International Talent : In The News

Renmatix, a company that creates biofuel from sugar, is setting up shop in King of Prussia, according to BusinessWeek.

Gov. Tom Corbett traveled to suburban Philadelphia on Tuesday to welcome a biomass energy company that plans to move its headquarters from Georgia and create 150 jobs over the next three years as it tries to develop ways to turn products such as wood and waste into fuel.

Venture capitalist John Doerr moderated a discussion of alternative energy inside the warehouse building that Renmatix -- which has another facility in Kennesaw, Ga. -- will be calling home.

The company is developing ways to access the fermentable sugars that are the foundation of biofuels. The effort, along with other alternative energy efforts, are all part of helping the country become less dependent on foreign oil, Doerr said.

Source: BusinessWeek
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Consumers initially seem to be taking to Philadelphia Media Network's $99 bundled tablet and digital subscription offer , according to News & Tech.

Just weeks after Philadelphia Media Network put its faith in an Android tablet device to help it flex its digital marketing muscle, the publisher said the initiative is gaining traction.

"It's performing well within our expectations," Yoni Greenbaum, PMN's vice president and general manager, digital, told News & Tech.

Source: News & Tech
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Philadelphia's approach to making government data public differs from other efforts around the country, and it's paying off, according to GovFresh.

Several months ago, with the unveiling of the OpenDataPhilly website, the City of Philadelphia joined the growing fraternity of cities across the country and around the world to release municipal data sets in open, developer friendly formats. But the City of Brotherly Love did things a bit differently than most of its contemporaries.

The city actively partnered with outside parties, private firms, not-for-profits and universities to help set the direction of the city’s open data efforts. The OpenDataPhilly website itself, although it’s brimming with data collected and maintained by the city, was developed by the geospatial and civic application firm Azavea, and is not hosted or operated by the city.  The website, and the larger open data effort in Philadelphia, operates under the stewardship of a group made up of both public sector and private sector partners.

Source: GovFresh
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A steel house built in the 1930s will be transported panel by panel from Connecticut to be restored by Milner + Carr, according to the Associated Press.

Shedding paint flakes the size of dinner plates, the rusty steel house huddled in a corner of Connecticut College's campus appeared for years to be more of an eyesore than a historic treasure.

As one of few 1930s steel houses of its type still standing nationwide, though, the prefabricated cottage holds a pedigree on par with many better-known architectural jewels — and now it's getting its chance to shine again.

A crew of restoration specialists spent much of the past week dismantling the boxy two-bedroom, 800-square-foot structure and meticulously marking each piece to be sent to a Philadelphia conservation firm.

Source: Associated Press
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A Huntingdon Valley online bookseller with a socially conscious focus, Education By Inclusion recently gave a $40,000 scholarship to a Camden, NJ resident, according to The Chestnut Hill Local.

Who would have thought that reselling books and electronics could be such a lucrative business and result in scholarship money for needy students?  Flourtown resident Chetan Bagga, a Columbia University graduate, ran the numbers and started Education by Inclusion (EBI) about a year ago.

The home page of their web site offers this comment to customers. "We are a socially conscious online bookstore with a simple promise -- everything you buy contributes to a deserving student’s education. This year, you’ve made over 100,000 purchases toward scholarships. We sincerely thank you! Let’s keep the momentum going."

Source: The Chestnut Hill Local
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New findings at The University of Pennsylvania may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer, according to The New York Times.

A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, N.J., felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing to lose.

Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells -- a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors -- and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins.

Source: The New York Times
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Despite challenges in court and changes in management, enterprise software giant SAP remains at the top of its game, according to The Globe and Mail.

It’s been a tumultuous two years for German technology giant SAP AG. Its CEO was dismissed in the face of poor numbers, and two new co-CEOS were appointed. It was ordered to pay $1.3-billion (U.S.) in penalties after an SAP unit stole trade secrets from rival Oracle Inc. But now things are breaking SAP’s way. A U.S. judge last week rejected the damages as ‘grossly excessive’ and recommended Oracle get $272-million – or seek a fresh trial. And 39-year old SAP – with annual revenue more than €12-billion ($16.8-billion) – is still on top of the enterprise-software world. At the centre of the whirlwind is co-CEO Bill McDermott, a rangy hoops-shooting U.S. marketer who operates out of suburban Philadelphia. He was interviewed the day before the judge’s decision.

Source: The Globe and Mail (Canada)
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TechCrunch takes a closer look at startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures' current crop of companies.

The current class includes students and alumni from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and MIT. Startup founders have past work experience at Google, Yahoo, Intel, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

Five of the companies were selected together by DreamIt and Comcast Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation, as part of its Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program (MEAP). This program provides an extra $350,000 on top of the funding DreamIt offers for minority-led startups. The current group includes owners who are African-American, Asian, Hispanic and Indian.

