Arts and Culture : Innovation + Job News

With explosive growth in recent years, Philly’s tech and innovation scene gets plenty of local coverage. Nonetheless, Developing Philly, a weekly web series, has found a new angle. Rather than update viewers on what's happening now in the startup world, the series explores where our tech community came from and where it's headed.
 
Created by filmmaker David Dylan Thomas and web developer Maurice Gaston, the project was inspired by mutual observation. When the co-producers and longtime South by Southwest participants met in 2009, people with different skill sets were starting to connect at local events such as BarCamp and CreativeCamp. The tech culture, it seemed, was becoming more energetic and creative.
  
Now in its first season, the seven-episode series explores the scene's origins. Topics have included tech in the '90s, groundwork efforts (including BarCamp, IgnitePhilly, Philly Startup Leaders and Philadelphia Area New Media Association) and the coworking trend. Episodes are released every Friday.

Initially, Gaston and Thomas weren’t sure if the subjects would be fictional, technical or entrepreneurial. Early conversations with Alex Hillman of Indy Hall and Sean Blanda of Technically Philly led them to more and more under-the-radar leaders, and the focus became clear.
 
"I started out expecting to tell a technology story," says Thomas. "It became more of a business story, but then it grew into a story about community in general. What’s unique about the Philly tech and innovation scene is how collaborative and supportive it is."
 
Source: David Dylan Thomas and Maurice Gaston, Developing Philly
Writer: Dana Henry

In an innovative effort to help neighborhood arts thrive, the City of Philadelphia has launched CultureBlocks, a GIS-enabled mapping tool that helps agencies and grant providers link cultural assets to place.

CultureBlocks was created in partnership with the Social Impact of the Arts Project at Penn and the Reinvestment Fund, which provided PolicyMap, a GIS mapping tool that became the foundation for the site.
 
"We're trying to showcase what's happening in Philadelphia," says Moira Baylson, deputy cultural officer at the City's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy. "It's not just about what's happening downtown -- it's exploring the ecosystem of arts and culture. We say on a neighborhood level, but we're really talking about Philadelphia in its entirety."

By typing in a zipcode, neighborhood or council district, users can identify cultural work, events, resources and related information. They can create a profile of an area or match their specific interests to locale. The tool includes more than formal institutions -- with over 50 data sets, it also features collectives, daycares and churches across all neighborhoods.

Ultimately, the app is intended to encourage longterm growth in the creative sector by helping funders and policymakers -- including Parks and Recreation, the Planning Commission, and the Commerce Department -- view arts and culture as an asset for neighborhood development.

The tool is free to the public and expected to serve relocating businesses, community development corporations, organizations looking to build an audience and residents who want to check out the arts in their neighborhood.

"A lot of people understand the role of arts and culture in economy and in creating vibrant neighborhoods," says Baylson. "CultureBlocks is how we demonstrate it."
 
Source: Moira Baylson, Deputy Cultural Officer at the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy
Writer: Dana Henry

Like so many accidental entrepreneurs, Will Stallwood launched Cipher Prime -- an independent mobile game development company -- while trying to get a job. Auditorium, the game Stallwood first created with music composer Dain Saint as an example of his capabilities, won him no job, but earned millions of downloads. In 2009, shortly after that unexpected success, Cipher Prime was born.

Now based in Old City, the company has since released four games on seven platforms, earning countless awards from the likes of Google, Apple, the Indie Games Festival and Pocket Gamer.

Splice, their most recent product, gained international attention after debuting on the iPad as Google's "Feature Launch of the Week." The game was named runner-up for Game of the Year by Apple's App Store -- and it was developed on a $120,000 budget, compared to a $1 million budget for the winner.

The company builds games in the "instructionless play" genre. Players solve abstract layered puzzles with no rules and no text. Cipher Prime incorporates work by local musicians and original art. The format starts simple but has a plethora of variables, making the games hard to master. Stallwood says this formula has helped solidify their international success.

"Basically, you're dragging and dropping these little nodes to try to form and outline," he says of Splice. "By the time you’re done the game, it's like a petri dish. You’re pulling cells around all over the place and they’re multiplying and you’re bending time back and forth. It really gets involved."

The company has raised $71,000 on Kickstarter for their next game, Auditorium II, and is hiring a marketer.

Cipher Prime is dedicated to building a local community of unconventional gamemakers. They host weekly development nights (regularly attended by 20 to 30 gamers), organize game-making challenges, hold public book clubs and host Skype conferences with industry leaders.

"We're really trying our damnedest to make sure there are more game developers here in Philadelphia," says Stallwood. "Everyone here loves what we do, and we want to share with other people."

