, though, a thriving economic community requires that we have a creative culture.”

The Corzo Center provides workshops, mentorship and consulting to meet the specific needs of creative startups and offers select entrepreneurs a $10,000 grant. The presenting 2011 Corzo fellows demonstrate a diverse range of business concepts rooted in creative education. In addtion to McKeon, presenters include:

ADMK:  As a graduate student at UArts, Andrew Dalhgren, a master crafter, spent a year investigating the state of textiles in Philadelphia. He developed a vision for scalable production of handmade knitting enabled by advanced technology, and plans to launch Knit Lab as a shared workspace.
 
Bonded Forever Jewelry: This company designs jewelry that “bonds” cancer patients with their loved ones. Cassandra Hoo, a writer, filmmaker and recent Alliance for Women Entrepreneur (AWE) fellow, developed the concept after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Bonded Forever Jewelry is sold in local shops and helps fund cancer research.

Bioskin: Eric Zola is an industrial designer developing new forms of environmentally sound insulation using biomimicry—sustainable design based on biological forms.

McKeone, who since completed the Good Company Ventures accelorator and was awarded a 2011 AWE fellowship, is currenlty testing Autism Expressed at area charter schools. She credits Corzo for pushing her to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking into her vision.

"At the time, I had no clear business model, just an emerging vision," she says. "After working through the incubator, attending its workshops and open office hours with experts in the areas of law, business, marketing, etc., I emerged with not only a well-defined vision, but a scalable product and business model."

In the past three years, six of the ten total Corzo Incubator fellows launched startups that continue to progress. Nonetheless, Kleinman says the ultimate focus is not about success.

"We have emerging entrepreneurs with remarkable stories," he says. "Their time with Corzo was intended to be a learning process—the first stage along a path that may lead to new ideas and new ventures. Each started at a very small spot on the road and has begun to move out into some delightful, surprising forms of recognition.”

Source: Neil Kleinman, Michele McKeone, Corzo Center
Writer: Dana Henry

Anyone whose attempted vegetarianism knows eating more plants can mean endless hours in the kitchen. There are special groceries and lengthy chopping sessions, not to mention the new-recipe-learning-curve. Conshohocken-based Real Food Works is launching a weekly subscription meal service offering fresh, local, plant-based entres with vegitarian and ominvor options. They are currently hiring a web engineer and expect to hire more positions early next year.

“With a plant-based diet you’re working pretty much from scratch,” Mike Krupit, co-found of Real Food Works and dietary convert, explains. “On Sunday I would spend a good four or five hours in the kitchen cooking four or five days’ worth of meals for myself. You’re not dealing with complex ingredients, but in order to get something to taste good and have a variety of ingredients requires a whole bunch of time.” 

At heart, Real Food Works is a tech business that connects customers to local chefs. Early in the week, when kitchens are staffed but don’t get many customers, the company commissions meals that meet stringent nutritional requirements. They currently matches customers with kitchens at Trattoria Totaro, Miss Rachel's Pantry, Eat Your Heart Out Edibles, Turnersville, Su Tao Cafe, Earth Elements, Stella Blu, Gypsy Saloon, and Wine Thief.

As Krupit explains, responsible eating has been chalked up to personal education. Someone looking to change their diet might read a book, follow a website, or join a meetup group. Real Food Works aims to give national traction to the plant-based movement by selling it. Krupit, and his cofounder, Lucinda Duncalfe, are experienced tech entreprenures and avid plant eaters, who say changing their diet changed their lives.They expect that other professionals will embrace the opportunity to make the switch without the hassle.

“When you look at national subscription meal plans, their food sucks,”  Krupit says. “We provide high-quality food that’s fresh and we came up with a model that can grow across the country.” 