Original source: TechCrunch
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King of Prussia based NextDocs raises $10.3 million to provide Microsoft SharePoint to life sciences, according to TechCrunch.

NextDocs, a company that sells Microsoft SharePoint based software for the life sciences industry, has raised $10.3 million in a Series A financing from OpenView Venture Partners.

NextDocs helps life sciences companies of leverage SharePoint-based document and management software.The company actually customizes SharePoint for companies in the pharmaceuticals, medical device and biotech industries. NextDocs actually has over 100 customers across the life sciences industry (including five of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.).

Source: TechCrunch
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Rutgers School of Law-Camden librarian and Philadelphia resident John Jorgensen has been honored for moving legal research into the digital age, according to Fastcase.

John Joergensen is a proponent of the free digital law movement. John, a Reference Librarian at Rutgers School of Law, is working to digitize and make law available online. As the publisher of the New Jersey Courtweb Project, John is publishing online the decisions of the New Jersey state appellate courts, tax court, administrative law decisions, U.S. District Court of the District of N.J. decisions, and the N.J. Supreme Court's Ethics opinions.

Source: Fastcase
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The increasingly famous punk rockers from Lansdale, The Wonder Years, filmed their new music video in Philadelphia, which provided much inspiration for their newest full-length release Suburbia, according to Glasswerk National.

The Wonder Years have unveiled their new video for track "Local Man Ruins Everything". Filmed in the band's hometown of Philadelphia, PA, it includes locations that were inspired by and mentioned in their newest full-length Suburbia, I've Given You All And Now I'm Nothing. The band are heading to the UK this September for a headline tour, following their stint earlier this year on the Kerrang! Tour. Dan "Soupy" Campbell of the band comments: "We're stoked to announce that, in support of our new record Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing, we'll be coming back to the UK! Even more exciting than that, we'll be bringing Such Gold and Valencia with us! It's going to be awesome and we hope to see you all there!"

Source: Glasswerk National (UK)
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The grassroots soul music movement of Philadelphia that created The Roots and Musiq Soulchild hasn't disappeared, and its latest practitioners are worth seeking out, according to Urban Cusp.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Philadelphia had one of the most diverse and respected cultural scenes on the East Coast. One could walk down South Street and hear poets on the corner, see Rasta street vendors selling patchouli and flags, and not make it too far down the block without receiving at least two hand-bills advertising upcoming events. You could walk on UPenn and Temple's campuses and see a range from tattooed Rockers with spiked hair to B-Boy wannabes in full Adidas gear. The culture was so bountiful that it made you stop and ask, "Are we still in Philly or is this Brooklyn?" But, now it almost seems like the diversity has disappeared or at least gone into hiding. Where did all of the culture go? Have all of the true artists been pushed out? Have they sold out or have they all given up and relocated to New York and DC?

Source: Urban Cusp
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The Associated Press checks in on Philly-based online kids' bookstore Monkeyreader donates 5 percent of profits to childhood literacy.

Once upon a time, there was a bookstore. One day, the bookstore went away and reopened online with a new name and a mission to combat childhood illiteracy.

The rest of the story of year-old e-tailer MonkeyReader.com is still being written but its founders hope the ending will be happy�and successful.

"We're beginning, we're growing, we have a lot of great ideas," co-founder David Lenett of the venture, a successor of the Discovery Bookshop, a popular Philadelphia children's bookstore that closed in the 1990s and became an online storefront that evolved into the more interactive MonkeyReader site. 

Source: The Associated Press
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The brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel joins Penn faculty, according to The Associated Press.


The Ivy League institution in Philadelphia announced Friday that Ezekiel Emanuel will hold dual posts in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School for business.

Source: The Associated Press
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Aker Philadelphia Shipyard will build two massive oil tankers for an ExxonMobil affiliate, according to World Maritime News.

Aker Philadelphia Shipyard ASA announced today that its sole operating subsidiary, Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, Inc. (APSI), has signed a Letter of Intent with SeaRiver Maritime, Inc. (SeaRiver), Exxon Mobil Corporation's U.S. marine affiliate, for the construction of two aframax tankers. The 820 foot long, 115,000 deadweight ton tankers are intended to be used to transport Alaskan North Slope crude oil from Prince William Sound to the U.S. West Coast.

Project planning work is currently underway in conjunction with APSI's technical partner, Samsung Heavy Industries. Construction of the first vessel is expected to begin by mid-2012 and both vessels are scheduled for delivery in 2014. The vessels will be equipped with double hull protection, the latest navigation and communications equipment, and energy efficient engines.

Source: World Maritime News
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