Source: Will Stallwood, Cipher Prime
Writer: Dana Henry

When the Resource Exchange opened in 2009, Karyn Gerred, the executive director, spent much of her time stocking lumber and buckets of glitter. Today, the Port Richmond reuse center -- which caters to the arts, theater and film communities -- collects a bevy of fabrics, craft supplies, theater props and architectural salvage. The organization is currently developing programming to help these materials flow back into creative use.

"We started with film and theater [materials], but it’s much broader now," says Gerred. "Now we get a lot of individual donations and a lot of business and manufacturer surplus."

To support their growing operations, the Resource Exchange is hiring a logistics manager, and sales and marketing associates.

This month, the organization launched a monthly workshop on creative reuse projects taught by Philly artists. They're also partnering to provide local arts organizations -- including Fleisher Art Memorial and Village of Arts and Humanities -- with sustainably-sourced supplies.

To make inroads with the performance arts community, the Resource Exchange is working with local high schools, including New Hope Academy, on building theater sets from reclaimed pieces. They've also teamed up with the Philadelphia Film Registry on a local guide to reused set materials for visiting film production.

"We're trying to show people sustainability in the arts," says Gerred. "It's not only about saving materials -- it's about inserting sustainability into the dialogue."

Source: Karyn Gerred, The Resource Exchange
Writer: Dana Henry

Mummies, baseball and hallucinogens -- these are just a few of the marvels explored in the third annual Philadelphia Science Festival, created by the Franklin Institute. Running April 18 through 28, the festival offers over 100 events throughout the city.

Over the past two years, the Festival has engaged over 120,000 people, including 30,000 students. The hallmark of the fest is promoting "citizen scientists" and all events are interactive. Here are a couple of our picks:

For fans of local fare, Yards is offering Beer Chemistry: Perfect Pairings, a chemistry lesson with a brewmaster’s twist -- and carefully selected food and beer pairings. Elsewhere, Chef Max Hansen of Max Hansen Catering will illustrate the science behind farm-to-table with a four-course meal during The Sustainable Table: A Dinner Experience.

Sustainability seekers should also check out Sweet and Savory: Hives and Honey, a bee expo led by local beekeepers; Urban Farming at Bartram’s Garden, an exploration of agricultural science; and Naturepalooza!, an outdoor Earth Day celebration hosted by the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.

Those still awaiting the zombie uprising can watch local taxidermist extraordinaire Beth Beverly -- her accessories fashioned from road kill earned her a spot on AMC’s Immortalized -- demonstrate how to bring the dead back to life with Skinned, Stuffed and Mounted: Taxidermy Exposed. They can also help solve a mystery pandemic at Murder at the Mütter: Outbreak! and learn how to compile forensic evidence while listening to live music from Cornbread Five during Nerd Night: CSI.

Arts and culture lovers will appreciate a multi-media presentation from the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts [PIFA] on Icarus at the Edge of Time, based on the children's physics book of the same name. Breadboard will also open a Cellular/Molecular Exhibit showcasing local bio- and chem-inspired art. Meanwhile, the Science of Jazz will demonstrate sound waves at work using live scores.

And be sure to save room for the Science Carnival, the Science Festival's signature event featuring live science demos outside on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

For more on the festival -- and to check out a full calendar of events -- visit PhilaScienceFestival.org.

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

Most know Christine Knapp as a sustainability ambassador via her outreach roles with Penn Future, the Next Great City Intiative, the Passyunk Square Civic Association and, most recently, the Philadelphia Water Department. But during Ignite Philly 11 (held last Thursday at Johnny Brenda's), Knapp gained a new title: karaoke master.

After sharing best practices from her 15 years of experience, Knapp inspired Indy Hall's Alex Hillman and Flying Kite’s Michelle Freeman to join her onstage for a rendition of Journey's "Don’t Stop Believing."
 
Such is the spirit of Ignite Philly, where local leaders put their titles aside to share their passions. Spoken word artist Erica Hawthorne gave a lively pitch for Small But Mighty Arts Grant, her mission to recover the 72 percent of art in Philly that’s gone "missing" due to lack of funding. Brett Hart of the Wooden Boat Factory explained how wood and the Delaware River are transforming the youth of his native Frankford ("This wood is like my life -- it's hard, but I’m trying to shape it into something," a student once told him). Hive76’s Jordan Miller, a Penn scientist, demonstrated how he generates living vascular structures via 3-D printing -- in sugar.
 