Source: Mike Krupit, Real Food Works
Writer: Dana Henry

On Tuesday, Oct. 23, local businesses, community colleges, education professionals and tech advisors met at Temple University for the first Delaware Valley STEM Workforce Development Conference. The ongoing incubator, which addresses issues related to the gap in STEM education and the growing number of tech-sector jobs, launched an “enabling committee” to foster partnerships between businesses and schools in Greater Philadelphia. Writer: Dana Henry

In the fall of 2011, leadership from Philly Startup Leaders and Ben Franklin Technology Partners began meeting with  Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies, and officials from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and The Mayors Office. Despite seemingly different agendas, the group collaborated around a shared interest: How do we keep promising companies in Philadelphia?

In just a few years, WizeHive has established a successful track record selling their collaborative platform as an application review tool and is ready to expand into new verticals. The Conshohocken comapny is hiring several positions including high-level web developers, web designer, experienced sales lead, and business development expert.

With the presidential race in full swing it’s easy to overlook that thousands of political seats—at municipal, state and federal levels—are up for re-election across the country. Luckily, Azavea keeps track of legislative data with Cicero API, a GIS platform matching people, businesses, advocacy organizations and nonprofits with their elected officials. Azavea is hiring two to three paid research assistance internships to help overhaul Cicero as well as one or two software engineers for their Justice and Enterprise Services Team.

“[A user] can geo-code their address and [Cicero] will know the local district and the state district and tell you exactly who you should contact and what their contact information is,” Maya Gutierrez, Product Manager of Elections and Politics at Azavea, explains.

Unlike similar services which estimate your districts based on zip code, Cicero is remarkably accurate, pinpointing the precise longitude and latitude of an address. The platform holds comprehensive data of federal and state legislative districts as well as city council data for 80 of the largest cities. In addition to updating official information for up to 10,000 inaugural seats, the Cicero team will be working double-time to redraw district boundaries, which have changed in accordance with the 2010 census data. Their product is a valuable informant for a range of clients.

“Cicero is used by the political campaigns but it can also be used by constituents,” Gutierrez says. “A number of clients use it for legislative advocacy projects.”

Winning Mark used Cicero to create a web-app voter’s guide for Oregon residents. SEPTA uses it to remind officials which transportation routes effect their constituency. News outlets view the political landscape through Cicero. The platform has even helped with analysis of the impact of voter ID law. Because nothing like Cicero exists in the public realm, Azavea offers nonprofit pricing options as well as pro bono accounts for several non-profits signed up through TechSoup and selected local organizations, keeping the civilly-minded resource as available as possible.

Source: Maya Gutierrez, Azavea
Writer: Dana Henry

Awaiting its official launch, Shindig Mobile has found a new type of client, the college campus. The makers of the fully customizable event series app—whose clients include Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Live Arts, Second Conf, and the American Association of Cancer Research—will work closely with Campus Philly to discover how their cross-platform mobile technology can serve the higher education sector. Shindig is currently hiring a sales rep and expects to add a few more positions at the beginning of next year.

“Campuses throw lots of events with lots of people who always need to know what’s going on.” Corey Floyd, CEO of Shindig, says. “There’s extra-curricular activities, student orientation. [Shindig] has a lot of mapping capabilities. The system can help people with navigating buildings and finding a class.”

Normally, when an organization wants patrons to track their events, they build and distribute an individual app with separate versions for Android, iOS, mobile web and other platforms. According to Floyd, this can easily cost $100,000. Shindig provides a comprehensive events-app structure from a central platform that’s already hooked into a distribution channel and can publish across all mobile devices. The client adds data and branding using mobile web templates, similar to the way a blog works, drastically reducing the price point. 

The Shindig concept began as the 2010 Philly Beer Week App, which Floyd and several Shindig co-founders, including Johnny Bilotta, Kevin Lee and Michael James—who are all longtime IndyHall members and successful app contributors—built after a conversation at Coco Heads Meetup. After Beer Week, a few contributors moved on and Salas Saraiya, and later Mike Zornek, joined the team. The Beer Week apps, they discovered, had implications for a larger problem.

“We were building [the Beer Week apps] as a one-off.” Floyd says. “We built one for iphone, then one for Android; it was starting to get hard. That’s when we put together this concept of building a platform where we could put [all versions] out at one time.”