Ignite 11 also reflected Philly’s burgeoning love for open data. Mark Headd, the city's chief data officer, opened the evening by making a compelling analogy between Athenian Democracy and urban open data usage, warning that many Philadelphians still can't participate due to the digital divide (a problem he’s addressing with GetYourToga.org). Dave Zega and Jake Wells of ElectNext revealed their method for using data to verify the claims of politicians. Ben Garvey showed Ignite how data can be made visual -- and more digestible. And Stephanie Alarcon, Amy Gutherie and Georgia Gutherie of the Hacktory shared "Hacking the Gender Gap," a database that tracks causal experiences leading to the gender disparity in tech.
 
Other notable speakers included Amanda Feifer-O'Brien, the force behind a local movement to save beneficial micro-organisms via fermentation; Drew Beecher, president of Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and leader of a national tree-planting campaign; and Ashvika Dhir, the Pennsbury High School Senior behind CauseHub.com, a meta-blog for teenage change-makers. 
 
Ignite 11 was hosted by P'unk Ave's Geoff DiMasi, Indy Hall's Adam Teterus and Breadboard's David Clayton. They also awarded Girl Develop It Philly -- presenters at Ignite 10 -- $1000 to provide tech class scholarships for 50 local women.
 
Source: Ignite Philly 11
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

South Philly’s “light” industrial core—a.k.a. Washington Avenue West—just got a lot heavier. NextFab is expanding their stable of high-tech gear and community of inventors to a 21,000-square-foot warehouse at Washington Avenue and 21st Street. The grand opening party is scheduled for January 17.

The doors open wide enough for an onsite forklift. They guard cutting-edge equipment, including a five-axis waterjet cutter and a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine. Additional room allows for private member offices, a sizeable woodshop, conference and class rooms, and a walk-in booth for painting hefty objects. The new site also includes a television lounge and satellite Cafe L'Aube.

“There is enough space for all of us to think and work in comfort,” says founder and president Evan Malone.

Three years ago, NextFab made news, pioneering a space where emerging makers could access 3D printers, laser cutters, textile machines and other advanced technologies for a monthly fee. Their short legacy of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) achievement for Philadelphia at large includes work with Optofluidics, UE Life Sciences, Philadelphia Futures and Atomic Robotics.  

Although an impressive list of creative enterprises—including Pocket Grill, Master of None and Maria Eife Jewelry & Design—has hatched under their roof, most do not come to NextFab with know-how. "We helped hundreds of people with no technical background understand and learn to use digital fabrication technology," says Malone.

He adds that anyone with an affinity for technology and creativity is welcome to check out the space. Co-making, after all, is about sharing. "[The grand opening party] is our chance to show off the amazing new capabilities our members and clients now have access to," says Malone, "and to entice other curious Philadelphians inside."

Source: Evan Malone, NextFab
Writer: Dana Henry

From incubators to venture capital funds, the term “scalability” is used tirelessly to describe startup potential. Yet for Thaddeus Squire, founder and managing director of CultureWorks (formerly Peregrine Arts), value isn't determined by size. "There needs to be space to talk about small and non-scale enterprise and its contribution to the economy," he argues.
 
Foundation money is tight, Squire admits, but Philly’s "huge startup energy," plethora of arts resources and the timeless "human urge to create" continue to push experimental arts forward. Just two months after officially adding coworking to their programing list, CultureWorks has filled 73 seats—over a third of capacity—with freelancers and individuals representing a slate of new and mid-development organizations, including Recycled Artists In Residency, Next American City and Alchemy Dance Company.
 
CultureWorks—which outsources management services and helped buoy the development of Hidden City—has been increasingly approached by emerging creators who seek support but can’t purchase the full program. Squire sees coworking as a solution: Build a home base for makers, artists, architects and designers—alongside the curators, publicists, lawyers and marketing experts who support them—and Philadelphia’s collective creativity continues down the path to prosperity.
 
"It’s the same idea that the VC and startup community has," explains Squire. "You want to see a lot of churn of ideas because every tenth idea might be a real game changer."
 
Squire believes his space is outside the coworking bubble (new Philly spaces include Venturef0rth, the South Philly Co-op Workshop, Paper Box Studios and Benjamin’s Desk) because it’s geared towards the nonprofit realm. While championing the value of small, he is certainly not shy about CultureWorks' capacity for growth. "We want to prove that this model will work," he says. "The intention beyond that might be to franchise into other cities."

Source: Thaddeus Squire, CultureWorks
Writer: Dana Henry

The preponderance of local gift guides, handmade marketplaces and gift-making workshops indicates that the buying public is ready for alternative ways to celebrate. It's in that spirit that the Camden-based Charity Gift Market was born. The online marketplace allows humanitarian nonprofits to sell handmade wares directly; the organizations keep 92 percent of the profits. (Most charitable marketplaces, by comparison, donate a percentage of the proceeds, usually less than 15 percent.) Halfway into their second holiday season, sales are up 300 percent and the new company continues attracting partners.
 