“We built a backend that worked for us and it worked well. About a year ago we started thinking, ‘if this system works for us why not make it available for anyone to use?’ So what started out as finding a destination for beer in Philadelphia can now be ‘How can I get to my class?’” Floyd says.

Shindig’s official launch and party is planned for late October. Sign up for their newsletter to receive details.

Source: Corey Floyd, Shindig
Writer: Dana Henry

University City Science Center received the Sal Buccieri Memorial Venture Impact Award during the 15^th annual Early Stage East, venture capital conference, on Thursday (Oct. 4). Previously, this award, which honors individuals and organizations that help early stage companies flourish in Philadelphia, was largely given to venture capitalists.

“[The University City Science Center] has created a true center of innovation,” David Freschman, Founder of ESE, says.  “It offers counsel, resources, facility and thought-leadership which has been the impetus for the launch and growth of many companies in our region that currently employ thousands of employees.”

“This award is especially meaningful as we embark on our 50th anniversary year,” Stephen Tang, President & CEO of UCSC, says of the acceptance.  “I did not have the honor of knowing Sal Buccieri, but from what I've heard about him, he exemplified the pay-it-forward mentality we need to nurture a thriving culture of entrepreneurship and innovation.”

During the conference, 25 technology startups from Club Pitch presented to venture capitalists and angle investors. Freschman says many participating companies gain their first-round investment from contacts made at ESE. Innovation Capital Advisors, where Freschman serves as Managing Principal, invests up to 70 percent of their capital in companies that participated in Club Pitch. Among the 16 presenters from the Philadelphia region, Freschman cites Snip Snap, Localty, People Linx and Cloud Confidence as companies to look out for.

“Philadelphia is very much a city driven by ‘substantive’ enterprise,” Freschman says. “These are businesses that will grow because of customer acquisition and sales growth versus publicity and marketing presence. Maybe they aren’t as sexy as what you read in INC magazine, but [Philly companies] are really productive.”

Freschman believes the greater Philadelphia public, however, needs to look beyond banking and insurance to find the real success story of our local enterprise community.

“We need to really praise and recognize these emerging companies” he says.

Source: David Freschman, Early Stage East
Writer: Dana Henry

A new crop of startups emerged from Philly Startup Weekend 4.0, held at University Of The Arts this past weekend, with some refreshingly accessible concepts. The winner, Voxx.io, founded by visiting entrepreneur, Josh Hudnall, will use mobile technology to customize the music heard in bars, restaurants and coffee shops to the specific taste of their patrons. In second place, Feed Me, founded by Philly native and Startup Weekend newcomer, Jiate Zhang, proposes an AirBnB-type web platform that connects pizza-wary strangers with people who love to cook.  Third place went to Dreamit Ventures alum Michael Raber, for Boxly, a spread-sheet based mobile app that will allow complex on-the-go data collection for both individual and group uses.

Forty-seven pitches, ranging from crowd sourced dental care to street parking aps, were narrowed down to 12 finalists, including a team of local high school students. Startup Weekend had fewer finalists than past startup weekends, but each team was larger with more diversified talent. 

“Best bit of feedback I got was ‘This was the most communal startup weekend I’ve been to.’” says event organizer Chris Baglieri says.  “I think that’s pretty rad.”

Of all the gifted teams, what determined the winners?

“You can connect with them, maybe a little more so than some of the others," says Baglieri. “Like Voxx.io. I mean you walk into the bars and you see these old jukebox CD things. Those are just kind of antiquated so you can see the appeal.”

In the final day, Feed Me pulled together it’s winning presentation without a programmer or designer and no workable demo. “I’ve worked for a couple of startups doing financial strategy so I’ve seen the full scope of ‘this is awesome, things are going well’ to ‘Oh my God, I think we might not exist anymore.’”  Zhang says. “The thing about Sartup Weekend is it’s really effective at simulating those experiences within a day.”

Hot off the recent acquisition of his first start-up, UXFlip, by appRenaissance, Raber delivered again.  He’s looking forward to building Boxly and bringing it to the app market. “I have this tablet and I have this Iphone and I’m carrying them everywhere and I’d rather carry that than my laptop,” Raber explains. “Yet it’s so difficult to get information into those devices. I probably have two dozen aps that deal with to-do list or organizing information. I started thinking how can we build a platform that enables people to do what you do on a spreadsheet? ”

Raber was accompanied by his 13 year-old partner and son, Zachary.

“It’s an interesting time to have kids. There’s so much going on in the world and things are changing so quickly, specifically in the technology area.” Raber says. “I like to joke around and say in another 10 years I’ll be working for his startup.”

As for Hudnall, Voxx.io is set to move forward after developing a solid team of six and making some vital connections. “We proved our concept,” Hudnall says. “The biggest thing we needed to know was that we could see a check-in, in real-time and that we could match it up with a musical profile.”

So will Hudnall, who is principal developer and founder of fastPXL, move from Denver, Col., to Philly to realize his latest dream?

“I’m not ruling anything out.” Hudnall concedes. “Philly’s awesome.”

Source: Chris Baglieri, Philly Startup Weekend; Michael Raber, Voxx.io; Josh Hudnall, fastPXL
Writer: Dana Henry

Tech incubator Dreamit Ventures has announced its Fall 2012 Philadelphia lineup. Moving three blocks up the street to 3701 Market Street but still at the University City Science Center, Managing Partner Karen Griffith Gryga says Dreamit will be leveraging its proximity to the Science Center's Quorum.

"There is a great deal of programming planned for this class," says Gryga. "In addition to the one-on-one mentoring that we establish for the companies based on their particular needs and the frequent meetings with the DreamIt partners, we have speakers from leading VC firms, leading industry players and operational experts as well as workshops on technologies and operational components. We have investor office hours with ventures capitalists from across the country as well as angel investors."

Gryga places a high value on accelerator participants' interactions with each other,and reports that Dreamit will hold more regular social events to add some fun to the mix.
 
Speaking of fun, this year, recipes and bridesmaids dresses are the focus of two companies. "The entrepreneurial team is the critical decision area and less so the idea because we know that with the right team we can always refine or reformulate a market/customer centric solution.  Over the years, we have had many consumer facing opportunities and, in fact, had both Bazaart and TopShelf in the New York program this summer and KeepRecipes the New York summer before."
 
As in years past, the Dreamit teams come to Philadelphia from locations worldwide. Five of the companies are part of the DreamIt Access program, a dedicated effort to launch 15 minority-led startups over the next 12 months. Comcast Ventures is an investor in the DreamIt Access program.  Here's a detailed listing of this year's companies.
 
The 14 startups in the program are:
 
- Altair Prep, Philadelphia:  Performance-based homework platform that analyzes learning trends and customize curricula
- Applique, New York, NY:  Drag-and-drop ease for building iPhone and iPad Apps
- Betterific, Washington, DC:  Crowdsourcing platform aims to improve products and brands by allowing consumers to submit ideas and suggestions
- brandREP.me, Los Angeles, CA:  Crowdsources brand marketing campaigns to student
- Brideside, Chicago, IL:  Oline boutique for bridesmaids dresses.
- CallGrader, Denver, CO:  Marketing analytics and rich data for phone calls
- Charlie, Chicago, IL:  Mobile app provides vital contact information whenever you need it
- CloudConfidence, Philadelphia:  Platform for analytics-driven cloud monitoring and management
- FlagTap, San Francisco, CA:  On-site rewards that are easy to manage
- mor.sl, Washington, DC:  Recipe recommendation platform that personalizes based on tastes, cooking skill and allergies
- Peeractive, Sydney, Australia:  Social commerce technology with real-time analytics 
- The Whoot, New York, NY:  Short-term social planning
- Tripkno, New York, NY:  Travel guide incorporates social and e-commerce to help people find things to do
- Zenkars, Philadelphia:  Online used car retailer

Source: Karen Griffith Gryga, Dreamit Ventures
Writer: Sue Spolan