Purchasers select by "product," "charity" or "cause." Say your sister works in public health and just had a baby? Charity Gift Market might lead you to a quilt made from saris and stuffed with recycled clothes, created by a mother in India working from home to provide nutritious food and medical care for her family.
 
"It brings charity into the larger marketplace of commerce," says co-founder Lindsey Markelz. "People are generally quite selective in giving donations to charity, but they may find a product they like on Charity Gift Market and, thereby, provide additional support to that charity's work."
 
For the organizations-in-need, Charity Gift Market is generally their first and only means of online vending. A personal thank you letter from the charity—often including artisan and product information along with the backstory—accompanies purchases. In one year, over 15 percent of buyers have become repeat customers.
 
The site was launched in June 2011. Markelz—who is also founding director of UrbanPromise—met husband and co-founder, Andy Markelz, who teaches special education in South Philly, while working for the Peace Corps. The couple dreamed up Charity Gift Market during Christmas of 2010, when their hunt for perfect conscientious gifts proved cumbersome.
 
"We started toying with the idea of creating a marketplace for products created and sold by charities so that socially-oriented consumers could find them," explains Markelz.
 
Since then, fifty small-to-mid-sized organizations, including Ardmore-based Profugo, Prosperity Candle, Freedom Stones, and Women's Bean Project, have opened online shops. Many work internationally to support opportunities for women and families. 
 
Charity Gift Market is currently looking for a Chief Technology Office (CTO). As they grow, Markelz says they are proud to forge connections between customers and causes.
 
"Visitors love the story on each product page," says Markelz. "They know where their money goes and that their purchase directly helps others."

Source: Lindsey Markelz, Charity Gift Market
Writer: Dana Henry

It’s not every day a plainclothes professional opera singer performs to the hum of industrial knitting machines. Nonetheless, it was the perfect display of synergy for the opening ceremony of Drexel’s Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center at the University City Science Center. Held on Wednesday, November 28, the celebration showcased surprising STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) combinations and permutations.

"In academia, it’s hard to collaborate outside your department," says Dr. Youngmoo Kim, director of the ExCITe center and professor of computer engineering at Drexel. "The whole purpose [of ExCITe] is to create multidisciplinary projects at this nexus between technology and the arts. There’s so much synergy there."

The 11,000-square-foot facility features conference rooms, countless desktops, sound equipment and a knit lab, all available to Drexel faculty, staff and students, regional partner institutions and other universities. The space will host hackathons and other tech and arts related events.

Opening demos included an app for understanding live classical music and a digitally-enhanced grand piano. ExCITe also houses and provides seed funds to three startup projects: a Microsoft Kinect therapy game for people with cerebral palsy; a virtual reality opera project made in partnership with the Philadelphia Opera Company; and Sonic City, a Breadboard project incorporating city sounds into musical pieces.

The Shima Seiki Haute Technology Knit Lab houses four top grade fabric machines, a donation from Shima Seiki Manufacturing in Japan worth $1 millon. The facility is unheard of in academia and, according to Kim, rivals Nike’s Design Lab. Each apparatus prints items designed on CAD software; during the grand opening event, the machines produced knit kitchen gloves, custom seamless dresses and three-ply blankets.  

A knit-bot machine prints three-dimensional fabrics complete with electronic sensors. At the opening, a staff member hooked a spiraled piece of fabric into a control system and rolled it across the table remotely. Observers seemed impressed by the novelty, but Kim says knit-bot technology has implications for the future: One day you might be able to change the color and cut of your shirt with the press of a button, and sensors-enhanced fabrics could help individuals monitor health and weight. In addition, skins from these textiles could make plastic robots more resilient, while external sensors could help disaster-relief androids respond immediately to challenging environments.

Kim runs Drexel's Music Entertainment Technology Labratory, home to robots that dance and play music. He conceived of the center nearly two years ago while holding cross-departmental faculty meetings as a solution to academic silos. It wasn’t long before other key local institutions, including the Science Center, the Philadelphia Opera Company and the Franklin Institute, joined the planning.

"We can do great things here with Drexel folks, but there’s great people with ideas at Penn, UArts, Philadelphia University, Temple and Swarthmore," says  Kim. “They’re people that we know. A lot of people throughout the region, not just in academia, helped shape this."

Source: Youngmoo Kim, Drexel ExCITe
Writer: Dana Henry

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

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